Parenting
the second time around
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Millions of grandparents are acting
as primary caregiver to their grandchildren,
often because their own sons and daughters
are in jail or on drugs.
A
Census Bureau report released Thursday found
that more than one-third of the 2.4 million
grandparents who are primary caregivers
to a grandchild lived in a home without
the grandchild's parents.
The
report, which looked at data from the 2000
census in greater detail, did not include
reasons for that dynamic.
Some
grandparents do it because the parents have
died, while other parents may be ill, said
Sandra Horton, 59, of Lockhart, Texas, who
runs a grandparent support group and cares
for her 12-year-old granddaughter.
But
more often than not, it is because a parent
is involved with drugs or alcohol, advocacy
groups say. Horton called it the ''primary,
underlying, number one reason.''
These
caregiving grandparents typically have not
reached retirement age -- 64 percent are
between age 40 and 59 -- so they often find
themselves juggling parenting and work.
Data
released last year by the bureau showed
that the 2.4 million grandparents were responsible
for ''most of the basic needs'' of a grandchild
in the home. That is 42 percent of the 5.8
million grandparents living with a grandchild.
In
other homes, grandparents may not be the
designated main caregiver, but may be helping
a single, teenage mother, or may simply
be baby-sitting the kids after school, said
Amy Goyer of the Grandparents Information
Center at AARP, the nation's largest advocacy
group for older Americans.
Horton
said she took in granddaughter, Marissa,
because the girl's parents have had drug
problems and run-ins with the law. Horton
works several part-time jobs to make ends
meet.
Horton
wants Congress to change guidelines for
many existing public assistance programs
that make aid available to poor ''traditional''
families or foster parents, but not custodial
grandparents. ''Grandparents need respect
and recognition for the jobs they do,''
she said.
According
to Goyer, some public aid is available for
caregiving grandparents, such as a program
through the Health and Human Services Department's
Administration on Aging. But it is limited
to people 60 and older.
The
new census report found that grandparents
serving as primary caregivers for their
grandchildren are more apt to need help
-- 19 percent live in poverty, compared
with 14 percent of all families with children.
Congress
first took interest in the plight of grandparents
as caregivers while reforming the nation's
welfare system in 1996. But because little
government data existed on the issue, lawmakers
ordered the Census Bureau to ask about it
for the first time in 2000.
Since
then, legislation that would aid grandparents
has been introduced in Congress. A bill
approved this week by a Senate committee
helps caregiving grandparents pay for housing,
while a second bill would allow states to
use federal funds to support subsidized
guardianship payments to grandparents and
other relatives.
''Those
that need financial support deserve financial
support to keep their families together
and that's something that policy-makers
have not dealt with yet,'' said Donna Butts,
executive director of Generations United,
which advocates for families in which elderly
and young people live together.
The
report also found that grandparents living
with their grandchildren were more likely
to serve as caregivers in black and American
Indian families than other race or ethnicity
groups.
There
may be stronger cultural ties to grandparenting
roles in those populations and those groups
tend to make less money and are more apt
to have several generations living in the
same home, said Roderick Harrison, a demographer
with the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies, which looks at issues
concerning minorities.
The
grandparenting data in 2000 comes from three
questions asked on the ''long-form'' questionnaire
distributed to one in six households.
''Those
that need financial support deserve financial
support to keep their families together
and that's something that policy-makers
have not dealt with yet.''
-- Donna Butts, executive director of Generations
United
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