By Dr. Lillian Carson
From Kid Tips Magazine

Talk about mixed feelings, this takes the cake. There are 3.2 million grandparents in the United States raising their kid's kids. These grandparents are assuming the parental responsibilities for their grandchildren as a result of their adult child's inability to care for their own children. Stepping in to rescue their grandchild, they have taken on the parental role once again. Only this second time around they are older and less energetic, albeit wiser.

Assuming the constant demands of child-rearing requires them to set aside their own pursuits and plans and is really a heroic act which often feels to them like a giant step backwards. A malfunction in the family precipitates the need for a grandparent to take over as parent. Most often it is a teenage pregnancy or a child involved in substance abuse, although there are other factors such as illness, economic hardship, incarceration and death. Instead of the joyful anticipation of expectant parenthood, grandparents begin their task in the climate of an undesirable and stressful event. Often it is precipitated by a desperate need to rescue the grandchild from inadequate parenting and foster care.

Grandparents who have undertaken the parenting of a grandchild are often disappointed and angry about being deprived of their grandparent status, yet relieved that they are finally in charge. The concerns of daily care preempt the usual freedom that grandparents enjoy.

Parenting grandparents experience a gamut of emotions from frustration and anger to disappointment and sadness due to the problems surrounding this need and to the complex emotions around their own situation as they reckon with what they must give up in their own lives in favor of the demands of childbearing. It disrupts the relationship between grandparents and can set them at odds with each other. All of this changes their life expectations. Of course the complications are combined with the satisfaction that they are doing the best for their grandchildren and the joy that children can bring.

When grandparents must take over they often experience a sense of failure believing that their own imperfect parenting makes them responsible for the problems. Financial hardships bear down on these grandparents forcing them to reduce their time at work and requiring them to stretch their often-limited retirement incomes. Unfortunately, grandparents who have taken over the care of grandchildren are not eligible for financial grants or aid as foster parents, although they are serving in that capacity. Many grandparents who have found themselves in this boat are fighting for legislation that would recognize their situation by providing the relief of financial aid.

Life experience has left these grandchildren with emotional scars which make them challenging to raise. They are often fearful, angry or depressed and have behavior problems. Fathers are generally not in the picture, and if they are it's usually only for occasional visits. There's little support for the grandparent-parent. Conflicts arise between mothers and daughters over how to raise their child. The mother-adult daughter relationship, a complicated relationship in the best of times, is fraught with an undercurrent of emotions. The mothers' disappointment with her adult child is compounded by her guilt that she is to blame for the problems. The adult child's unresolved resentments and tendency to blame parents for their own predicament is coupled with their sense of inadequacy and failure.

Because children take time and energy and resources before they give back any gratification to their caretakers, most grandparents who are parenting their grandchildren find satisfaction in the knowledge that they are providing the best possible life for these children. Support groups for grandparents raising grandchildren provide a forum for their many issues.

Article reproduced with permission from Kid Tips Magazine.

From "The Essential Grandparent: A Guide To Making A Difference"
by Dr Lillian Carson
(Health Communications, Inc. 1999)

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