Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Challenges and Responses

Discussions within gerontology of family solidarity between generations have tended to focus on critical role of adult children, and particularly daughters and daughters-in-law, as informal caregivers to disabled elderly. Largely overlooked in such discussions, until recently, has been another group of cross-generational caregiversthe growing number of mid-life and older grandparents who are raising some of nation's most vulnerable children. Yet in many wa)s, such caregiving provides quintessential example of family transfers and family solidarity. Although grandparents often step in as surrogate parents as a consequence of breakdowns in a family's social compact (e.g., when their teenage or adult children prove unable or unwilling to provide to their own children), very fact that they do step in to keep family together is a classic example of family resilience in face of often substantial obstacles. Grandparents raising grandchildren is not new: Grandparents have always served as the family watchdogs (Troll, I985) and the second line of defense for children (Kornhaber, I985) in times of crisis. But what is new is rapid growth in this phenomenon, with close to a 4 percent increase in number of children living with grandparents and other relatives between I98o and I99o, and continued, albeit somewhat slower growth through I99os (Saluter, I992; Casper and Bryson, I998). By I997, close to 4 million children, or 5.5 percent of all children in United States, lived in a household headed by a grandparent (Lugaila, in press). In approximately one-third of homes, neither of child's biological parents is present, and number of these skipped generation families continues to grow at a rapid rate (Casper and Bryson, I998). More than one in ten grandparents (Io.9 percent) at some point raise a grandchild for at least six months, and typically for far longer periods of time (Fuller-Thomson, Minkler, and Driver, I997). This paper includes a brief profile of America's grandparent caregivers and a review of causes of increase in intergenerational households headed by grandparents as well as some of challenges it entails for grandparents and their families. The paper also describes development of supportive services for grandparent caregivers and their families, highlighting several model program efforts across country, and looks at need for supportive policies that assist-rather than penalize-the growing number of intergenerational families headed by grandparents. PROFILE OF GRANDPARENT CAREGIVERS Who are America's caregiving grandparents and what do we know about children in their care? Although media accounts have tended to focus on single, low-income African-American women raising their grandchildren, recent national studies suggest that typical grandparent raising a grandchild is a white married woman living above poverty line. Nationally, slightly more than half of grandparent caregivers are married (54 percent) and more than three quarters (77 percent) are women (FullerThomson, Minkler, and Driver, I997). However, being single, living in poverty, and being an African American do substantially increase odds of becoming a caregiver for one's grandchildren. For example, African-American children are four to five times more likely than non-Hispanic white children to be living in kinship care households-those in which children have been formally placed with their grandparents or other relatives (Harden, Clark, and Maguire, I997) -a fact reflecting both current socioeconomic realities and a long history of caregiving across generations in black families (Burton and Dilworth-Anderson, I99I). Although not as prevalent as in African American families, among Latinos, grandparent caregiving also appears more common, with 6.5 percent of Hispanic children (compared to 4.I percent of whites and I3.5 percent of African Americans) living with grandparents or other relatives (Lugaila, in press). …