NDSU Department of Child Development and Family Science
North Dakota Department of Human Services
June 1999 -- Volume 2, Number 3
Tracy Mitchell • Graduate Student • Child Development and Family Science • North Dakota State University • Fargo, ND 58105 • Phone: (701) 231-8268 • Fax: (701) 231-9645 • e-mail:tmitchel@plains.nodak.edu
A phenomenon that has been increasing greatly in numbers in the last decade is the family type many call custodial grandparenting or intergenerational families. An estimated 3.7 million children in America today are living with a relative, and at least 2.4 million are under the care of a grandparent. The reasons for the increase in this family type stem from substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, teenage pregnancy, death of parent, parental unemployment, parental divorce, and other such things as AIDS/HIV, and incarceration. Because these families often face low income levels of, minimal formal education, and inadequate health, financial and social supports, and the caregiver is usually of an advanced age, they are in great need of both help and attention.
The family is one of the oldest recognized institutions. Throughout time, several types of families have always been evident, although the reasons behind the emergence of each have varied. Today in the 1990s, custodial grandparenting is on the rise.
The type of family arrangement that this paper will focus on is that of a grandparent raising grandchildren in the absence of the adult child. These families are also known as "skip-generation families" or intergenerational families (Karp, 1996). In the past, when grandparents took over the role of parenting their grandchildren it was for such reasons as death of the adult child or for temporary care of the grandchildren while the adult child got established in a career (Burnette, 1997). The reasons why this type of family arrangement occurs today have both changed and expanded. Those reasons include: substance abuse, 44%; child abuse or neglect, 28%; teenage pregnancy or the parent unable to handle a child, 11%; death of the parent, 5%; parental unemployment, 4%; parental divorce, 4%; and other reasons such as parental incarceration and HIV/AIDS, 4% (Woodworth, 1996). It is estimated that by the year 2000, 100,000 children alone will be orphaned due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, although the Center for Disease Control would estimate the number to be closer to 125,000 to 150,000 children (Woodworth, 1996 & Burnette, 1997).
As the reasons for this family type have increased, there has also been an increase in the rate of its occurrence. There are a total of 3.7 million children in the U.S. being cared for by a relative other than a parent (Burnette, 1997). Out of the 3.7 million, it is estimated that at least 2.4 million children are being cared for by a grandparent (Woodworth, 1996). This number alone was a 27% increase from the 1.5 million in 1993. Of the 58 million grandparents, 10.9% have reported that at some time in their lifetime they have had primary responsibility for raising a grandchild for at least six months (Pearson, Hunter, Cook, Lalongo, & Kellam, 1997).
The prevalence of these types of family arrangements varies according to ethnicity. Of the grandparents in these families, 68% are Caucasian and 29% are African-American (Woodworth, 1996). Further broken down, out of the 69.3 million children in America, 5% are being cared for by their grandparents (Pearson et al., 1997 & Pinson-Millburn, Fabian, Schlossberg, & Pyle, 1996). Twelve percent of all African-American children, 5.8% of all Hispanic children, and 3.6% of all Caucasian children are living in these families (Pearson et al., 1997).
Sixty percent of the grandparents caring for their grandchildren fall between the ages of 45 to 64 (Giarrusso, Silverstein, & Bengtson, 1996). Some custodial grandparents are even found to be in their eighties. Just as the ages of the grandparents vary so do the ages of the grandchildren. Eleven percent are under the age of two years, 18% are between two and four years old, 46% are between five and eleven years, and 22% are older than twelve years of age (Woodworth, 1996). Considering the ages of the grandparents and the grandchildren, it is apparent that grandparents caring for a grandchild of a young age may be caring for these children well into their seventies. Sixty percent of these grandparents are grandmothers; 40% are grandfathers (Jones & Kennedy, 1996). Corresponding with general demographics of the elderly, most custodial grandfathers are married while most of the custodial grandmothers are widowed.
