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You Can't Say No to Blood
When the phone rang in the middle of that ordinary afternoon five years ago, I had no reason to suspect that my life was about to be changed forever. The voice on the line was quavery, frightened. It was my daughter-in-law, Ellen, begging me to come help her and her two-year-old son, Jason. Her husband was in a rage again. He was throwing things. Pulling drawers out of dressers and hurling them. Her husband. My son, Lee. I did what I always did when she called. I stopped whatever I was doing and made the 18-mile drive to their apartment. This was not the first crisis, not by a long shot. I was used to making that drive. Both Lee's mother (my ex-wife, Charlotte) and I were the ones who fixed things up or who cleaned the mess of boiled-over soup on the stove or who simply listened to everyone's troubles and tried to calm down these two young parents. Still, I never thought that I would end up having to take over completely, that at 55 I was about to become the full-time dad of my two-year-old grandson. I wasn't alone. The latest census figures show that 4.5 million children under 18 live in grandparent-headed households. The total is up 30 percent since 1990-even though the total under-18 population increased just 14.3 percent in the same period. And contrary to the stereotype of the poor, inner-city grandmother raising her children's children, the phenomenon now reaches across all economic and ethnic groups.
Common to all of us, though, is the legal gauntlet society has placed in our paths. While the number of grandparents raising grandchildren has grown, the laws regarding custody, adoption, and parental rights remain as they were written decades ago. "Grandparents may be the silent saviors of our families, but in court they have no more standing than a stranger," says Linda Dannison, chair of the Family and Consumer Sciences Department at Western Michigan University. Many grandparents who lack full custody are prevented from approving school enrollments or medical procedures. And although there are eight times as many children in grandparent-headed households as in foster care, foster parents receive all sorts of state support, including money, not available to grandparents caring for their grandchildren. It usually begins with some kind of tragedy. A young parent dies suddenly, or becomes seriously ill, or goes to prison-or most common of all these days, falls to drug or alcohol addiction. The grandchild may be the result of a teenage pregnancy or the victim of child abuse or neglect. In a time of crisis, taking in a grandchild is a biological imperative; it is the sheer inability to say no when one's own flesh and blood is in need. That was certainly true of me and my new wife, Sarah. Even though she isn't Jason's natural grandmother, Sarah did not hesitate for a second about becoming his new mom. Sadly, some grandparents in this position are treated first and foremost as failed parents. Otherwise, so the thinking goes, why would they have to pick up the pieces left by their own children? This silent rebuke can sometimes be felt in the courtroom, at school, and even among friends. "Society often figures that 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,' so what makes you think you can do better with your grandchildren than you did with your children?" says Amy Goyer, coordinator of the AARP Grandparent Information Center. There was a reason why my son's marriage failed and Jason ended up in our care. Both my son and his wife, Ellen, are developmentally disabled. The two met in their late teens at a school for children with special needs. No one in our family was thrilled when Lee and Ellen decided to marry, let alone have children. But by this time they were over 21 and there was little legally that we could do to prevent them from starting a family. They had left school and moved into a little apartment of their own. Ellen found a job at a corporation that recruits disabled workers. Lee took computer classes, but couldn't hold on to the jobs he got. Both, in their desperate desire for independence, refused the medical help and medications that could have helped control the emotional outbursts that undermined their ability as parents. Against our family's gentle and sometimes not so gentle advice, Lee and Ellen had a child—Jason. The morning he was born, as I held him in my arms, I was filled with both joy and dread as I contemplated his future with his parents, and mine as his grandfather. Parenting was difficult for Lee and Ellen. All the grandparents did as much as we could. We helped to manage their money, clean their apartment, take Jason on outings. But there was always hanging over us the threat of something setting off Lee's fury. Now here it was again, another panicked call from Ellen. As I pulled up, she and Jason were sitting on the curb. They got into the car, both in tears, and we drove to the home of Ellen's grandparents, where I left them. I was frankly afraid to confront Lee, who was still raging inside the apartment. Two days later, at 4 a.m., I got a call from my son. His rampage was over. "Dad, I need your help," he said. Back I drove. At the apartment, I found him lying on the floor, sobbing. "I'm so sorry," he kept saying. I took him home with me, and four days later, with his consent, his mother and I checked him into a psychiatric hospital. He finally began taking the proper medication to control his volatility and impulsiveness. But his marriage was irrevocably broken. Over the next two months, little Jason often came to stay for the weekend—or longer—with my wife and me. It was obvious that Ellen was having great difficulty raising him, even with help from her grandparents, who were in their 80s. After a couple of months, shortly before Jason's third birthday, Ellen asked if Sarah and I could take Jason full-time "for a while." We knew that a while could—and should—become a lifetime. And it did. Within a year, we had gone through the complicated set of steps to obtain legal custody of Jason. Five years later, after another internal family struggle, we are on the verge of adopting him. In truth, however, he had long since adopted us: Weeks after moving into our home and becoming the center of our world, Jason had already quit calling me Granddad; now I was Dad. Sarah was Mom. Our lives had changed forever. Two Years Later. . . When you think about it, there's little difference between parenting the first time and the second time around. Certain basics apply. You have to get your child dressed, fed, off to school. You cope as best you can. However, it's a little bit harder in your late 50s. When I tell people about this parenting, I generally relate the funny parts about midnight wake-ups and palling around with thirtysomething parents. But when Jason first came into our home, we were unprepared, to say the least. Our average day felt like a losing battle to keep up with the myriad details. Do we have milk? Where are his mittens? His favorite toy? Then there's the whole physical quality of parenting that one forgets mercifully as soon as it's over—the picking up and putting down, the dressing and undressing, the cleaning and drying. So life is once again a blur of activity, of car seat struggles and feverish trips to the doctor. And calluses on my knees from kneeling beside the tub. Where, I sometimes wonder, are those comfortable routines that I used to take for granted as an empty nester? Such as eating dinner with Sarah—unhurriedly, with candles and maybe a glass of wine. My dinner plans now sometimes involve a quick grab for leftovers from Jason's plate, eaten standing up, in the kitchen, before bath time. One of the common complaints shared by grandparents raising their grandchildren is that they have lost the chance to be plain old grannies and granddads, able to adore, spoil, and teach the little ones-and then escape to their own homes. There's also inevitable damage to the relationship with their children, the grandchildren's parents. As much as Lee may need help, my primary loyalty now has to be to Jason. "You have to change your priorities," says Joan Callander, author of the book Second Time Around: Help for Grandparents Who Raise Their Children's Kids (BookPartners, Inc., 1999). "Your adult child no longer comes first. Your grandchild is first. You are second. Last is your son or daughter." Of course, even chaos has its rhythms. Sarah and I started making friends with parents a generation younger because their kids were Jason's friends in daycare. We do have a social life, even if it consists mainly of arranging play dates to go to the zoo or to a kid-friendly matinee. But on top of everything else, Jason is a little more difficult than most kids. Special needs are, in fact, not uncommon among children who've had chaotic beginnings, and that applies to a high percentage of the children being raised by grandparents. In Jason's case, he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities. His focus bounces from pillar to post, and he can't always function well with other children. Learning life's basics is much more difficult for Jason. Sometimes when he doesn't get his way-and no one quite knows what Jason wants, including Jason-he explodes. One morning it's because his shoelaces aren't the way he likes them. Another day the orange juice doesn't taste right. It's like a two-year-old's tantrum, times five. Then, just as suddenly, the storm is over and he's sunny and radiant. For sustenance, you let those huge rushes of joy and love sweep over you as many times a day as possible. Even at 3 a.m. Five Years Later. . . I'm sitting in the front row on a folding chair with Jason, and he's squirming a bit. For a while, he even disappears to play soccer with the other kids, who have all shed their dress-up clothes and are off in the field, shirttails flying. Then Jason comes back to me and climbs onto my lap and snuggles close. It's just one of those extraordinary moments that I'll savor always, his body pressed against mine, the splendid view, and the family all together in one place on that magical day. The past five years have been chaotic but wonderful. As I write this, our adoption is nearly complete. It's been a long journey, but for all the midnight wake-ups and sore backs and scabby knees, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm blessed with a second chance at parenthood. And by being the deeply loving though very difficult person he is, Jason has enriched my life beyond all expectation. He and I have lots of ups and downs, but there is nothing on this planet to compare to those moments when he climbs into my lap and wraps his little arms around me—and says, "I love you, Daddy." Sander M. Reese is a veteran magazine journalist. In order to ensure privacy, his and other names in this article have been changed. This article was originally published in the January-February 2002 issue of AARP Modern Maturity. |
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