Posted on 04/05/2004 5:32:48 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Parenting a second generation Drug use, mental health problems often force grandparents to step in
By Ilene Olson rep3@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Terry Kenny's days have been full since the children came.
She spends much of her time doing laundry, feeding the baby, picking up toys, reading stories, trying to keep up with the kids and driving them to and from school and appointments.
That was something she expected when her own children were small. But it came as a big surprise the second time around, when she and her husband Tim became the foster parents of two of their grandchildren.
That happened in late December 2002, shortly after the birth of their grandson, now 15 months old. That was when the Kennys first realized the children's mother had a drug problem.
"The baby tested positive for methamphetamine," Terry Kenny said. "I made eight hours of calls just about the whole situation. I had no inkling that she had ever used a drug."
A few days later, three children - their son's 4-year-old daughter and her older half-brother and half-sister - came to live in the Kennys' home. They had lice, and two of the children were ill with strep throat. Because of those and other health concerns the baby was put in a foster home for specialized care.
Rose Kor, director of Prevent Child Abuse Wyoming, said Census figures show Wyoming and Oklahoma are tied for the highest per-capita ratio of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.
"There are a lot of folks in that this-is-a-shock kind of situation," she said. "People, when they thought they were done raising children, are now raising children again. There's a lot of energy and time and changes as they make the transition back into the parenting mode."
Rodger McDaniel, director of the Wyoming Department of Family Services, said drug and alcohol abuse and untreated mental health issues frequently are factors when grandparents are thrown into the role of parenting their grandchildren.
"I think there's an obvious relationship between those things and a financial and an emotional ability to raise children," he said.
Zaffer Sharif, Family Services social services consultant, said that agency works to place children with relatives when their parents cannot care for them properly.
"Definitely, if a youth does come into the system through abuse or neglect, our first priority is to find a relative or a kin," he said. "Studies show that children do better when they're living with kin. They have less mental health issues and a better graduation rate from high school."
Sharif said the number of intakes in the system in Wyoming has risen significantly over the past year or so.
"Our big issue has been lately the meth use," he said. "It's been really, really tough around the state."
When it rains, it pours
For the Kennys, taking the children into their home was the beginning of an emotional and physical rollercoaster. On New Year's Eve 2002, officials from Family Services took the children to another foster home while they conducted a study of the Kennys' home.
"I still remember that day,"Kenny said. "They were very kind, but it was very traumatic."
Two weeks later, Kenny's younger sister died unexpectedly. Three weeks after that, Tim's brother passed away. Since the three children rejoined the Kennys the day after Kenny's sister's funeral, there was no time to grieve.
"It was just like every trouble and heartache that could happen did," Kenny said. "I couldn't cry the river. I could not express from my soul what it has been like to go through this."
In June, the two older children's biological father took them to live with him. The baby joined the Kennys this past January.
Shortly thereafter the baby contracted RSV, a deadly virus that attacks babies' lungs. He also has had repeated ear infections.
While caring for sick children, Kenny often had no time to care for herself.
"I would call it a good day when I could comb my hair and brush my teeth," she said. "I like to have my hair and my nails done. Everything that I used to consider normal care of myself I've had to put on the back burner. I have cried when I couldn't do my laundry or my dishes.
"My husband is helpful, but he is often out of town with his railroad job. I can't depend on him being here."
Before the children came to live with them, Kenny worked out daily.
"I had my own life. I was in top physical condition. This has (been) a terrible physical and psychological stress. You don't have the strength and the stamina you did when you were a young mother."
Outside of the physical and emotional strain, falling back into the role of parent has come fairly naturally, Kenny said.
"It's sort of like riding a bike," she said. "It's all still there."
Grandchildren come first
In another Cheyenne home, Jim and Ann Bowles also are readjusting their routines around the needs of the three grandchildren who came to live with them around Thanksgiving last year. Family Services asked them if they would be willing to take the children, now ages 6, 5 and 16 months, and provide them with a safe environment they did not have in their own home.
