RAISING YOUR CHILD'S CHILDREN

Note: The family profiled in this story lives in Windham County, but the
names of the individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.

In September 1998, Linda took her 9-year-old granddaughter Elizabeth and
7-year-old grandson Philip to a family reunion in Washington, D.C.

She returned to Vermont a few days later and as planned her daughter,
April, a single mother, was waiting at Linda's home to pick up her children.

As Linda and her grandchildren approached the house, April burst out of the
front door, and without greeting or acknowledging her children, blurted out
the words that would change everything: "Mom, you need to help me right
now. I need to get into treatment. I'm an addict, Mom. I'm a heroin addict."

Linda jumped into action. She checked April into a drug rehabilitation
program in New Hampshire and made arrangements to care for Elizabeth and
Phillip until their mother was ready to parent them again.

What Linda didn't know at that moment was that it was the beginning of the
end of April's ability to parent. Linda was about to become one of the
millions of grandparents across the country who raise their children's
children and in doing so enter a complicated web of shifting family
alliances, complex legal questions and endless emotional upheaval.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, between 1990 and 2000 there has
been a 30 percent increase in the number of children living in
grandparent-headed households. During that time, the actual number of
children in the country has risen by only 15 percent.

In 2000, more than 4 million children in the country under the age of 18
were living in households headed by grandparents. Some of those households
include the parents but the majority does not.

Though Vermont has one of the lowest rates of children being raised by
their grandparents -- only Minnesota and North Dakota are lower -- the
state has nonetheless seen a 24 percent increase in the number of children
living in grandparent-head households between 1990 and 2000.

The numbers are high enough to have warranted the first-ever kinship-care
conference in the state, which took place in the spring, and to spur the
formation of a local support group.

While every family has a unique story to tell, studies show that there are
common forces driving the figure upwards: AIDS, divorce, incarceration,
mental and physical illness, abuse and, one of the most common, drug addiction.

Deepening difficulty

When Linda's daughter April entered rehab for the first time in 1998 at the
age of 28, she stayed less than a week. After checking herself out, she
fled to Boston with a man she had met in the program, only to return a
short time later and check back in.

During her second attempt, her insurance ran out and she was asked to
leave. She again went to Boston, this time marrying her new acquaintance,
with whom she resumed her drug habit.

In the meantime, Linda, who was 50 and working full-time as an executive
assistant, scrambled to rearrange her world to accommodate the needs of her
grandchildren. Because they had been living in a neighboring town they had
to switch schools; transportation and after-school care were logistical
puzzles that took endless coordination and schedule changes. Linda, and her
partner of three months, Michelle, took to sleeping in the living room of
the condominium they shared, so the children could each have a bedroom.

Though she was still using drugs, April and her new husband continued to
see the Elizabeth and Phillip, in part because Linda wanted the children to
maintain a relationship with their mother and in part because Linda and
Michelle needed an occasional break.

Elizabeth and Phillip required a lot of energy: both were diagnosed with
attention deficit disorder and had a myriad of emotional problems.
Elizabeth tended to be hyper-vigilant and had trouble sleeping. Phillip, on
the other hand, was full of rage and ready to explode at the slightest
provocation.

Challenges for children

Dr. Neil Senior, a local child psychiatrist, said it's not uncommon for
children who end up in the care of their grandparents to have serious
psychological struggles. They have often suffered what he referred to as a
double-whammy: one parent had probably already left the picture and then
they lose the second.

As a result, he said, children can suffer from depression, anger,
difficulty at school, low self-esteem and anti-social behavior.

The picture is further complicated by the intricate web of family
relationships, where a grandparent may have to harden herself to her own
children in order to protect her grandchildren. Such a decision can invoke
guilt on the part of the grandparent and anger on the part the grandchildren.

It's an impossible balancing act that Linda has struggled to master.

"What you do for your children is pretty unbelievable. I'll go to the ends
of the earth [for April]," said Linda.

But she has also had to set limits with her daughter that have been difficult.

In February 1999, five months after she left her children in her mother's
care, April separated from her husband and returned to Windham County. Her
drug use continued, and she made life increasingly difficult for Linda and
Michelle. Though Linda tried to give her grandchildren a stable home life,
they were often furious at her, believing she was responsible for taking
them away from their mother.

When it became clear that April would neither seek treatment nor leave the
family alone, Linda demanded that she and the children find a place of
their own -- a decision she would later regret.

Over the next year, April made five more attempts to kick her drug habit.
Her stints in rehab sometimes lasted for a couple of days, sometimes only
24 hours.

For a short time, Elizabeth and Phillip again lived with Linda and Michelle
but for the most of that year they lived in the drug-addled world of their
mother, who made it hard for Linda to see the children.

By February 2000, April's brief success in a methadone program crumbled and
the children returned to live with their grandmother.

They have never returned to their mother's care.

Making the best of it

Linda is now 58 and committed to raising Elizabeth, 16, and Phillip, 14,
into adulthood, as is her partner Michelle. They have also taken in April's
third and youngest child, Katie, who was born addicted to heroin and spent
the first month of her life detoxing in the neo-natal unit at
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.

It is not the existence they imagined for themselves when they first met.

"When I came into this, I came from a life that was black and white --
there was no gray," said Michelle, who is in her mid-40s and does not have
children of her own. "Now my life is gray."

While there is joy in raising the children, the grayness, she explained,
comes from trying to navigate the murky waters of so many triangulated and
troubled relationships. She has compassion for April but resents the drain
she has been on Linda and the pain she has inflicted on her own children.

Despite the ups and downs, Michelle has forged a strong bond with the
children. Elizabeth, in fact, said that if it wasn't for Michelle, sheand
her grandmother would have done each other in by now.

Shortly after she first took the children in, Linda's job of 20 years
ended. For a while, she looked for another position until she realized she
already had one: parenting her grandchildren.

Because all three children have their own set of challenges, seeing to
their educational, physiological and social needs is more than a full-time
job. Linda maintains voluminous files just to keep track of it all.

And then there is April.

Despite repeated attempts at rehabilitation, April's drug habit has only
worsened. Since 1998, she has been arrested for the possession of cocaine,
turned to prostitution to support her habit and been infected with
Hepatitis C. At one point, she was living under a porch in Holyoke, Mass.,
and eating from garbage cans.

A couple of years ago, Linda had her committed to rehab against her will
but the day the month-long program ended, April returned to the streets and
began using drugs again.

Several more attempts at getting clean followed but as always the success
was temporary.

"My heart goes out to her. I just feel so sad at the loss of what was once
this beautiful viable life," said Linda of her daughter's troubled existence.

Just this week, April voluntarily checked into a psychiatric ward. Linda no
longer has any hope that her daughter will ever be able to mother her
children again, but she holds onto the possibility of some kind of recovery.

In the meantime, Elizabeth is preparing for a month-long journey overseas
with her school; Phillip has recently taken an interest in lifting weights
that seems to channel much of his volatility and Katie just celebrated her
fourth birthday.