THE VOICES OF MOTHERHOOD : Marilyn McIntosh, COSTA MESA

Age 54, mother of three. In 1990 she and her husband, Arthur, became legal guardians of three of their grandchildren--8-year-old triplets, Elizabeth, Joshua and Thomas Butman.

“This is the age we should be going on Love Boat tours. But you just have to put that off. We feel the children’s needs come first.

Their parents are divorced. The reason that these children are with their grandparents are varied, but I don’t want the reasons in the paper. I want to protect the children. No parent-bashing.

They are three normal kids. They do very well in school. They do have their emotional problems to be sure. They have had a lot of ups and downs in their lives. We are working with that and trying to get them through some of this.

Basically they are top students--they are active in all kinds of things, like Brownies. My husband goes to Indian Guides with the boys. His name is Passing Buck. All take piano lessons once a week. There is piano practice every day. They sing in the children’s choir at church. We have to go through three spelling lists a night. They don’t have the same teacher at school, which works out best for them. We try to give them as normal an upbringing as we can for our age.

At my age, there are some funny things that happen. The children are in this reading program at school and I go to the library and walk out with nine third-grade readers. I told the librarian that someday I would come in and get an adult book.

It really impacts your life. When you are young and have children, your friends are young and have children, and you do things with your friends. Now, at our age, all our friends are free. You are in a league of your own. As things are going, we have absolutely no plan for retirement.

We had to go deeply into savings to pay legal fees. When we first got them we put out over $10,000 in therapy the first months. The emotional problems were built in with a sense of abandonment from their parents. They are overcoming that.

At our age, there are certain things we can’t do with the children. We can’t go roller-blading on the beach; that is difficult. We do what we can do. We don’t have the energy. Sometimes I feel we don’t have the patience.

The rewards are their stability. And to see them doing well. And just the love we receive back from them.

We believe in the American family. The reason we have the children is that I feel they are best off with us. Because we can give them the love and support they need. “