These families can be found in both urban and rural areas, but overall 77% of grandparents raising their grandchildren are living in an urban area (Pearson et al., 1997). In some low-income inner-city areas, anywhere between 30 and 50% of the children are being cared for by a grandparent (Minkler & Roe, 1996).
These grandparents are also likely to have a lower level of education, which may be partly due to the generation in which they grew up. Fifty-eight percent of these grandparents did not receive a high school diploma and 26% of them only have a high school degree (Burnette, 1997). This lower level of education also seems to reflect the income level of these families. As many as 27% of intergenerational families are living below the poverty level and another 14% are living between 100% and 149% of the poverty threshold. Looking at all of these statistics it is easy to see that there is a rise in this type of family arrangement and will most likely increase in occurrence in the future. These families are in need of recognition and aid.
Grandchildren being raised by their grandparents can be found in all regions of the United States, as well as in all socioeconomic and ethnic groups. According to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (1998), 43% of "skip-generation" families live in the South, 19% live in the Northeast, 17% live in the Midwest, and 21% live on the West Coast. In North Dakota, according to the 1990 Census Bureau, 4,130 children under the age of 18 were not residing with either parent (Kids Count Data book, 1994). These children made up 2.4% of the total 175,385 children living in North Dakota in 1990. These numbers are the lowest of all the states, but the small percentage may bring other issues into play.
Grandparents living in North Dakota who find themselves raising a grandchild may feel like they are isolated and alone. Given the small percentage of this family type, social service agencies and policy makers may fail to recognize a need for local resources. In areas such as North Dakota, where the numbers of this family type are lower than the national average funds to support these families will not be set aside and therefore be unavailable. Also, since these grandparents are likely to be thinly scattered across various counties and regions, such helpful resources as support groups will be limited if not lacking completely.
When the parents are no longer able to care for their children for whatever reason, many times it is a relative who steps in to help. Out of the 3.7 million children who are being cared for by a relative other than their parents, 50-60% are being cared for by a grandmother, followed by aunts, siblings, uncles, and grandfathers, respectively (Burnette, 1997). Many relatives feel that it is their duty to help protect their own flesh and blood. What makes the transition the hardest is that the primary caring of a grandchild would be considered an off-time event. Even though grandparents have no control over when they actually first become grandparents, the event of grandparenthood is still anticipated and welcomed by many. But when a crisis suddenly occurs within a family and the grandchildren are left needing care, there is no prior preparation helping these grandparents adjust to their new role. In fact, for most, these grandparents were looking forward to retirement and focusing on their own futures.
Along with this newly acquired ambiguous role is very often an uncertain future. Many of these grandparents indicate that they would like nothing more than to have the grandchild one day able to return home to their parents. Often the permanence of the arrangement depends on the circumstances surrounding the reasons why the children have come under the care of the grandparents. When asked how permanent the grandparents believe the arrangement to be, 71% believed that the arrangement was permanent, 11% saw it as only temporary, and 17% were unsure (Jones & Kennedy, 1996). Many of the studies shown that at least 49% of the grandparents had been caring for their grandchildren for over two years.
Just as there are many reasons for a grandparent to take over the custodial role, grandparent, there are also many types of caregiving arrangements. The first of is considered informal caregiving. In informal caregiving, there has been no legal proceeding transferring legal custody from the parent to the grandparent (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). Without such proceedings, the parents of the child still retain all legal rights and responsibilities over the child. Informal arrangements are often in place because the parents have abandoned the child or the parents have entrusted the grandparents with the care of the grandchildren, as may be the case with a teenage mother. Often these grandparents are hoping that someday the adult children will return or become capable of caring for their own children. In the meantime, without any legal transference of custody these grandparents will have trouble obtaining such things as medical care, school recordings, and even enrolling children into a school district without the consent of the biological parents. Many of these families are living below or near the poverty level, and without custody of some sort these grandparents will be ineligible to receive much needed aid to properly care for these children. The only benefit that can be derived from an informal arrangement is that if the adult children are one day able to resume caring for their children, legal proceedings may be avoided.
