Jamaica Kincaid was born '''Elaine Potter Richardson''' in [[St. John's, Antigua|St John's]], Antigua, on May 25, 1949.<ref name="emory">{{cite web|url=https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/10/kincaid-jamaica/|title=Kincaid, Jamaica|last=Slavin|first=Molly Marie|website=Postcolonial Studies|publisher=[[Emory University]]|access-date=November 18, 2017}}</ref> She grew up in relative poverty with her mother, a literate, cultured woman and homemaker, and her stepfather, a carpenter.<ref name="emoryEmory" /><ref name="salon" /><ref name="bbcws">{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/kincaid_life.shtml|title=Her Story|website=[[BBC World Service]]|access-date=November 18, 2017}}</ref><ref name="ebsco">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ebscohost.com/ |title=EBSCOhost Online Research Databases | EBSCO |access-date=November 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140303062748/http://www.ebscohost.com/ |archive-date=March 3, 2014 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> She was very close to her mother until her three brothers were born in quick succession, starting when Kincaid was nine years old. After her brothers' births, she resented her mother, who thereafter focused primarily on the brothers' needs. Kincaid later recalled,
<blockquote>Our family money remained the same, but there were more people to feed and to clothe, and so everything got sort of shortened, not only material things but emotional things. The good emotional things, I got a short end of that. But then I got more of things I didn't have, like a certain kind of cruelty and neglect.<ref name="bbcws" /></blockquote>
