She’s making sure it does. The retired medical clerk founded her own group, Raising Our Children’s Children (ROCC). In its second year of incorporation, the neighborhood-based organization has more than 100 members and is lobbying for expanded rights and financial support for grandparent caregivers. It is just one of hundreds of support groups that are springing up nationwide. “These families are finally realizing they are not alone. They are waking up to the fact that there is power in their numbers,” says Margaret Hollidge, head of the AARP’s Grandparent Information Center. Hollidge has close to 700 groups like ROCC in her database. Hundreds more, she says, are operating without official links.
It’s a movement born out of desperation. There are more than 2.5 million grandparent-headed families in America, as a result of death, drugs, mental illness, incarceration or abandonment. In nearly a third of these families the parents are completely absent. In others, parents are in the picture but are either financially or emotionally unable to raise their children on their own. These “skipped-generation households,” as experts call them, have increased by more than 50 percent in the past decade. Contrary to the stereotype of the inner-city welfare mom who’s raising her teenage daughter’s baby, the majority of grandparent caregivers are white, are between the ages of 50 and 64 and live in nonmetropolitan areas.
For many, support groups provide a much-needed shoulder to cry on. In the upper-middle-class Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks, 10 grandmothers and one grandfather are gathered around the beige sectional sofa of author and activist Sylvie de Toledo for their twice-weekly venting session. Erica Tannen, 51, is heartbroken. Her 6-year-old grandson came home from school with a writing assignment that started off, “I love my Mom best because…” “The kid was sitting there and didn’t know what to write,” says Tannen, with a soft Eastern European accent. “The teachers know he lives with me, but he didn’t want to make a big deal. He wanted to be like everyone else.” Heads nod in silent affirmation.
But mutual understanding is just part of what brings groups like de Toledo’s together. They also have battles to fight. Soothing wounded souls is a breeze compared with hurdling the bureaucratic obstacles grandparent caregivers face. Often, guardianship is informal. Getting legal custody requires suing your own child, a step too heartbreaking for many families to take. Without custody, grandparents have few rights. Simple tasks like enrolling children in school andgetting medical care become nightmares. Housing is another problem. Many senior residences don’t allow or have space for children. And financial assistance, like that given to foster families, is hard to come by. “We can’t get help to pay for day care,” says Pat Owens, 57. Owens, a customer-service clerk in Frederick, Md., and her electrician husband, Ken, care for their 3i-year-old grandson, Michael. “We’re not trying to take advantage of the system. We’re trying to save our family.”
Government aid comes at a cost. Eighteen states, including Arizona, California and Wisconsin, have what are called Subsidized Guardianship Programs, which provide financial and legal support. But most require children to become wards of the state before assistance kicks in. “There’s no way I’m handing my grandchild over to the Department of Social Services,” says Owens. “What kind of a solution is that?” Owens has identified more than 1,000 informal grandparent-headed households in Frederick County. This month her coalition will hold its first political-action meeting to call for a state task force on grandparent-led families.
The noisy seniors are scoring some victories. Kentucky and Indiana have enacted de facto custodian laws, giving long-term grandparent caregivers the same status as parents. (Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton helps raise his grandkids.) And Boston Aging Concerns has founded GrandFamilies House, the first senior-housing facility in the country designed exclusively for grandparent-headed households. (Safety rails in the bathroom for Grandma. Safety bars on the windows for Junior.) Opened in 1998, it is now home to 26 families. “I don’t know where we’d be without this place,” says fireman Carl Bowman, 51, who shares a two-bedroom apartment with wife, Nettie, and their 9-year-old grandson, Brandon. “We’re all in the same boat here. We all help one another.” Several cities, including Atlanta, Los Angeles and Cleveland, are considering similar complexes, and advocates are lobbying Washington lawmakers to fund more.
The movement keeps Jackson-Lyons motivated. She’s cleared out the front room of her apartment and turned it into an office. ROCC wants Massachusetts to pass liberal guardianship laws like those in Kentucky. For Jackson-Lyons there are petitions to file, speeches to give, politicians to write. And then there’s the tough stuff. Grandma has to get Charlene into summer camp.