"It was tough," Ann Bowles said. "My mother was down on her back and we were helping her."
The Bowles now have temporary guardianship of the children after Family Services officials found they were neglected.
"Long-term, we really don't know," she said. "It depends on how the parents do. This is the third time this has happened. The first time it was for two weeks. The second time it was eight weeks. This time is going to be longer, because it's got to be taken care of."
Bowles said she is thankful there are no drug or alcohol problems in their situation.
"That's in their favor," she said. "(But) I really don't know what the problem is."
Like Kenny, the Bowles are finding it difficult to keep up with their grandchildren.
"The boys are typical boys," Ann Bowles said. "They're just a handful. And the baby has got Grandma wrapped around her finger.
"I don't think parents are supposed to raise their grandchildren," she said. "We don't have the energy we had when we were younger. This is our time, when we would like to take off for a weekend. But when you've got children living with you, they come first."
Bills begin to add up
The Bowles face economic challenges as well. Jim Bowles is medically disabled, and Ann Bowles decided to take accounting classes at Laramie County Community College in September after her boss retired and sold his business. That was before she knew she also would be caring for three children.
"We have day care," she said. "The state helps us. DFS helps with the children's upkeep. It really would be tough to do it ourselves."
Part of that strain has come from dealing with the children's health problems.
"We've been dealing with illnesses for the past month and a half," Jim Bowles said. "It's been a rollercoaster ride."
The Bowles said they are thankful to have the emotional and physical support of other family members. Their 19-year-old daughter lives at home and helps with the children. In addition, their oldest son, the children's uncle, is planning to move back to Cheyenne.
"I think one reason our son is moving back from Idaho is to help us with the kids," Ann Bowles said. "He hasn't said it, but I think it is. The kids love their 'Bubba Unc.'"
Jim Bowles said he enjoys having his grandchildren around.
"I'm a family-oriented person. I don't like being too far away from them. The boys are pretty good, and this one here," he said, referring lovingly to the crying toddler in his lap, "she's just mad at me right now because I'm not paying attention to her."
Still, Jim Bowles said he'd prefer to be playing the part of grandpa instead of substitute father.
"It's been rough, but I guess it's not so bad," he said. "There's been worse things in my life, but I can't think of any that have been such a strain."
Dealing with stress
Carolyn Yeaman, Laramie County district manager for Family Services, said stress for grandparents who are filling parental roles comes from a variety of sources.
Those include generational gaps, financial gaps and legal issues, the need for emotional support and other seemingly simple things.
Transportation sometimes is an issue, with grandparents struggling to get children to and from counseling appointments, Head Start or day care, school and other activities or programs.
"Day care is certainly a challenge for grandparents," she said. "A lot of our grandparents are working. We can help with that."
The department also has a legal aid service to represent families and help them with custody, guardianship and other legal issues.
When grandparents take over the care of grandchildren, that can become a source of strain between them and the children's parents.
"The relationship between parents and grandparents can sometimes be very stressed and sometimes severed as a result," she said.
For example, in some instances of drug addiction, the court orders parents to have no contact with their children.
"It's extremely difficult when you have to tell your child they cannot see their child," Yeaman said. "I think that's when the mental health (service) is especially essential."
Respite care for grandparents also is important, she said. Other family members can help by taking the children for a while to give the grandparents time off.
Sharif said some grandparents are raising their grandchildren without help from Family Services or other agencies.
Kor said many people are not aware that money for respite care is available for grandparents through senior citizen centers.
"Typically we think of that as (money for) a spouse caring for a spouse with Alzheimer's or some medical condition," she said. "But it can be used for grandparents caring for grandchildren."
Kor said Prevent Child Abuse Wyoming is organizing special "Circle of Parents" support groups for grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren. The groups are expected to start in May.
