RAISED BY GRANDPARENTS - A GROWING FAMILY TREND

Though she is generally 20 years their senior, 62-year-old Linda
Goodwin said parents with children at Sisters Elementary School
consider her a peer.

"When Jayna says she's being raised by her grandma, everyone accepts
it," the Sisters resident said.

Goodwin is part of what local social service officials say is a small
but growing group -- grandparents raising their grandchildren.

Researchers began noticing an increase in grandparent-headed
households with children under 18 in the early 1990s, according to a
U.S. Census Bureau report. Local officials said the trend has continued.

In 2006, the latest year for which figures are available, grandparents
were responsible for their grandchildren in slightly more than 43
percent of households in Oregon where grandparents were living with
their grandchildren, or about 645,000 households.

Nationwide, the number stood at roughly 41 percent, according to the
U.S. Census Bureau's Web site.

Steven Guzauskis, the at-home services manager for the Central Oregon
Council on Aging, said he's seen an increase in grandparents raising
their grandchildren in the past 10 to 15 years.

Some grandparents step in to help a single parent. For others, the
parent is mired in substance abuse problems.

For all, parenting again in the golden years can be a challenge both
physically and financially. But having grandparents raise the
grandchildren can also provide key stability.

"I feel like I have the time to give," Goodwin said. "Working parents
just don't have the time (for) school activities, and they can't be
there after school, and they can't always (take their child to) the
doctor."

A Beneficial Arrangement

In 2000, he said, the federal government passed a law that accounted
for the phenomenon. Under the National Family Caregiver Support
Program, adults 55 and older caring for children 18 and younger can
receive a small amount of money from the federal government for
support services.

In Sisters, Goodwin said some of her youngest granddaughter's friends
at school are also being raised by their grandparents.

Goodwin, who is retired, said she has been what calls a co-parent to
two of her grandchildren -- Jessica Hatfield, 13, and Jayna Hatfield,
10, who lives with her now.

Her oldest grandchild, TiAnna Hatfield, 16, lives with her mother,
Suzanne Brown, in Bend. Jessica now lives with her father in Arizona.

Goodwin said the arrangement began when they all lived in Montana and
Jessica, then 8, was getting her tonsils removed. Because both parents
worked long hours, Goodwin -- who lived about a half-mile away --
volunteered to take Jessica in while she recovered from the
tonsillectomy.

"It worked out well with everybody," Goodwin said.

Jessica ended up living with her grandmother until she was 12 and
started middle school. Also during that time, the family relocated to
Oregon.

After Jessica moved out of her grandmother's house, Jayna, then 8,
said she wanted to move in, Goodwin said.

Jayna lives in Sisters during the week, when she attends school. On
weekends and holidays, she stays with her mother in Bend.

Goodwin chats on the phone with her daughter every day to tell her
about how Jayna is doing, and they make major decisions together.

"I think grandparents can play an enormous role for our future
generation," Goodwin said.

Choice Vs. Necessity

Terry Dupuy runs Lifespan Respite Care, a Bend-based agency that
coordinates services for those who need parental support and works
with COCOA to help grandparents. She said in about half instances
grandparents pitch in because their children are single parents.

Sometimes, she said, a parent may have to travel elsewhere to find
work but wants to avoid uprooting the children.

For the other half of households headed by grandparents, she said the
parent is unable to care for their children because of mental illness,
substance abuse or alcoholism.

"I hate to make the bogeyman our alcohol or drug problems, but
sometimes that is a big part of it," she said.

Dupuy said methamphetamine use has also created households where
grandparents have had to step in.

Pat Carey, with the state Department of Human Services in Central
Oregon, said many times, grandparents step in before children ever
become wards of the state.

Relatives are often the first people agencies turn to when searching
for foster parents.

She said grandparents head only about 2 to 3 percent of the families
Lifespan serves, but the number is growing.

So far this fiscal year, which began in July 2007, she has worked with
about a dozen families headed by grandparents.

Dupuy said she did not have numbers for the number of families where
grandparents were responsible for their grandchildren in previous
years, because those families were not broken into a separate category
previously.

She said Lifespan generally provides stipends that allow families to
pay for respite care to about 200 families a year, and works with
another 100 to 150 to match them up to respite service providers.

Respite care can be important for grandparents if they are dealing
with children born with special needs, such as those who suffer from
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or are born with drugs in their
bloodstream.

And grandparents might have their own medical issues, or simply may
not have the resilience of youth to keep up with the kids.
Upsides To 'Grandparenting'

But Dupuy said she also feels that grandparents who care for their
grandchildren often excel because they have volunteered for the
responsibility.

She said one retired grandfather she worked with considered raising
his grandchildren a second chance to do better, because he was always
working when his own children grew up.

Dupuy said most of the grandparents who head families are still
working.

But they seem more settled in life, she said, and appear to offer the
stability their grandchildren need.

Goodwin said she feels lucky to be able to take care of her
granddaughter.

"When she comes home from school and walks through that door and talks
nonstop about her day, and I see that smile on her face, that does
it," Goodwin said. "It's just a joy."

Goodwin said she and her daughter, Brown, also believe Sisters is a
safer environment for Jayna, another consideration in their
arrangement.

"If there's a need and the grandparents and parents agree, it's great
that grandparents can give so much life experience and attention," she
said. "I wish everyone would give it some thought."

Dupuy said it's not so different from what families used to do decades
ago, before people became so mobile.

Goodwin said she thinks Jayna benefits from the combination of her
mother's and grandmother's parenting.

She said good communication is the key.

"I'm just here, I'm a benefit and I can give, and we can do it
together," she said of caring for Jayna.

Goodwin said it's sometimes difficult to work within the limits of a
fixed income, but she has found ways to economize.

She said she believes many children would benefit from spending more
time with their grandparents, because most parents work.

"There are times when the kids need their grandparents even more," she
said. "Summer, spring break, and there isn't anyone there."

Goodwin said she believed more families should consider relying on
grandparents if they feel stretched thin.

Jayna, she said, enjoys the arrangement.

"She always wants to go home on the weekend and see Mom and Sis, but
at the end she wants to come and see her friends and Grandma," Goodwin
said. "She loves it here. And so do I."