Raising the next generation
Elders are doing their part to create healthy families for their children's children
by Suzy Frisch
Willie Mae Demmings of Minneapolis raised 11 children of her own, and she
and her husband were enjoying their empty nest. But when three of their
grandsons needed to get out of an abusive environment, she volunteered to
take them in. For about a decade she raised those three boys and also cared
for a teenage granddaughter for about one year.
Years later she took care of three of her 30 great-grandchildren before her daughter—the kids’ great-aunt—adopted them. Each time, Demmings was happy to get back into parenting. In her mind, she could protect her grandchildren and provide them with a stable home.
“I felt they were better off with me, and I enjoyed having them with me,” says Demmings, who facilitated a Lutheran Social Services group for kinship caregivers as part of her certificate in advocacy leadership for vital aging through the College of Continuing Education (founded by alumna and senior fellow, Jan Hively). “I love having kids around and the energy that it gives me. It makes me feel younger and more useful. I think that’s the feeling of most seniors who have young people around them.”
As it turns out, Demmings’ intergenerational care structure is not an anomaly. More seniors from a wide spectrum of communities are playing major roles in raising grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In fact, the 2000 U.S. Census reports that more than 4.5 million children live in their grandparents’ homes, a 30 percent increase since 1990.
The AARP is focusing its attention and resources on the topic as well. The group’s Web site lists extensive information on financial and support resources for grandparents raising grandkids, tips for grandparents providing childcare in the home, and more. AARP also sponsored a conference last September on kinship care. The national organization invited Demmings to get involved in their efforts, which she eagerly agreed to do.
Willie Mae Demmings, center, enjoys close relationships with her great-
grandchildren, from left, Moriah, Elijah, LeMuel, Melvin Jr., David, and
Joshua
Collins, shown with her daughter Kitisha Collins.
Cultural traditions
Demmings reflects a longstanding custom in the African-American community of elders taking care of younger family members. In the United States this tradition of kinship care actually dates back to the time of slavery, explains Priscilla Gibson, an assistant professor in the College’s School of Social Work.
When parents were sold to another slave owner, close family friends or relatives—grandparents in particular—took the children under their wings. This intergenerational care-giving also happened frequently during the great migration of the early 20th century, when African Americans moved north to seek employment and a better life. Grandparents and other relatives often raised the children until their parents obtained employment and established a stable environment.
These days, many African-American seniors are creating “grandfamilies” and caring for younger relatives because of social problems including drug abuse, poverty, incarceration, and domestic violence. In Gibson’s qualitative studies she found that grandparents decide to care for their grandchildren for multiple reasons, including the desire to keep their kin out of the foster care system. Many also believe they are the only ones who can care for the children, while others want to build or maintain a close relationship with their young relatives.
“Most were responding to the state of their grandchildren. Some saw it as helping their adult children,” says Gibson. With their new roles as primary caregivers of their grandchildren, “their lives changed drastically. They had increased responsibilities and their life work changed.” Physical effects on the caregivers varied, from reduced blood pressure to elevated pressures and exacerbated diabetes symptoms from the stress.
Gibson is evaluating a demonstration project on kinship care that was held in Ramsey County in 2003–04. The goal was to provide context-sensitive services to kinship families, such as helping track down biological parents or other relatives, especially within institutional settings, to provide priority for placement within homes. Gibson will study the impact of these services to see how county workers can better support kinship-care families.
She also is seeking funding to research ways to reintroduce the biological parent into the child’s life when another family member has taken on child-rearing. There is a lack of research on these parents, often called the “absent generation,” though they are very much on the minds of the children left behind, she says. Through social-work interventions, the parent may be able to help facilitate the child’s well-being and provide support to the older caregiver.
Being elders and caregivers
Grandparents are taking on bigger roles in other communities, often without going as far as formal custody. In Southeast Asian immigrant families, especially those that were refugees, parents increasingly rely on elders to care for their children so that they can go to school and work several jobs, explains Daniel Detzner, a professor of social science in the College’s Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.
Instead of playing the traditional role of elder, who is typically doted on and cared for in Southeast Asian families, these seniors are serving as major caregivers for their grandchildren. “In families where the middle generation—the adult generation—has to go out and find jobs and learn language skills, the elders are the people at home who hold the family together, especially in large families with large numbers of children,” says Detzner, the author of Elder Voices: Southeast Asian Families in the United States.
The elders provide free child care to their grandchildren and often handle food preparation and household chores. But there is another critical role these grandparents play. In immigrant families where everyone is adjusting to a new country and way of life, grandparents also serve as the link to the family’s culture. They pass on the family’s native language and traditions, inculcating in the children a sense of ethnic identity that can help sustain them as they enter their teenage years.
“There is a lot of research that shows that young immigrant kids, especially refugees, find themselves not fitting into any world, not in their home or the larger community. It’s why you have gang activities in these communities—they found a place where they can fit in,” Detzner says. “You can think of these elders as being the anti-gang and anti-drug resource for their family.”
Detzner views the Southeast Asian immigrant family structure as a model that could be mirrored across any culture. “They aren’t drawing on government resources, they are relying on their family and extended care network,” he notes.
“The Southeast Asian community shows us the importance of extended families and the contract between generations: We’ll take care of you when you’re young, and we’ll take care of you when you’re old.”
Pitching in
Sonia Davila-Williams has seen similar scenarios play out in the Latino community. A field coordinator in the School of Social Work, Davila-Williams encountered these exact changes in her native Puerto Rico.
Insurmountable day-care fees and the rising cost of living often prompted parents to turn to their extended family for help. Grandparents would care for their grandchildren while the parents worked multiple jobs or attended school to improve their family’s economic situation. Their role might also include cooking for their grandchildren—usually preparing enough for their children, too—and providing financial support for school uniforms or other expenses.
“I think for the grandparents it’s very positive because they get to see their grandkids, and they feel like they have a purpose in life,” Davila-Williams says. “They have something they need to live for and a role to play in society.”
Another reason for this shift, says Davila-Williams, is that people are generally less trusting, both in Puerto Rico and the mainland United States. Where parents often used to ask neighbors to watch their children informally, people now move around a lot more and might not have formed deep, trusting relationships with their neighbors. So instead, they turn to family for assistance.
The way Davila-Williams sees it, the new structure is quite beneficial. “It builds connections within families. Children have a sense of support from their parents, and grandchildren learn that someone cares for me just because of me,” she says. “Grandparents give their grandchildren a sense of tradition, of family and unity and what it means to give without expecting things in return.”