Huron-Perth Boomers Winter 2023-24

y Jill Robertson
There are many situations in life that can lead
to grandparents taking over the primary
caregiving of their grandchildren. There are many
terms for it, including “skip-generation families,”
“grand-families,” or “kinship care,” but in essence,
it is a circumstance where grandparents take on the
parenting role for their grandchildren.
According to the 2016 Canadian Census, there are
over 32,000 such families in Canada, and that number
has continued to rise over the years. It is important
to mention that these grandparents are typically also
living in a “sandwich generation,” meaning they are
raising their grandchildren, and possibly their own
children, while also supporting their aging parents
or relatives. The care they provide for their family
members, young or aging, requires a multitude of
capacity, ability, and resources.
Grandparent primary caregivers do not get
the opportunity to have a typical grandparent
relationship with their grandchildren. They do
not get to be an exciting place for grandchildren
to come for a weekend, to be spoiled with treats
and fun activities. Rather, they are tasked with
the tougher aspects of the caregiving role, such as
potty training, assigning chores, and making sure
vegetables are eaten. They don’t have the option of
sending children back home after a short, fun-filled
visit.
Grandparent caregiving is for the long haul and
includes both the good moments and the tough ones.
For many of these folks, this also means their
retirement plans must change. Though many
have reached the point in life where they wished
to downsize their home, travel more, and join local
clubs, not all of this is possible when they have had
to shift back into a parenting role. This was true for
Adrienne and her husband, who are raising their
grandchild.
“In our retirement years, the challenge of raising
our grandchild means that we have had to rearrange
our home, our time, our energy, our finances, and
our mindset to provide a stable, loving family home
that is safe from trauma, neglect, abuse and lack of
provisions that my grandchild has experienced,”
Adrienne said.
There are many reasons parents may be unable to
care for their children and have passed that role to
their own parents. Some examples include substance
misuse, child maltreatment, parenting capacity,
financial strain, housing, illness, mental health issues,
incarceration, military service, teenage pregnancy,
or sometimes even the death of the parent. In most
of these cases, the care is being passed due to a
significant loss or big change in the grandchildren’s
lives. Therefore, these grandparents are in the
position not only of providing care, but potentially
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