Word: grandchildren
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ollie Duggan still has a vision of what grandparenting is supposed to be. In that fantasy, her two grandchildren, Joey and Lorrie, arrive to spend the night at her home in the mountains of Clyde, N.C. She cooks their favorite foods and spoils them with gifts. When they act up, she looks away, knowing her job is to dote, not to discipline. When the children leave, she returns to a life of leisure and travel, earned after raising four children of her own. The dream, says Duggan, 68, is of "a time in my life when I can come...
...mother; within the year, they also dropped off their three-year-old son. The moves were only temporary -- at first. But the children's mother announced that she wanted to live her own life. In 1986 Terry died of a heart attack. With that, Duggan resolved to raise her grandchildren as if they were her own offspring. Now her travel plans have been supplanted by worries about how she will save enough money for her grandson's medical-school education. "Of course, I love the children," she says. "But I've been deprived of my golden years. Why wouldn...
...love their grandkids. And yes, they stand ready to serve as the family National Guard when a crisis arises. But a host of social ills -- from drug abuse and divorce to financial hardship and teenage pregnancy -- have turned many graying citizens into full- or part-time custodians of their grandchildren precisely when they were preparing to ease into retirement and a new independence. Unexpectedly robbed of the "grand" part of grandparenting, many feel angry and resentful. They are also bewildered by their children's choices, which they find in profound violation of their own values...
Even grandparents who have saved for retirement are feeling the pinch. Ollie Duggan adopted her grandchildren so she could draw further on her dead husband's Social Security to defray the costs of child care. "I'm the mother, the grandmother, the granddaddy, the daddy. I'm it all," she says. Peggy Plante, 49, understands that frustration well. Plante quit her job in a Braintree, Mass., real estate office in 1988 to care for a sickly infant granddaughter born to two teenage, drug-abusing parents. "We give up everything," Plante says, "and nobody looks out after...
...support groups like those run by Sylvie de Toledo, a clinical social worker in Long Beach. Her sessions offer members an opportunity to overcome their isolation and vent anger toward their children for failing to accept their parental responsibilities. They also provide an outlet for frustration toward the grandchildren who disrupted comfortable routines. These groups can help navigate issues such as obtaining custody and securing medical care for children...