A second type of arrangement would be custody. For a grandparent to receive custody of the grandchildren it must be proven that the adult children are unfit to care for the children (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). In this type of arrangement the grandparents are able to make such day-to-day decisions as medical care, school enrollment, and access to school records. The authority over the grandchildren's property and financial responsibility of grandchildren does not lie with the grandparents. Receiving custody is helpful in the fact that the grandparents are then able to receive various forms of aid from state and social services.
Guardianship is similar to custody in that they are both court ordered (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). There are actually different types of guardianship; a person may be a guardian over the child's property, over the child him/herself, or over both the child and the child's property. A court will appoint a person guardianship for reasons such as death of the parent, the parent willingly agrees to the guardianship, or the parents are found to be unfit. A guardian then possesses the right to make all day-to-day decisions over the child, though the parent may still hold some rights over the child. These rights may include such things as visitation and financial responsibility. The main advantage of grandparents gaining guardianship is that they are then able to seek resources from medical aid and social services.
A grandparent may become a kinship foster parent, but not before certain things are in place. The child must first have been removed from the parent's home due to such things as abuse or neglect (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). The child then comes under the custody of the state and is placed under a state official who is responsible for the protection of the child. The grandparents must then be approved of as kinship foster care parents. The state official then supervises the home and makes all medical and major decisions. This is a hindrance that grandparents with custody and guardianship do not face. Kinship foster care parents may be entitled to kinship foster care monthly payments and Medicaid to help cover such things as daycare, food, shelter, clothing, school supplies, and other such personal needs of the child. These kinship foster care payments have been found to be almost 1½ times smaller than those received by non-relative foster care parents (Bell & Garner, 1996). On a national average kinship foster parents receive $109 a month compared to the $371 a month that non-relative foster parents receive.
Kinship foster care is thought of as only being temporary in the sense that eventually the children will either return to their parents, if they are able to provide a safe home, or the kinship foster parents must eventually adopt the grandchildren, or risk having another family found to adopt the child(ren).
When grandparents adopt their grandchildren, they gain all parental rights and responsibilities and are legally considered the grandchildren's parents (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). In North Dakota the courts consider the parents to be the "natural guardians" of their children, so only through a legal proceeding can their rights be turned over to the grandparents (Gebeke, 1994). For this to occur, the grandparent must prove abandonment, death, permanent neglect, or mental illness on the part of their adult child (Flint & Perez-Porter, 1997). This step is usually a very emotionally distressing decision on the part of grandparents; they risk losing their adult child and must publicly denounce them as being an unfit parent. On the plus side the grandparent is able to give their grandchild(ren) a more permanent, stable home. But just as a biological parent is assumed to provide for all the care of the child so must the adoptive grandparent. Only if the child had originally gone through the foster care system or if the child has special needs is the grandparent eligible for adoption subsidies. Otherwise the grandparent must apply for aid just as any other low-income family would.
The majority of the research that has been done on custodial grandparenting has focused primarily only on the Caucasian and African American populations. Since "skip-generation" families have been found in every ethnic group, it is quite surprising that little research can be found comparing various ethnic and cultural groups. One such ethnic group that has been neglected is the Native American culture, which also happens to be the largest minority group in North Dakota (Anne E. Casey Foundation, 1997). Nationally, 1% of all Native American grandparents are raising their grandchildren (Chalfie, 1994).
The central role for a Native American grandparent is caregiving; this is especially true on reservations (Emick & Hayslip, 1996; Burton, Dilworth-Anderson, & Merriwether-deVries, 1995). In fact, two out of the five grandparenting styles which have been depicted in the Native American culture include direct caregiving of grandchildren (Weibel-Orlando, 1990). These five grandparenting styles are listed: cultural conservator, custodial, ceremonial, distanced, and fictive. Both cultural conservator and custodial grandparenting styles include direct caregiving of grandchildren.
