Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Find Ally : Child care: TUGS helps ease the stress and fights for legal rights. In some cases, young lives may be on the line.

When Linda Winn hears reports about the Ojai mother whose 2-month-old baby starved to death in a trailer, a little voice gnaws at her.

“That could have been Katie,” it says.

Winn, also of Ojai, draws many parallels between 31-year-old Pamela Rother--whom prosecutors allege was on drugs during her young daughter’s two-month existence--and her own daughter, who bore a drug-addicted infant in 1992.

Although Winn’s granddaughter, Katie, has grown into a bright-eyed 3-year-old, she was born prematurely and under the influence of cocaine, suffering from night terrors so severe that she would sleep for only a few minutes at a time. Winn is convinced that Katie is still alive because she intervened and convinced her daughter to give her guardianship of the child.

To cope with the stresses of raising a child in their golden years, Ventura County grandparents in Winn’s situation formed a place to go for support and understanding. Founded four years ago, Together United Grandparents, or TUGS, has evolved from a support group to an advocacy group that fights for grandparents’ legal rights.

“I don’t care if I have to go underground,” said Winn, 56, who has not seen her now-homeless daughter since she obtained legal guardianship of Katie in March, 1994. “Unless there is some miracle and my daughter gets off drugs, there is no way I would give my little angel back.”

Grandparent advocates are further convinced that the reason Pamela Rother’s other child is alive is because she was taken from her mother. Rother lost her now 9-year-old to her own mother in a bitter guardianship battle four years ago.

By most accounts, the number of grandparents raising their grandchildren is on the rise and is expected to continue climbing. About 650,000 children in California are raised by their grandparents, according to 1990 census figures. “It’s like an epidemic because of the epidemic of the drug culture,” Winn said.

TUGS President Jan Richman, 57, who is raising her daughter’s only son, has a story similar to many of the 150 members of her group. Surrounded by finger paintings and framed pictures of the towheaded 6-year-old, Richman’s eyes well with tears as she remembers how her alcoholic daughter used to hit little Gary in fits of rage.

But Richman said she is lucky because her daughter didn’t put up a fight for guardianship. Still, she worries that her daughter will come back for the little boy.

“Why should parents get a second chance when the children don’t?” is a favorite question of Richman’s.

Like Richman, many TUGS members are raising the children of daughters in their late 20s or early 30s who are not married, have little contact with the father of the grandchild and bore crack babies or children suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. They joined the group, which meets on the first Thursday of every month at the Camarillo Senior Center, in search of camaraderie and comfort.

“The guilt you feel, throwing someone to the wolves like that, is like nothing else,” said Winn, who stopped providing a haven for her drug-addicted daughter when psychiatrists told her she was enabling the destructive behavior. “I needed to hear that I was doing the right thing.”

Speakers at the monthly meetings have included guardianship experts from the Ventura County court system, private lawyers who defend children’s rights and therapists who specialize in the grandparent-grandchild relationship, which is a demanding one.

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According to psychologists, grandparents raising grandchildren are more likely to suffer from depression, alcoholism and heart attacks. The grandparents also have less energy than when they were chasing toddlers 20 or 30 years ago.

Through TUGS, members can share tips about everything from child care to health care. Gloria, 70, a Camarillo grandmother who has raised her 10-year-old granddaughter for eight years, said it is helpful to talk to others in her situation.

“My friends who don’t have grandchildren living with them don’t understand that we cannot just get up and go. We have to find a baby-sitter,” said Gloria, who asked that her last name not be used. “My husband retired 10 years ago, but he says it doesn’t feel like he ever gave up working.”

But even though the grandparents are working hard to raise a child, the fact remains that they are retired and their income, often, is fixed. If the battle for guardianship ends up in court, it can cost as much as $7,000. After that, the grandparents also must purchase child care, clothes and education for the grandchild, which can quickly eat up retirement savings.

But the worst problem facing these grandparents is a sense of failure, according to experts. “We as a society have an assumption that if a child is messed up, it’s because the parents messed up,” said Dr. Robert Beilin, a therapist specializing in these relationships and a former director of Ventura County Family Relations. “A common question is, If they messed up with their child years ago, how are they going to raise this grandchild?”

Beilin said that most grandparents are trying to act in the best interest of their grandchild. But he said many times there are unresolved conflicts between the grandparent and the parent, and the grandchild is a pawn in the fight. Studies show that grandparents are more likely to raise the grandchild of their only or youngest child, the child over which parents often exert the most control.

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Dr. Frederic Norris, a Westlake Village psychologist who has testified in guardianship disputes between grandparents and their children, said he believes the court acts in the best interest of the child. “But I have clearly seen situations where the grandparent is trying to exercise undue influence over their child through the grandchild.”

He praises TUGS members and other grandparents who look for outside support. “You can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t some problem with the way they raised their first child,” he said. “But by the time they come to me, they are committed to the process of raising their grandchild.”

Research shows that the close grandparent-grandchild relationship can be detrimental to the mother, who is often left out of the picture along with the father.

Studies show that as grandparents’ involvement in their grandchildren’s lives increases, the mothers’ self-esteem and nurturing tendencies decrease.

Many of the mothers move back home when they become pregnant or first have their babies, but end up leaving. “It’s tough to be a parent and a child in the same home,” Beilin said.

The dynamics of three generations under one roof may push the mothers further from their child’s life and from substance-abuse treatment or reconciliation. “The child, as a result, may wonder, ‘Why doesn’t my mommy like me?’ ” Norris said. He said the child also might be confused about mother and grandparent roles.

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Experts say such emotional, financial and physical problems in the relationships are often exacerbated by the legal wranglings brought on by guardianship fights.

To obtain guardianship, a grandparent must prove that it would be detrimental to the grandchild to live with the biological parents and that the grandparents are fit to parent.

But the biological parent can reverse guardianship if he or she can prove fitness. Because the courts usually favor the closest biological bond, the burden is on the grandparents to obtain guardianship and to maintain it.

As a result, groups like TUGS are becoming tenacious defenders of grandparents’ rights.

The TUGS president has taken delegations to Sacramento to speak before committees considering grandparent issues. She is especially proud of her lobbying for a recent Assembly bill that expanded grandparents’ visitation rights. Most recently, she organized TUGS representatives to address Gov. Pete Wilson at a June Fathers of Today forum in Anaheim.

Other grandparent advocates expect that lawmakers will hear more from small groups like TUGS, as well as from the American Assn. of Retired Persons, which has opened a grandparent information center and hot line for parenting grandparents.

Dr. Lenora Poe, an organizer of the Berkeley-based Grandparents as Parents, said groups like hers and TUGS are bringing grandparent issues into the mainstream. “The top reasons that we are raising our grandchildren are substance abuse, homicide and incarceration,” she said. “As long as those continue to rise, the number of grandparents raising grandchildren will continue to rise.”

Poe was a delegate in May to the White House Conference on Aging, which adopted a resolution that for the first time addressed the growing role of grandparents as parents. Richman, meanwhile, said she will continue to rally support for TUGS at the local and state levels. “It’s not that grandparents raising grandchildren is new,” she said. “It’s just that the extent to which parents are unable or unfit to parent has become an epidemic.”