In This Issue: - Riverside County Bar Association

When Grandparents Become Parents
When considering problems that elderly people face with
the law and society, childrearing issues hardly come to mind.
But when a court determines that neither mom nor dad is fit
to raise their child, grandma and grandpa are usually among
the first in line to take on this responsibility. Even without a
court order, people in economically tight situations (which
could be any parent) typically turn to grandma or grandpa for
free child care. Riverside County recognizes this is a serious
issue for our elderly population and so has developed resources
in its “Grandparents Raising Grandchildren” (GRG) program
through the Riverside County Office on Aging.
The Scope of the Problem
GRG has compiled some alarming statistics about
grandparents raising grandchildren in Riverside County and
throughout the nation: 1
• In Riverside County, it is estimated that one child in five
is living with grandparents.
• According to the 2000 U.S. Census, a grandparent was the
person primarily responsible for raising grandchildren in
nearly 40 percent of the 45,000 Riverside County households
where a grandparent is living in the home. (For
the non-mathematically inclined, that’s nearly 18,000
homes.)
• The National Center on Grandparents Raising
Grandchildren cites the U.S. Census in stating that of the
294,969 grandparents in California who are responsible for
their grandchildren, 21.7 percent live in poverty. (Again,
that’s approximately 64,000 grandparents statewide.)
• The AARP found that 11 percent of grandparents over 50
are caregivers; specifically, 8 percent are providing day
care and 3 percent are raising a grandchild.
• The largest group of children being raised by grandparents
(51%) are preschoolers.
Numbers aside (and I suspect these numbers are underreported),
there are issues – some common, some unique – that
come with grandparents raising grandchildren. Depending on
the age of the grandparents, they may have limited incomes
that increase the difficulty of childrearing; they may be prone
to sharing illness with the other population that is at high
risk for illness; they may not be as physically or even mentally
capable of caring for a very young child (and the risk of the
onset of an incapacitating condition increases every year).
And there is still a level of social stigma attached to family
breakdown, which causes stress to grandparent, parent and
1 http://www.rcaging.org/opencms/myGallery/pdf/GRG_Brochure_
en.pdf.
12 Riverside Lawyer, June 2012
by Christopher J. Buechler
grandchild. Compounding these problems, the grandparent
may also be providing care for the unfit parent or entangled in
a legal guardianship battle against one or both parents, which
increases the strain on both time and money.
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Has
Resources to Help
The GRG program was developed to provide emotional
and practical support to grandparents facing these challenges.
Such support includes:
• Advocacy in navigating the judicial and governmental
bureaucracies to obtain legal services, counseling, affordable
childcare, medical assistance and financial assistance
for the household.
• Child care – a portion of the costs of full-time child care
for infants and toddlers under the care of working grandparents,
or even respite care to give the grandparents a
break to take care of their personal needs.
• Case management services to link grandparents and
grandchildren to appropriate public or private resources.
• Support groups, consisting of similarly situated peers, for
grandparents facing these unique challenges.
Of course, these programs exist only so long as there is
funding available. With continuing cuts to state and local governments,
it is hard to predict if all, or any, of these services
will be available in the years to come.
The Flipside Issue: Youth as Caregivers
GRG is also expanding its attention to the issues that
young people face in being the primary caregiver for a disabled
adult, be it parent or grandparent. According to GRG, 22%
of high school drop-outs reported they left to care for family
members. These caregiving youth experience hardships of a
magnitude similar to grandparents caring for grandchildren,
including loss of childhood, stress and depression, isolation,
and absenteeism from work or school.
Having extended family available can be a comfort and a
joy, but when the family hits a major crisis, issues can be compounded
when dealing simultaneously with issues of aging
and childrearing. As much as I like to consider grandparents
to be “veteran parents,” I hope our society’s commitment to
our veterans extends to this group, who play such an essential
role in the lives of too many children in and around our dependency
court system.
Christopher J. Buechler, a member of the RCBA Publications
Committee, is a family law practitioner in Riverside. He can be
reached at christopherjbuechler@gmail.com.