How The Childhoods Of Harris And Vance Explain This Campaign's Big Divide

One major-party candidate wrote a memoir that focuses on how growing up the child of a single mother shaped the person they’ve become and how they see the world.

I’m not talking about JD Vance.

Yes, his bestselling “ Hillbilly Elegy ” did all of that, and went on to become a political and cultural phenomenon. The book’s fame, including a movie adaptation, boosted Vance in his successful U.S. Senate bid from Ohio, which in turn put him in position to become Republican Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate in the 2024 campaign.

But Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris also wrote a memoir, 2019′s “ The Truths We Hold .” It didn’t become a movie, but it did sell pretty well. And, like “Hillbilly Elegy,” the book describes parents divorcing when the author was very young and what it’s like to grow up primarily with a single mother.

That’s where the similarities between the two stories end — and the insights into one of this presidential campaign’s most important divides begin.

The divide plays out every day on the campaign trail, in the form of policy arguments about everything from abortion rights to child care. But behind those fights is a more fundamental clash over changes in gender roles and family structure in the past 50 years, and to what degree society should embrace them.

Harris welcomes these shifts; Vance argues for going back to the way things were before. And if their memoirs are indicative, both views have something to do with the circumstances of the candidates’ respective upbringings — or, at least, how they remember them.

For Harris, Hope From A Happy Childhood

Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan , was a cancer researcher who came from India to study at the University of California,