P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale
Rachel A. Gordon
Rebekah Levine Coley
Lauren S. Wakschlag
University of Chicago

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Columbia University

YOUNG, African American multigenerational families are composed of young
mothers, grandmothers, and children. These multigenerational families exist both
within and outside of shared living arrangements. Grandmothers, or grandmother
figures, living in close proximity to young mothers can provide advice, emotional
support, and practical assistance, as can grandmothers who share homes with
young mothers and children. Indeed, some grandmothers and young mothers live
in quite immediate residences--on different floors of the same apartment build-
ing or at different addresses on the same block--providing privacy from but still
ready access to each other.

The grandmother in these families has long been a hidden member, often ig-
nored by researchers, journalists, and policymakers who view families with a
"single-parent versus two-parent" lens. However, grandmothers have recently re-
ceived increased interest, in part because of the important role they play as poten-
tial coparents to teenage mothers and as primary parents when their grandchildren
face parental incapacitation due to drug abuse, mental illness, or incarceration (see

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