A Grand Love:
When parents fail to raise kids, some grandparents take over

By Sonja Meyer, Parents' Source, July 20, 2004.

When Doris Bachman learned her teen-age stepson's girlfriend was pregnant, she knew her own world was going to change. "I knew that baby would be mine," she says. The girlfriend was just 16. Bachman's stepson denied paternity and took off for the Army.

Bachman's baby-raising years were supposed to be over. She hadn't changed diapers in almost 10 years. Her eight children were almost grown; the youngest was 13. In just a few years, she would enter another phase of life, perhaps socializing with friends and enjoying grandchildren, giving them back to their parents when her visits were over.

Then Jacob was born. His mother, a child herself, wasn't ready. When the baby was 2 weeks old, his mother asked Bachman to baby-sit. "She was never home," remembers Bachman, now 59. "She was out running around with her friends. He spent week after week with me."

So Grandma, on a fixed income, stretched her pennies, making homemade baby food, using her daughter's hand-me-down baby clothes, always making sure her grandson had what he needed. It's been a difficult role, but one she's embraced wholeheartedly.

Bachman is not alone. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau found more than 4.5 million children younger than 18 living in grandparent-headed households across the country. Studies show the numbers are growing, with about a 30 percent national increase from 1990 to 2000, according to Amy Goyer, coordinator of the Grandparent Information Center at the American Association of Retired Persons in Washington, D.C.

Sources say reasons behind the trend are multiple: substance abuse, teen pregnancies, parental jail terms, divorce, abuse and neglect, poverty and more. "Parents are using substances and abusing them and seeing that grandparents are an option," says Alan Taylor, assistant professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at Syracuse University. "Drugs and alcohol have been used for years, but grandparents are now saying: 'If you are going to do that, we are going to take your kids.' "

Raising a grandchild brings many challenges. The grandparent may grieve the loss of the traditional grandparent role, Goyer says. The grandparent also faces the loss, or at least postponement, of the golden years she may have envisioned. Instead of traveling or pursuing hobbies or second careers, grandparents are stuck at home for midnight feedings, preschool snack duty and adolescent struggles.

Bachman says the hardest thing was dealing with her grandson's father. "It was like living in hell," Bachman says. "As Jacob was getting older, I told his father he should spend time with him and show him he cared. He never showed he cared," she says.

Children who are raised by grandparents must cope with the abandonment or neglect and inadequacies of their parents. "It would be similar to the divorce of a parent," says Syracuse University's Taylor. Some children blame themselves or others. But, like in divorce, children can have different reactions. Some are relieved to be out of the stressful day-to-day lives they had with their parents, he says.

Bachman says her grandson is very close to her. "Sometimes he slips and he calls me Mom," she says. "He tells me 'You are my mom, my dad and everyone combined into one.' "

About three years ago, the father moved closer and life became harder. Last fall, Jacob's mother, who maintains contact but no support, took his father to court for verbally harassing the boy, Bachman says. In court, Jacob was appointed a lawyer. Next thing she knew, Bachman had full custody of Jacob, she says. She began to get public assistance and state health coverage for him, she says, after almost 16 years of doing it on her own.

It hasn't been easy, but Bachman says she would do it all again. She demonstrates a fierce commitment to her grandson. "I had no problem dealing with any of this," she says. "I don't let anything get me down. I'm always on the go."

She hopes she's steered Jacob into a successful adulthood. "All I ever want to see is for you to become a young man and graduate high school and not be like your parents," she tells him. "Make something of yourself. I want you to get what you want out of life before you think of having kids." Then, like other grandparent caregivers, she'll finally be able to get on with her golden years.

Note: The names of the families in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.

Sonja Meyer is a freelance writer/editor and mother of three children. Her work has been published in parenting publications across the country.

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