GRANDPARENTS ACT AS GRANDKIDS' CAREGIVERS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of grandparents are acting as primary caregiver
to their grandchildren, often because their own sons and daughters are in
jail or on drugs.

A Census Bureau report released Thursday found that more than one-third of
the 2.4 million grandparents who are primary caregivers to a grandchild
lived in a home without the grandchild's parents.

The report, which looked at data from the 2000 census in greater detail, did
not include reasons for that dynamic.

Some grandparents do it because the parents have died, while other parents
may be ill, said Sandra Horton, 59, of Lockhart, Texas, who runs a
grandparent support group and cares for her 12-year-old granddaughter.

But more often than not, it is because a parent is involved with drugs or
alcohol, advocacy groups say. Horton called it the ``primary, underlying,
number one reason.''

These caregiving grandparents typically have not reached retirement age - 64
percent are between age 40 and 59 - so they often find themselves juggling
parenting and work.

Data released last year by the bureau showed that the 2.4 million
grandparents were responsible for ``most of the basic needs'' of a
grandchild in the home. That is 42 percent of the 5.8 million grandparents
living with a grandchild.

In other homes, grandparents may not be the designated main caregiver, but
may be helping a single, teenage mother, or may simply be baby-sitting the
kids after school, said Amy Goyer of the Grandparents Information Center at
AARP, the nation's largest advocacy group for older Americans.

Horton said she took in granddaughter, Marissa, because the girl's parents
have had drug problems and run-ins with the law. Horton works several
part-time jobs to make ends meet.

Horton wants Congress to change guidelines for many existing public
assistance programs that make aid available to poor ``traditional'' families
or foster parents, but not custodial grandparents. ``Grandparents need
respect and recognition for the jobs they do,'' she said.

According to Goyer, some public aid is available for caregiving
grandparents, such as a program through the Health and Human Services
Department's Administration on Aging. But it is limited to people 60 and
older.

The new census report found that grandparents serving as primary caregivers
for their grandchildren are more apt to need help - 19 percent live in
poverty, compared with 14 percent of all families with children.

Congress first took interest in the plight of grandparents as caregivers
while reforming the nation's welfare system in 1996. But because little
government data existed on the issue, lawmakers ordered the Census Bureau to
ask about it for the first time in 2000.

Since then, legislation that would aid grandparents has been introduced in
Congress. A bill approved this week by a Senate committee helps caregiving
grandparents pay for housing, while a second bill would allow states to use
federal funds to support subsidized guardianship payments to grandparents
and other relatives.

``Those that need financial support deserve financial support to keep their
families together and that's something that policy-makers have not dealt
with yet,'' said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United,
which advocates for families in which elderly and young people live
together.

The report also found that grandparents living with their grandchildren were
more likely to serve as caregivers in black and American Indian families
than other race or ethnicity groups.

There may be stronger cultural ties to grandparenting roles in those
populations and those groups tend to make less money and are more apt to
have several generations living in the same home, said Roderick Harrison, a
demographer with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which
looks at issues concerning minorities.

The grandparenting data in 2000 comes from three questions asked on the
``long-form'' questionnaire distributed to one in six households.

On the Net:

Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/multimedia/grandparents.html