Job is not over

by Gordon Walker

Families in America

Isn't it grand to be a grandparent? All you have to do is take the kids out, buy them something special, and take them home to mom and dad. While it is almost this way for me, a large number of grandparents are asked to do much more than just spoil their grandchildren.

When needed, grandparents have for generations jumped in to help raise their children's kids. After my mother died, my grandmother sold her house and moved 500 miles to care for me, age 10, and my three younger brothers. Many well known Americans have shared my experience, living most of their childhood raised by grandparents – President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Tipper Gore, and United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to name a few.

Today, however, more and more grandparents are being called upon to raise their grandchildren. The number of families headed by two grandparents caring for children under age18 with no parents grew by almost 50 percent in the 1990s. Families where single grandmothers care for grandchildren are growing almost as much.

In all, six percent of America's infants, youngsters, and teens live in households headed by grandparents – that is almost four million kids. Additionally, a grandparent cares for one out of every five preschool children having a working mother.

Being the primary caregiver for grandchildren is not the way most grandparents plan to spend their golden years. Yet, as many people are finding out, once you are a parent, you are a parent for life. Becoming a grandparent doesn't change that; the two roles are often rolled together.

Many things have brought grandparents back into family life where they are needed to be a source of love, strength, stability, and enrichment in the lives of grandchildren. In many instances, grandparents are a family's most powerful natural resource.

Drug or alcohol abuse among natural parents is often (44 percent of the time) the reason grandparents have to step in. Of grandchildren living with grandparents, another 28 percent do so because of child abuse, neglect, or abandonment; 11 percent due to the death of a parent or parents; and four percent because of divorce. Other reasons include the real parent being in jail or institutionalized.

Issues and Challenges

The overwhelming majority of grandparents raising grandchildren must do so on limited incomes. In fact, the median income for these grandparents is less than $20,000. (In comparison, the median income in Charlottesville and Albemarle County for a family of two is $48,600.)

Almost half of these grandparents live on fixed incomes and nearly two-thirds of caregiving grandparents do so without public assistance. Perhaps most telling is that 57 percent of grandmothers raising their grandchildren alone have incomes below the poverty level of $716 per month. When coupled with the high cost of medical care and prescription drugs, that is a most daunting task!

Child day care is also a major problem. More than half of caregiving grandparents work, making day care a necessity that can be very costly. In most situations, financial assistance is only available for working parents, not working grandparents.

More than one-third of parenting grandparents did not graduate from high school. Consequently, helping a grandchild with homework or special school projects is a source of frustration.

Legal hurdles can also create problems. Registering a grandchild for school, providing health care, and protecting a grandchild from an abusive parent can require obtaining legal custody. Most states, including Virginia, have parental preference laws, so it can be extremely difficult to convince a judge that the child belongs with someone else – even if that someone else is a loving grandparent.

Getting Help

For help to occur, greater awareness and societal response is necessary by the general public, policymakers, educators, and service providers. I do not believe that people are opposed to helping. It is just that policies, regulations, and programs are not in tune with the challenges many caregiving grandparents face. For instance, existing government funding streams need to be more flexible to make it easier to get needed assistance.

Schools, churches, and social service organizations can provide outreach services, intergenerational programs, support groups, legal assistance, and improved access to health care. Legal barriers to custody and surrogate decision making need to be removed so loving grandparents can get the help they need.

If more resources are necessary, taxpayers should advocate for increased funding – if for no other reason than grandparents caring for kids is far less costly than foster care. Aging is a lifetime family affair – so is parenting.

Back to Top

Author: Gordon Walker, Executive Director, Jefferson Area Board on Aging
Source: Jefferson Area Board on Aging, Used with permission.
Last Updated October 18, 2001.