A Native American grandparent who would be considered a cultural conservator will actually "solicit" for a grandchild to come and live with him/her (Emick & Hayslip, 1996). This cultural practice is quite different from Caucasian or African American cultural practices. The purpose of this style of grandparenting is for the passing on of Native American cultural practices and way of life to future generations. The grandparent is also able to relieve working parents of excessive childcare responsibilities. This style of grandparenting, which is a long established practice, also benefits the grandparents in that, "children [are] cared for by grandparents, [and] in turn, the family [will] care for the old when they are feeble" (Weibel-Orlando, 1995, p. 121). This practice is especially common among the Sioux and Muskogean Native American tribes. In fact, caring for a grandchild is considered an "expected privilege" for most Native American elders.
The second style, custodial grandparenting, is also highly customary in the Native American culture (Weibel-Orlando, 1990). It is a common practice for a Native American grandparent to raise a grandchild whose parents are ill, have moved due to a job transfer, have abandoned the child, or are burdened by a of children. Two studies conducted by Shoemaker (1989; 1990) have concluded that Navajo grandparents have assumed child rearing duties over their grandchildren for such reasons as lack of proper caregiving skills on the adult child's part, alcohol abuse, death, poverty, remarriage, excessive work duties, or caring for one twin or for a child who is considered frail. Compared to the cultural conservator style of grandparenting, Native American custodial grandparents are usually much younger and their newly acquired role is often unexpected. Raising a grandchild within the Native American culture is in no way a new phenomenon, merely an understudied one.
As mentioned earlier, becoming a custodial grandparent is an off-time event, and as with all other off-timed events this newly assumed role, can be very stressful (Pinson-Millburn et al., 1996). These grandparents may face several psychological consequences due to this enormous transition. Many of these grandparents had once viewed their role as grandparent as one of leisure and time for enjoyment with their grandchildren. At the same time, they may have been looking forward to refocusing their lives on themselves, their spouses, retirement, and such things as their community. Many may feel robbed of their expected future. Morrow-Kundos et al. (1997) obtained a quote that articulated many of these grandparent's feelings:
You cannot be a grandparent and a parent too. You grieve because it hasn't turned out like you thought. You expected to rear children and then sit back and be a grandparent. Now I can't be a grandparent. I have to be a parent…again (p. 39).
At the same time these parents may also be dealing with the loss of their own adult child due to death or drugs (Pinson-Millburn et al., 1996). If they are caring for their grandchildren for such reasons as drugs, abandonment, abuse, or neglect they may question their own parenting skills, see themselves as inadequate, and feel guilty because their own adult children have gone astray and are incapable of raising their grandchildren. Characteristic comments made by some of these grandparents have been, "Where did I go wrong? How could I have raised a child that turned out so bad? I'm so disappointed with the person my child has become" (Morrow-Kondos et al., p.39). These thoughts may lead the grandparent to feelings of grief, guilt, resentment, and self-blaming (Morrow-Kondos et al., 1997 & Pinson-Millburn et al., 1996).
Grandparents may also experience social isolation from other family members, friends, and their community (Morrow-Kondos et al., 1997). The feelings of guilt, shame, and self-blaming, as well as the significant amount of time that they must now devote to caring for their grandchildren, very often keep them from wanting to interact with others.
Grandparents are also greatly affected physically by their new caregiving roles. Many of these grandparents experience fatigue attributable to the physical demands required to care for a child (Morrow-Kondos, et al., 1997). Along with the normal effects of aging, these grandparents experience a greater likelihood of such ailments as depression, insomnia, hypertension, severe back and stomach problems, heart trouble, joint swelling and stiffness, and increased smoking and drinking problems (Minkler & Roe, 1996). The biggest problem found with this group of grandparents is that they very often will not admit to their ailments or seek treatment for them. They often feel the need to hide any of their ailments or to underreport their health problems because they fear that the grandchildren will then be removed from the family altogether.
