Friends and Relations

Grandparents are playing another growing role in children’s lives. The number of parents in America who are either unwilling or unable for some reason to properly care for their children is rising dramatically. And as a result, more grandparents are raising a second set of children: their grandchildren.

“It’s a phenomenon growing like wildfire in our society--grandparents acting as surrogate parents for the grandchildren,” said Vern Bengtson, a USC professor and principal investigator in the 27-year Longitudinal Study of Four-Generation Families.

“It’s astonishing,” he said. “There are about 5 [million] to 6 million kids in America today being raised by their grandparents because their parents are out of commission. This is the case where parents, particularly mothers, have AIDS, are drug addicts or alcoholics, or are in mental hospitals or prisons. We have data from 1990 indicating that at that time the number was only 3 million kids. In just seven years the number of grandparents who are raising grandchildren has increased by almost 100%.”

The reasons for the sharp increase, he said, include decreases in welfare allotments, particularly to mothers, an increase in crack cocaine use, and unemployment or underemployment.

“These are kids who were sleeping in the car or on the streets with the mother or father, and the grandparents are saying, ‘Come back home. We’ll take you in,’ ” Bengtson said. “It’s happening all over America.”

And it happens at all socioeconomic levels, he said. As a result, “It has become more socially acceptable to acknowledge that now you’re raising your grandchildren. It’s not necessarily a matter of shame that one or more of your kids didn’t turn out to be a competent adult.”