Clark County (The Evening News)
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C.E. Branham
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The never empty nest
Jeffersonville grandmother is in second round of motherhood
Editor’s note: The phenomenon of grandparents raising their grandchildren in times of need or loss has been a recognized American family tradition since the 19th century. Now, more than 6 percent of the nation’s children reside in grandparent-headed households.
Staff writer Jennifer Rigg and Kelly Kazek, a CNHI News Service Elite Reporting Fellowship recipient, look at the trend and its social ramifications locally and nationally.
As Martha Willoughby watched her youngest daughter fall deeper and deeper into a world of drugs and alcohol and eventually lose her three children to the state of Kentucky, she wondered how she could again be a mother when she believed she had failed the first time.
“My confidence as a parent was shaken, and here I was considering taking on another child,” the 57-year-old grandmother said. “I felt like I had woken up in a nightmare.”
Of her daughter’s three children, Willoughby, who had remained single after a divorce 25 years ago, officially adopted the oldest girl, Whitney, then 10-years-old, now 16.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want her,” she said. “I just didn’t know how I was going to provide for her after all she’d been through.”
In the years she lived with her mother, Whitney had watched her be beaten by an ex-boyfriend and was even beaten herself by the same man. Then she watched as her mother fell victim to a cocaine habit. After her mother failed four attempts at rehabilitation, Whitney and her two brothers became wards of the state of Kentucky. The two boys, Emery, 11, and Avery, 9, were adopted by foster parents. Before coming to live with her grandmother in Jeffersonville, Whitney lived in four foster homes and with an aunt in Louisville.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 4.5 million children now live in grandparent-headed homes in the United States. That's 30 percent higher than a decade ago and translates into 6 percent of the nation's kids. In Indiana, 48,181 grandparents are raising their grandchildren and 16.9 percent of those are considered to be at or below the poverty level.
Social experts call the increase and its ramifications a disturbing trend. They trace it to eight major cultural factors:
• Alcohol and drug abuse.
• Neglect, abuse and desertion.
• Increased poverty.
• Effects of AIDS disease.
• More mothers in prison.
• More single mothers.
• Undetected and untreated mental illness.
• High divorce rates.
Susan Kelley is one of those experts. She's the dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and the founder/director of the National Center on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.
"It's incredible, the number of mothers — especially single mothers - incapacitated by substance abuse, incarceration and mental health issues," said Kelley. "They're a hidden population."
The consequence, she said, is heavier reliance on grandparents to raise their children's children, either voluntarily or through order of the courts. And frequently with little warning or preparation.
Kelley said social history holds that rearing children with blood relatives whenever possible is preferable to putting them up for random adoption or into the foster care system.
Yet this traditional preference, she added, places a not-so-hidden burden on grandparents who are not physically, financially or emotionally ready for the challenges of parenting in the age of the Internet, iPods and instant messaging.
Understanding how grandchildren view and respond to the world around them and how that differs from the time when the grandparents raised their first family requires a support system that’s often not there for them, said Kelley.
This can lead to social isolation characterized by frustration, resentment and even anger, she said.
But thankfully, that isn’t the case for Whitney and Martha Willoughby who say they’re similarities far outweigh their differences as the two spend most of their time devouring historical fiction books, watching movies and listening to a wide variety of music.
“Whitney and I have had a special bond since the moment she was born,” Martha said as the two reached out to touch the other’s hand. “We have so much fun together.”
But while entertaining Whitney isn’t a problem, providing for her financially is a source of worry for Willoughby. The American Association of Retired Persons estimates that about 20 percent of grandparent-headed households in the United States fall below the federal poverty guideline of $20,000 per year for a family of four.
U.S. Census Bureau figures show the percentage of impoverished families varies widely from state to state, with Colorado and New Mexico at the high end with more than 30 percent and New Hampshire and Alaska at the low end at less than 5 percent. And studies by the National Center on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren show that Martha Willoughby, at 57-years-old, represents the average age of the grandparents raising their children’s children, but about 25 percent of them are over 65, the age when Martha planned to retire, a hope that has now been overshadowed by far bigger dreams of sending Whitney to college.
This presents what Kelley described as "unique disadvantages" for seniors who had dreamed of taking it easy after a lifetime of work and worry.
"Some must begin new jobs after retirement in order to bear the increased burden of raising a second generation of children," said Kelley, the center's director. "Others must leave their jobs to provide child care. If they are in public housing for the elderly, they may be evicted because the children are restricted from residing in senior homes."
“I don’t have a lot of hopes now for retirement,” Willoughby said. “All my attention and finances are going to raise Whitney. If she has an interest, I try to find a way to help her pursue it. I may be working for the rest of my life!”
Thankfully, Martha has benefited from special needs adoption assistance granted to her from the state of Kentucky because Whitney is bi-racial. Whitney is also eligible for a Medicaid medical card which relieves Willoughby of paying for the majority of her health care costs.
“The first two years without that assistance were really difficult,” Martha said. “It was a tremendous problem. Most grandparents have not saved enough money to raise their grandchildren.
“But I now consider myself one of the lucky ones,” she continued. “I found out I could get this financial assistance because I was involved in support group at LifeSpan Resources in New Albany. Without them, I would have never have known I could get assistance.”
But while lack of money is often a huge hindrance, it is not the only significant one facing grandparents. Many of the grandchildren they are asked to raise suffer from behavioral and physical problems due to prenatal drug or alcohol exposure, sexual and physical abuse, feelings of abandonment and other mental health issues.
Willoughby even enrolled herself in foster parent classes because she knew Whitney would need special attention.
“I realized I would need more knowledge than a regular parent because she had gone through so many awful things that normal children don’t.”
Experts in the field say there is little support for grandparents trying to cope with the extraordinary stress and anxiety associated with these emotional problems. The result, they say, is another generation at risk.
But Willoughby has high hopes for her granddaughter’s future — and for her own.
“I never questioned that it was God’s will for me to take Whitney even when I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she said. “I just want to finish my job as a parent to Whitney and have more time for my friends and family. My hopes for Whitney is that she will find her purpose, her talents and be the individual she wants to be.”
CNHI News Service contributed to this article
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