Future Reflections Winter/Spring 2000, Vol. 19 No. 1
Grandparents
Fill the Gap
Editor�s Note: Pat and Jerry Jones are dedicated leaders in the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. Pat has served on the National Board and is president of the Tennessee Valley Parents of Blind Children. Both Pat and Jerry have assisted with national parent leadership training conferences�and they aren�t even parents of a blind child! So, why are they so involved in the organization? Here�s their inspiring story as reprinted from The Chattanooga Times, October 16, 1998.
Pat Jones is no different from anyone else rearing
11-year-old twin girls.
She divides her time between shuttling April and
Amanda to horseback riding lessons and church choir rehearsals. Mrs. Jones is
active in the PTA, lends a hand on school picture day and bakes for school fund
raisers.
Mrs. Jones and her husband, Frank, reach across a
generation to care for the girls, who were born blind. The grandparents have
been the primary caretakers for the twins since they were first-graders.
�People think the stress level is because they are
blind, but the stress is the twin part,� she said with a laugh. �The parents
that had the seven kids I don�t envy at all.�
The Joneses are being swept along in one of America�s
most pronounced demographic trends. According to a recent U.S. Census survey,
there are 3.9 million children in America living in a grandparent-headed
household. Of that number, 1.4 million of the children do not have a parent
present, leaving the grandparents with full responsibility.
Pat Jones (right) hands out
clean laundry to be put away by her twin granddaughters, Amanda (left) and
April. The laundry isn�t from� a visit.
The girls, who are in the seventh grade at Oolatewah Middle School, have been
living with their grandparents for six years.
Over the last 25 years, the number of children being
raised by someone other than parents has increased at an alarming rate. The
spike is due, in part, to drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, teen-age parenting,
incarceration, death of a parent, violence, HIV/AIDS, or the parents being
physically or mentally unable to care for the child.
Communities across the United States have scrambled to
respond to the growing needs of grandparents raising their grandchildren. The
Association for the Advancement for Retired People made the issue a priority
when it established the Grandparent Information Center, which is aimed at
helping grandparents raise their grandchildren.
According to the Grandparent Information Center, the
majority of grandparents raising grandchildren assumed the primary care giving
role because of substance abuse by the parents (44 percent). Next was child
abuse, neglect or abandonment (28 percent) followed by teen-age pregnancy or
the parent being unable to handle the children (11 percent).
Donna McConnico of Family and Children�s Services of
Chattanooga said the counseling center is handling more and more cases of
grandparents raising their grandchildren. The center offers counseling and
parenting classes for grandparents.
Ms. McConnico, the counseling center�s clinical
coordinator, said parenting classes acquaint grandparents with new parenting
techniques such as using time-outs instead of spankings as a punishment. She
said the center also teaches grandparents how to communicate better with
teachers and principals.
�Discipline is a major concern for grandparents,� she
said. �It�s difficult for them to move out of the more permissive
grandparenting role into the new parenting role. We help them learn to say no.�
Ms. McConnico said most grandparents express
exhaustion over the change in their lifestyle and feel a loss of freedom. Many
of the grandparents said they thought the child-rearing part of their lives would
be over once they reached their 50s.
�But they don�t really question why they are doing it
or get angry at their grandkids,� she said. �If anything, they get angry at
their own children for being irresponsible.�
Senior Neighbors of Chattanooga Inc. is making an
effort to reach out to parenting grandparents. The program received a seed
grant for $10,000 this year to expand services to grandparents or other
relatives who have become surrogate parents.
Joyce E. Drew of Senior Neighbors said they fret over practical
problems. They wonder about financial support, who can legally enroll the child
in school, or who will take them to doctors� visits.
One grandmother asked how to get counseling for her
grandchildren, and another wanted to learn about mentoring programs so her
grandson could have a positive male role model. One grandparent wanted
after-school tutoring for her grandchild. Ms. Drew said many local
organizations including the Boys Club and Girl Scouts are helping Senior
Neighbors fill these needs.
Ms. Drew said it surprised her how little the
grandparents asked for once they discovered a few of the options open to them.
Although many of the grandparents she spoke to were on fixed incomes, very few
complained about the financial or emotional strain the new situation caused for
them.
The grandparents instead wanted to know how they could
make their existing situation better for their grandchildren.
As for Pat and Frank Jones, they had just put the last
of their five children through school when the twins� mother moved back into
their house with her four children.
Pat Jones grocery shops with
the two 11-year-old girls.
Eventually the twins� mother moved out with the two
youngest children but left the twins with the Joneses so the twins wouldn�t
have to change schools.
Mrs. Jones said the decision to raise them fulltime
was not taken lightly.
�It was really hard at first,� she said. �We had to
think about and pray about it for a long time. We kept asking ourselves if we
were doing the right thing and if this is what we wanted for them and for us.�
But once the decision was made, the Joneses never
looked back. They renovated their house and became active in support groups for
parents raising blind children. They pored over books, searched the Internet,
and talked to people to learn the options and resources available to them.
Now six years after the twins first entered her life
and three years after she and her husband gained full custody of them, Mrs.
Jones beams when she talks about �her girls.�����
��The girls
have taught me so much,� she said. �They taught me how to listen and how not to
take things for granted. Now I take the time to really look at things, even if
it is just a crack in the sidewalk.�
As a stay-at-home grandma, Mrs. Jones said she has
more time to be actively involved with them. Yet, neither she nor her husband
are trying to take the place of the girls� parents.
�As grandparents we can love them as much as parents
can, but we haven�t tried to make them feel like we are the parents,� she said.
�We tell them they have a mom and dad, but we are their grandparents, and we
always will be.���