I was invited to speak at a support group for grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren. What a wonderful group of ladies!! I had such a good time meeting and sharing with them.
What strikes me is the inequity in the system where a perfect stranger can take a child in a foster home environmnet and they get a stipend from the state. A grandparent gets nothing from the state. Some counties (God bless them) are doing a little to help.
But picture this for a moment:
You are retired or close to retirement and you have all these plans to paint or travel or learn to quilt. You have carefully saved and planned for your future. As you look forward you know you will have to be careful, but you can make on what you have coming in and not be a burden to anyone in your old age. That makes you feel proud.
One night you get a phone call from DFACS to either come and pick up your grandchild or he will be put into the system and you could lose contact with him completely. What do you do? Of course, you drop what you are doing and go get him and bring him home with you. Naturally you think this is for a few days or weeks at the most.
Time stretches as time is wont to do and gradually you realize that you are now the parent, not the grandparent and that scenario is unlikely to change! Your finances are being drained. Your child is on drugs and not able to care for her child and does not contribute to his support.
You have all this sorrow for your child, anger at your child, love for your grandchild, wishing you could have your life back, guilt over feeling like that, and now you are wondering how your money can stretch because this responsibility was not factored into you life equation ahead of time.
How would you feel? Wouldn't you want a little financial help? Or a place of respite care where you could take him for a few hours so you could shop or clean the refrigerator?
We need to step up and call on our legislators to answer this pressing need. Ah, but you say, it is only a few families so affected. Wrong! Grandparents raising grandchildren is one of the fastest growing parenting populations in this country. And they are having a really hard time.
Step up and call your congressman--please help these wonderful, devoted people.
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G'day Pat-
Just read through the sad article which seems to be an epidemic in many places! I know of a a few neighbourhood centres now pitching in to help these poor folk, but it doesn't really solve the problem does it? I am not familiar with the law in US but can tell you here in Australia, the organisation which handles cases of child neglect, is known as DOcs-
It's a real catch 22 situation when the grandparent is placed in this position..you DONT want the child to wind up with strangers, but what if the grandoparent/s are not healthy enough to be responsible?? I think it's a sad shame that we don't see more support around the globe!
My sister, who is only 49 and a grandmother, now takes care of her 2 year old grandson because the mother has a drug problem, and the father[my nephew] has his own health issues....extremely hard but she is doing a marvellous job and I am so proud of her!
Maybe in cases such as these, there needs to be a firmer grip on 'teenage pregnancies', prevention is sometimes better than the cure?????
Thanks for sharing this post!
Cheers
Deb Stevens
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