Grandparents are also taking on more financial responsibilities and needs with their custodial caregiving role. Nearly one-half of these grandparents are living below or near the poverty level. Many of them are on a fixed income of Social Security checks that only allow for the living expenses of one. (Minkler & Roe, 1996). Depending on the individual situation, some are forced to quit their jobs, take a second job, or return to work just to support and care for their grandchildren. Some are forced to dip into their retirement savings to afford childcare while others find themselves swallowing their pride and applying for welfare.
Not all of the effects on grandparents are negative. Many have reported such effects as feelings of satisfaction for being able to step in in a time of crisis or from a second chance to parent again (Morrow-Kondos et al., 1997). They have also reported that they enjoy the opportunity to achieve a close personal relationship with their grandchildren, although they do report feelings of regret over the fact that they are not able to achieve this same closeness with their non-custodial grandchildren.
Much of the research that can be found on custodial grandparenting seems to focus on the effects on the grandparents rather than on the grandchildren. This was rather surprising considering the fact that children are at a greater risk than are adults of being seriously effected by such a traumatic transition. Pinson-Millburn et al. (1996) were able to break down a list of potential problems a child may experience depending on the reason why their parents are no longer caring for him/her. When the grandparents are taking over the custodial role because the children's parents are abusing drugs and alcohol, children may experience the following problems:
Children whose parents were incarcerated may experience the above problems as well as the following:
Children who have been unfortunate victims of abuse or neglect inflicted by their parents have the potential of another set of problems:
And finally, Pinson-Millburn et al. (1996) discovered the potential risks of those children whose parents have died of AIDS, other illnesses, or in an accident.
But along with the many effects the children experience due to their parent's situation, these children are also affected by the day to day care received from their grandparents.
Many of these children's grandparents never graduated from high school, and with the several decades since it has been since many of them were in school, they may lack the proper understanding needed to help their grandchildren with homework (Burnette, 1997). Some may even experience role confusion in regards to their parents and grandparents. These grandparents are technically taking on the role of the child's parent, grandparents. These grandparents are technically taking on the role of the child's parent, which may leave the children wondering how exactly to address their grandparent (Emick & Hayslip, 1996). Do they call their grandmother "mom" or "grandma"? Also, with having a caregiver of an advanced age these children may fear the loss of yet another parent. And finally, those children may not know how to explain to their friends why their grandparents instead of their parents are raising them. Children trying to be accepted by peers may find themselves out of the so-called "norm" and lack the self-esteem to raise themselves above others' judgements.
Personal resources are the most readily available source of support available to all grandparents. Personal resources include developing and using a variety of coping skills such as prayer, reframing and interpreting their situation in a more positive light, and always keeping a sense of humor when dealing with a crisis or difficult transition (Emick & Hayslip, 1996). If grandparents are unable to derive proper personal coping skills a counselor may be able to help in teaching them (Pinson-Millburn et al., 1996).
The next best available area of support is family and friends, when available. (Morrow-Kondos et al., 1997). Support groups may also help by letting grandparents know that they are not alone (Pinson-Millburn et al., 1996). Through support groups grandparents are able to get together to share their stories, relieve their worries, and encourage each other to continue on.
Where available, grandparents are able to receive assistance from local social service agencies that provide programs that deal directly with intergenerational families. One such program is the Grandparent Information Center (Minkler & Roe, 1996). American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in Washington D.C started the Grandparent Information Center in 1993. This program assists the elderly nationally by providing information on local support groups and resources in their area. It also mails out information to grand-parents, including such things as select topics, "tip sheets," and how to start support groups in their area.
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The North Dakota Journal of Human Services, June 1999 -- Volume 2, Number 3