More grandmothers raising another generation

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Marian Robinson quit her job in 2007 to help raise her grandchildren.

Robinson, whose son-in-law is Barack Obama, soon to be sworn in as 44th president of the United States, left behind her job at an Illinois bank to help care for the Obama’s daughters when the couple set out on the campaign trail.

She took the girls to school, made them dinners and helped them with their homework.

Call it the “grandma” track  —  grandmothers putting aside their own careers or juggling work while trying to raise their children’s kids.

This lifestyle is very familiar to Teresa Gamez. She’s a grandmother and a full-time processor and sales assistant at Cookies From Home, based in Tempe, Ariz.

Gamez helps her daughter, who’s struggling to survive financially and working two jobs, by watching her four children, ages 3 to 9.

“On Monday, I work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., then pick up my grandkids from day care and then take them to my home,” she explains. “I start dinner while the little ones watch TV, and I help the older ones with homework.”

Monday through Thursday the children stay overnight with Gamez and then their mother picks them up.

“Sometimes I get tired,” she admits. But “when I don’t see them I miss them.”

At a time when work-life balance should be a distant memory, many grandparents, typically grandmothers, are suddenly back in the parenting saddle again.

A growing number of women like Gamez and Robinson — who is expected to move into the White House at least temporarily to continue helping with the kids — are pitching in with the care of their grandchildren, even though many have yet to hit the proverbial retirement rocking chair.

In a sign of the times, the Census Bureau started tracking the phenomenon in 2004, and it’s becoming more pervasive.  Today 1.5 million working grandparents are caring for grandkids, up from 1.4 million in 2004.

“These grandparent caregivers have the same issues working parents have — balancing working with caring for children,” says Jaia Peterson Lent, deputy executive director of intergenerational advocacy group Generations United. She noted that more than two-thirds of grandparent caregivers are under the age of 60, and 71 percent are still in the work force.

“We often see children come into a relative’s care because they have some special needs, or the cost of child care is just too expensive,” Lent says.

Other factors driving the phenomenon are parents who fall victim to drug and alcohol abuse, are mentally ill or incarcerated, or are otherwise unable to raise their kids, says social worker Sylvie de Toledo, founder of Grandparents as Parents.

“If the grandparents don’t step in the kids could go to foster care,” notes De Toledo, co-author of “Grandparents as Parents: A Survival Guide for Raising a Second Family.”

But the added responsibilities that come along with raising young kids often affect a grandparent's job, she adds, “because they are constantly called away because of school problems, doctors’ appointments or having to go to court.”

“One grandmother I knew was fired from her job after 15 years with a company,” she recalls.

It’s typically not the grandparent’s choice to take on the caregiver role, she explains. “It’s often thrust upon them.”

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