Retirement News : Seniors : Not exactly retirement for some grandparents

Not exactly retirement for some grandparents

Date Added: 14-03-2005

With her three children raised and living on their own, the Indianapolis native had moved to Texas to enjoy her senior years doing nails in a salon and relaxing in the sun.

But just months after the move, she got a call. Her oldest daughter was in trouble with drugs. So Wright came back to care for her 3-year-old granddaughter.

Over the next eight years, her daughter's problems with crack cocaine escalated. And four other babies followed the grandchild Wright was caring for -- replacing her dream of a leisurely senior lifestyle with a return to changing diapers, rushing kids to and from school, helping with homework and defusing sibling rivalries.

"This isn't something I was ready for, and it isn't an easy job," Wright said.

"I have a lot of people say, 'I don't know how you do it.' Well, I don't know, either. I just know that I have to do it."

Wright, 54, is among the growing number of grandparents -- in Indiana and nationally -- raising a second brood of children at a time when contemporaries are starting to think about retirement.

Grandparents thrust into the role of raising young children face a myriad of legal, educational, physical, emotional and financial challenges. Often, however, little help is available.

Since 1970, the number of grandparents raising grandchildren in America has more than doubled, according to census data.

Nearly 50,000 Indiana grandparents were responsible for the basic needs -- food, shelter, clothing and medical care -- of about 80,000 grandchildren in 2000, the census reported. That group includes about 8,000 grandparents in Marion County.

Nationally, about 2.5 million grandparents are responsible for more than 5 million grandchildren -- their lives and family dynamics often transformed overnight.

"At my age, I figured I'd be done with all that, but that changed one afternoon two years ago," said Lois Evans, 54, a single Westside woman raising her 8-year-old grandson, Cody.

"His mother just brought him by my house one day, with no clothes and no school supplies, and said she couldn't take care of him any more," Evans said.

So now, instead of saving for retirement and coming and going as she pleases, Evans -- who already had raised her two children -- has a rigid routine.

Mornings start early for Evans, who must get Cody ready for school, then put in a full day as a receptionist before picking him up from an after-school care program.

"It's like being a new, young parent all over again," said Evans, whose son is Cody's father. "But that's OK. All I think about is his welfare. I'll make it one way or another. He needs the stability."

All groups affected

The trend transcends racial, socioeconomic and geographic boundaries. Nationally, of every 10 children being raised by grandparents, four are white, four are black and two are Hispanic. Eighty percent reside in central cities and the suburbs, and 25 percent live in poverty.

"This is a growing phenomenon," said Dena B. Targ, professor emerita in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University.

"The driving factors for the increasing number of grandparents raising grandchildren are parental substance abuse, incarceration, child abuse or neglect, HIV/AIDS and the death of a parent."

Targ said grandparents can be forced out of senior housing that does not allow children. If they are caring for children through an informal family arrangement -- the way most situations are handled -- there can be problems with school enrollment and obtaining medical care.

And the new task can take a toll on health and finances.

"There is just so much for them to address, and it creates a lot of stress," Targ said.

Until recently, most of these grandparents were left to fend for themselves, Targ said. But now, support and advocacy groups are springing up around the country.

The Second Time Around program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-Service Center was the first grandparents-as-parents support group in Central Indiana.

"We don't claim to have all the answers, but we do try to put our families in contact with the people who do," said Alice Oliver, senior services coordinator. "We bring in experts to talk about legal affairs, health care, education, housing and how to cope with their new situations."

In the five years since it was launched, Oliver said, about 50 families -- including Wright's -- have participated in activities such as educational seminars and family field trips.

Similar programs are being offered at the Christamore House and Hawthorne Community Center in Indianapolis.

For More Information: http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/228964-6615-092.html