Raising Your Children’s Children

By Sybilla Green Dorros

Challenges and Rewards Abound for the Growing Number of Grandparents Who Are Parenting Again

For Deborah Doucette-Dudman, it was a phone call from her 19-year-old daughter with the news, “Mom, I’m pregnant.” For Ann and John Waters, it was the sudden death of their daughter in a car accident. In Suzanne Brown’s case, she and her husband baby-sat her son’s children more and more often for longer and longer periods of time.

It can happen overnight or over a period of years. But the result in all these cases is the same: At an age when they should be enjoying their hard-earned freedom, these grandparents are back changing diapers, chasing after toddlers and worrying about homework. They are a rapidly growing demographic group: grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.

Grandparents have traditionally played an important part in taking care of their grandchildren and many have stepped in to help raise their grandchildren when circumstances called for it. Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson are among those who were raised by their grandparents. But now it’s no longer such an exception. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 4 million children live in households headed by a grandparent. That’s 6 percent of children under the age of 18. Grandparent-headed households have grown by 105 percent since 1970.