Grandparents As Parents

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Grandparents as Parents Throughout human history, grandparents have raised the young while parents supplied the basic needs for survival. Parents and grandparent served as a family "team" supporting and nurturing the young. Lately however, the family team has broken apart for many with the result that over the last several decades the numbers of children being raised by grandparents, either solely, or part-time, has been on the increase. So persistent is this situation that no grandparent can exclude the possibility that he or she might be faced with the decision to raise grandchildren, part or full time, at some time in their lives. Here are some statistics that will give you an idea of the extent of the issue. A recent report from the U.S.Census (which only partially reflects the widespread nature of this issue) made the following comparison. In the year 1970, 2,214,000 children under 18 lived in grandparent-headed households, with the mother present in half of these households. By the year 1997, this number was reported as 5,435,000, or 7.7 percent of all children in the United States. The majority of children are being raised by 2 grandparents, or a grandmother alone, with different degrees of parent involvement. Since then, the number has increased substantially. In families that have both grandparents and grandchildren, the grandparents are the head of the house three-quarters of the time. The parents are heads of the household in the remaining one-fourth of the homes. In the former arrangement, half of the families have a grandmother and grandfather present. The rest have a grandmother with no spouse. The majorities are under 65 years of age and employed. Half of the grandchildren are under 6 years of age, and often have neither support nor health insurance. This underlines the financial as well as the emotional burden for grandparents. Although official
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