GRANDPARENT
PARENTING

Topics: Children; Family; Grandparents; Orphans; Social Trends; Society

References: Psalm 68:5; 82:3; James 1:27

Abandonment, incarceration, drugs, death, and mental illness are some of the reasons 4 million kids in the United States no longer live with their parent(s). In more than 2.5 million families, grandparents are now parenting the children.

These “skipped generation households” have increased by more than 50 percent in the last ten years. In almost one-third of these families, parents are completely absent. In other cases, parents are occasionally present but are emotionally or financially incapable of taking care of their kids.

“Contrary to the stereotype of the inner-city welfare mom who is raising her teenage daughter’s baby, the majority of grandparent caregivers are white, between the ages of 50 and 64, and live in non-metropolitan areas,” reports Newsweek. There are more than seven hundred support groups nationwide that lobby government for legal rights and financial support for grandparent caregivers. Because their guardianship is often informal, grandparents also have problems getting medical care for the kids and enrolling them in school.

The first housing facility designed for grandparent-headed households opened in Boston in 1998. Carl Bowman, who shares an apartment with his wife and grandson, says, “I don’t know where we’d be without this place. We’re all in the same boat here. We all help one another.”

—Lynette Clemetson, “Grandma Knows Best,” Newsweek (June 12, 2000)