A System That Doesn’t Reward Grandmas for Stepping In

She never asked, nor expected, to be raising another child at 57.

But two years ago, after her son and his girlfriend had a drug-exposed baby and were judged incapable of caring for the boy, she stepped in.

Her grandson is a joy and a delight, she said. But her life is a nightmare--mostly because of the state’s so-called family reunification policies.

“You feel like you’re the enemy,” she said. “You’re doing the best job you can, and instead of appreciation, you’re living in constant fear that if you say one thing wrong, he’ll be taken away.”

Like hundreds of thousands of grandparents nationwide, the woman has found herself in an anxious tug of war with the forces of officialdom, which operate under the prevailing belief that maltreated children will be better off if they are eventually reunited with their biological parents.

At last count by the U.S. Census, in 1994, there were 1.4 million children in the United States living with their grandparents. Most often, experts say, the reason is that the parents are abusing substances. But when the grandmother in this story frantically called the protective services hotline saying the baby had been taken in a car by the mother, who was clearly high on drugs, she was told, “Just because a mother’s on drugs doesn’t mean she’s not a good mother.”

Usually, courts provide short-term protection with families or foster care for abused or neglected children while parents are ordered to treatment, counseling or parenting classes. Until recently, California courts have allowed a maximum of 18 months. In light of widespread public concern over the deaths of children who had been returned to abusive homes, a new law that took effect in January allows the maximum limit to be shortened to a year for some children and six months for children under 3.

While many grandparents applaud the shorter reunification time limits, others know their children won’t be cured in six months, a year or even three years.

For two years, the grandmother, a single mother with a professional job in a small town in Southern California, watched her son and his girlfriend struggle with addiction and domestic violence. “They’re drug addicts, sick, their lives are out of control. The more I tried to help,” she said, “the worse it got.” Meanwhile, she was forced to give the child to them for regular visitations.

“In the last few months, the mother missed 20 out of 25 visits,” she said. Once, she said, the child “came back so traumatized, I had to take a week out of work. . . . He had little red pinch marks on him. He was disoriented and clammy. All I could do was hold him and rock him.”

She said she begged the social workers to end the visits. “I was told in no uncertain terms if I interfered with reunification in any way, there would be severe repercussions. I said, could they at least go check to be sure the baby’s OK?” Eventually, she said she was able to persuade the social worker to perform a random drug test on the mother. She failed.

Now, the mother’s visits are monitored and the grandmother is first in line for “permanent placement” to be decided in two months.

Tired of a system they say doesn’t work to help parents or children, grandparent groups across the country are organizing to seek reforms. Meanwhile, the California grandmother came up with her own idea: After a 30-day rehab program, she suggested, the parents could go with their children to a shelter where they would receive lessons in life skills and job training--away from the influence of the street and convenient for social workers to locate. She said she’s received some interest from a state legislator, whose only concern, of course, was “the cost-effectiveness.”

Meanwhile, she said her grandson often calls her “Mama.” He doesn’t even know who his mother is, she said. Still, she said, “If the mother suddenly gets her act together, she can still get him.”

* Lynn Smith’s column appears on Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053 or via e-mail at lynn.smith@latimes.com. Please include a telephone number.