NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

October 22, 1998

Parent Line: Grand-parents

Kim Bushaw, Parent Line Program Specialist
NDSU Extension Service

Betty learned to drive in the early 1950s. Her first car had everything: AM radio, tail fins and tons of chrome. She took her driving privileges seriously. She knew that everyone in town kept an eye on the new drivers, especially the girls. She also knew that if she had car trouble, she could flag someone down or hitchhike for help. Over time she learned how to do many of the necessary and familiar roadside repairs that her particular car seemed to need.

Today Betty's car has so much more that she laughs to think about the first auto she drove with crank windows, no air conditioning and no power anything. Now Betty drives a car that has a computerized brain to work its power everything. She enjoys some of the conveniences, curses others and feels that overall new cars can make you soft if you let them. Who, after all, would have imagined cruise control, power windows and little telephones in a car in 1950?

Betty's experience with driving is somewhat paralleled by her parenting experience. She raised her children in a time when her family and small community provided a safety net and extra eyes to help raise and watch the children. Betty lived in a town where people didn't lock their doors or turn on lights when they left for a trip. Most of the mothers Betty spent free time with considered parenting their first and most important job, a privilege with many responsibilities.

Although she was counting down the years to retirement and time to do what she wanted, Betty is now a single grandmother raising her daughter's two little boys. She finds that a variety of things have changed since she raised her own children in terms of social support, parenting information, modern conveniences, expectations of parents and safety.

Betty has a lot of company in her new role of mother to her grandchildren. According to Andrea Smith and Linda Dannison of Western Michigan University and Tammy Vach-Hasse of Colorado State University, there are more than 2 million children currently living with their grandparents in the absence of either biological parent. About half of the grandparents, like Betty, are single grandmothers. Most range from age 41 to 71, and they come from all ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Disease, drugs, death, divorce and desertion are the major reasons children move in with their grandparents. Adolescent pregnancies and a large population of parents in prison also contribute to these numbers.

Betty's employer has helped her by allowing family leave, flexible hours and some work at home time. Her friends have continued to include Betty in their usual activities by going to her house later in the evenings to visit and play bridge. They also offer to care for the children when Betty has appointments or commitments after work. The school has been very helpful to Betty, other grandparents in her situation and the children by understanding their special circumstances.

Schools know that children come to live with their grandparents for a variety of reasons. Many of them include deep feelings of loss, both for their parents and now for the grandparents who has become a parent figure instead.

The children may have guilt for liking the stability their new surroundings provide, fear that this too may be a temporary arrangement, embarrassment that they are living a different life from other children and anger that they have so little control over their own lives.

Betty is delighted about the group her school has set up for her and other grandparents struggling with similar concerns. She loves all her grandchildren but cannot treat them all the same. She fears her other children will begin to resent that. Betty worries about what could happen if she became seriously ill. What then?

Betty has found that children now spend a lot of time in front of gadgets that her children never had. Putting limits on computers and videos is difficult for her. Name-brand clothes, hair coloring and pierced parts worry her. How much is too much? What really helps kids fit in? Can she go with her instincts, or are their new rules to govern these areas?

When she was raising her own children, she learned as she went, watching others as they tackled difficult situations and then attempting it herself. Although she knows how to parent and has done it most of her life, the constant challenging curves in this modern superhighway are sometimes difficult to anticipate or maneuver around with limited physical, emotional and financial resources to draw on. She's grateful that she is able to help and even more thankful than ever for the help she gets all along the way.

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More than 100 Parent Line columns are in the book "Please Tell Me This is Just a Stage." To order, send $9.95 per copy to Distribution Center, Box 5655, NDSU, Fargo, ND 58105-5655.

Kim Bushaw answers the Parent Line, an information and listening support line for North Dakota parents from the NDSU Extension Service. Call the Parent Line at 1-800-258-0808 (231-7923 in Fargo) with questions about this column and other parenting topics. The Parent Line is answered 7:30 a.m. - 9:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Friday.

Source: Kim Bushaw (701) 231-1070

Editor: Becky Koch (701) 231-7875