"We're gathering potential participants in Cheyenne," she said.
Zaffer said Family Services officials hope to broaden kinship care services between that agency and other groups and organizations to provide more support and networking. That would reduce confusion and increase awareness of resources "so people don't have to go from office to office trying to find services that might be available to them.
"The more resources these children have, the better off they are. If we can get the kins and relatives coming forward . I think children are going to be better off in the long run."
While Kenny said Family Services has provided valuable services to help her family, the system also has been difficult to work with.
"What I've had to sort through," she said. "How does the court work? How does DFS work? What are the rules? I stay after issues with a tenacity now. I found I just couldn't let anything drop or it wouldn't happen.
"I'm always having to explain and justify myself to everyone," she added. "I have a lot of anger about that. My motivation to do this is the love and care of my grandkids."
Watching them grow and become healthier is its own reward, Kenny said.
Why they do it
When her 4-year-old granddaughter came to live with them she weighed only 37 pounds, despite the fact she is tall for her age. She had poor muscle tone and became ill easily.
Now at 6 years old, she weighs 50 pounds.
"She's so confident now," Kenny said. "It took a long time to get that stability and nutrition."
While Kenny said she has thought about pursuing legal guardianship of the children, she also wants to keep the children's parents involved in their lives. Their mother visits them on weekends; their father, the Kennys' son, spends days off with them and is paying child support for them through the state.
"He is working to get on his own feet," Kenny said. "The place he's living, he's not comfortable with having the children there."
Kenny said it would be easy to give into anger over the situation.
"That's messy and painful. I don't feel I can afford that. I have to work beyond that and make it best for the kids psychologically.
"I think these parents will grow and change," she added. "I want my grandchildren to have their mother's love. I am afforded an opportunity here to maintain their care, and I do - like a tiger. I see this as something we can grow and heal through and I'm praying for that."
Kenny stressed that family therapy, provided by a therapist who contracts with Family Services, is a key ingredient to that eventual success.
"The only way I would do it is if we worked with a family therapist," she said. "That has been the salvation of me doing this job. That is the singular greatest thing that has happened in this."
As difficult as it's been, Kenny said she's grown through the experiences of the past 15 months.
"I feel like I'm coming out of the most difficult period of my life," she said. Still, "I consider it a privilege to be able to see my grandchildren have excellent care."
Ann Bowles also said things are getting easier.
"Everything is just kind of molding together," she said. "Maybe we're getting stronger. I'm not sure which it is."
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Law enforcement doesn't work with terrorists and it won't work with people who have f^&*ked up their brain chemistry either.
Or any others that I can think of.
'Cause they did such a good job with their first set of children...
No, that isn't always the case. I work with a man that is one of the finest human beings I will ever have the privilege to know. Of three children, two are normal, responsible adults. One daughter, however, got mixed up with the wrong crowd and drugs early on.....and has been an absolute mess for 20 years. The parents did everything, tough love, called the cops on her, counselling, everything. They ended up getting custody of, and raising her daughter to adulthood. (And she is a wonderful girl.)
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
And you are a compassionate conservative how?
Although I should have excluded mental illness as a basis for criticizing the quality of these grandparent's prior work, I will stand by the general premise for the case of drug abuse by the child. There is no better measure of a parent's ability as a parent than the well being and success of their grown children. Even one failure among three is still a poor track record. In the first example in the article, the grandparents were described as foster parents, and as such, were probably receiving financial assistance from the government for the care of their own grandchildren. Although I am in favor of keeping families together to the greatest extent possible, having the state subsidize these grandparent's questionable influence on yet another generation may be ill advised. A second, greater reservation against this type of situation is specifically when the grandparent seeks custody against the wishes of the parent. This sort of situation is becoming increasingly common and represents a threat to the family unit and to the future well being of the grandchildren. Having the grandchildren and parents together living voluntarily with the grandparent would greatly mitigate these concerns.
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