Never Empty Nest: Little public help for grandparents as parents

Community relations director Judy Leitner keeps trying to retire.

She even gave her notice of departure three months ago to Oklahoma’s Aging Services Division, then didn’t have the heart to follow through.

The reason is uncomplicated and unselfish. She works with grandparents raising grandchildren with behavioral and other problems - a mission that grows ever larger and more difficult in Oklahoma and elsewhere but one Leitner refuses to give up on.

“This costs society a lot of money,” said Leitner. “That’s why this issue is important to all of us.”

Costs, she explained, associated with breaking the cycle of families without mothers and fathers due to drugs, alcohol, AIDS, neglect, abuse, abandonment, divorce and parents in prison.

Social experts say these are the major factors contributing to what they describe as a disturbing trend of a dramatic increase in grandparents caring for their children’s troubled children because the biological parents are incapable of doing so or dead.

And, they warn, unless something is done soon to reverse the trend by helping grandparents cope with the challenges of raising these grandkids, the problem will get worse with the next generation and the consequences may overwhelm the nation.

“You think our prison population is exploding now?” said Leitner. “Just you wait.”

Today, 6 percent - 4.5 million - of the children in the United States live in a grandparent-headed household, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s 30 percent higher than a decade ago. Most of the youngsters are impoverished and many suffer from significant emotional problems, including depression, learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder. Often, the statistics show, they are born “crack babies” or with fetal alcohol syndrome.

“Professionals don’t know how to deal with these kids,” said Leitner. “Nobody knows how to deal with these kids.”

Yet, she said, grandparents are increasingly asked to take on the responsibility of raising them without adequate resources to help with the financial, cultural, psychological and physical challenges the children represent.

Grandparents stepping in to raise their grandchildren in times of need is not a new social phenomenon in the United States. It has been going on for years, with some well-publicized modern success stories such as Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Foxx, Maya Angelou and Jack Nicholson.

But what’s different now, Leitner and other experts say, is the surge in the numbers tied to missing parents through drug, alcohol and AIDS deaths, violence, incarceration and mental illness.

Their offspring have become known to medical and social professionals as the “walking wounded” in need of special care and education. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management calls the demographic boom a “silent epidemic” not fully recognized by the nation’s public assistance network.

Most grandparents are eager to raise their grandchildren, especially when the alternative is foster care or putting them up for adoption. Many also feel guilt from poor parenting that caused the children to be without a mother or father, said Susan Kelley, dean of the College of Health and Human Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta.