BoomerGirl Diary

Wichita, Kan. — It was two years ago that Pat Stowell got the call from Kelly Elementary School that roused her to anger and lifted her to exhilaration. She ran to the car, zoomed to her daughter's home, and found her five grandchildren bewildered and in need of care. Heartsick but decisive, Stowell scooped them into her arms.

In the following months, as her daughter struggled with drug abuse, Stowell joined a quickly growing demographic. She won legal custody, tapped into her savings and became one of the 2.4 million grandparents in the United States who are raising a second generation of kids.

Stowell gave up her retirement to give her grandkids a start, a move that invigorated her but stretched her emotions and finances to the limit.

"I'm old-school," Stowell said. "From the moment this started, I said the kids needed me and that nothing I had planned really mattered anymore."

As young adults go to jail or rehab; slip deeper into the abuse of methamphetamine, alcohol or crack; become incapacitated because of car crashes, industrial accidents or war injuries; or are lost to serious mental illness, many older adults with limited money and diminished energy are changing diapers again, setting rules, sometimes skewing their relationships with each other and their grandchildren.

It's not all bad or depressing. Maggie Biscarr, a national program consultant in grandparenting for AARP, said her organization hears from grandparents who sound reborn.

"They say it keeps them young, gives them a second lease on life. They go from drifting through retirement to discovering computers, going to the park and learning from their grandkids about the latest fashions. Sometimes it works out well and they rediscover life."

But there are many other grim stories. The strain of "second parenthood," as some people call it, has threatened health, marriages and finances.

"They go suddenly from getting to spoil a kid to changing diapers, enforcing rules, making them do homework," Biscarr said. "It changes the relationship. That's a loss, for both kids and grandparents. Or, instead of going places with friends, they are going back to work. They are going to soccer games. They encounter legal battles for custody that they can't afford, and lawyers often won't take those cases."

Last year Kansas created a program to give money to those who meet financial qualifications and who have full custody of their grandchildren. But only a few dozen people get that assistance in Sedgwick County, making state officials wonder whether people realize the help is there.

"There are likely more grandparents in the community who aren't aware of the service but could benefit," said Jean Hogan, Wichita regional director of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. "If they are not eligible for the Grandparents as Caregivers Program, then they could be eligible to receive Temporary Assistance to Families."

SRS has only 24 open Grandparents as Caregiver cases in Sedgwick County, serving 60 children.

Statewide, SRS has 108 open cases, serving 228 children.

Second parenthood began to increase so much in the 1990s that the U.S. Census Bureau added a question about it in the 2000 survey, said Biscarr, the AARP grandparenting consultant.

In the past, some people didn't like the idea of grandparents taking over. There are still some social workers who believe it might be a bad idea.

"We heard this a lot," Biscarr said. "Why should they raise these grandchildren, when their own children went into drugs?"

AARP doesn't hear that nearly as much now, as people have learned more about drug demographics.

"That was a terribly unfair thing to think," Biscarr said. "When we hear people say that, we tell them that it's possible now for one good family to have two kids who are doctors and lawyers, and one kid who got into drug abuse. It's usually not the parents' fault.

"A lot of grandparents are great parents, in part because they've done it before, and because many of them didn't have anything when they had their first child."

Stowell, with her job as a school bus dispatcher, is not one of the disabled poor, so she counts herself lucky. But even with her job and with the new assistance from the state, she is feeding, clothing and schooling five children on about $26,000 a year. She has no idea how she will survive into retirement - whatever retirement means now. When her youngest grandchild turns 18 in 15 years, Stowell will be 69.

She has decided to remain single, with no man to either help her or complicate her household.

"It was a simple decision," she said. "Nobody else would love these kids like I do, so all other things just went by the wayside, every other thought just fell away. I decided to remain single, and save every dollar, and cook every meal from scratch.

"They needed me."