Rob and I spent the best part of a week recently stepping in as ‘Loco parentis’ for two grandchildren whose parents were required elsewhere by employers for a week.
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We thoroughly enjoyed our few days caring for two delightful grandchildren, but at the end of the week we could give them a hug and farewell them.
Many grandparents fill in on a part-time, casual basis regularly, but that is a different situation to the demands placed on full-time grandparenting.
It was during that week that I became aware of the challenge that some grandparents are forced to confront, that of raising their grandchildren on a full-time basis. “Family breakdowns, drugs, imprisonment all lead to the care of the most vulnerable falling on the shoulders of the elderly.” (Choahan, 2016). Suddenly grandparents become the primary carers. Many of these children have physical, emotional and behavioural problems and have often been subjected to abuse and neglect by their own parents. This makes it doubly challenging for grandparents.
Financially and legally it is a nightmare. A recent report in Australia, completed by Grandparents Victoria and Kinship director Anne McLeish, identified two major points – that kinship carers make an enormous difference to the lives of children, and secondly, that the role was difficult, underappreciated and under-funded. These families had become so dysfunctional, as the result of a family crisis, that Centrelink had to step in and search desperately for, preferably, a kinship connection to the family.
Suddenly the plans and dreams of grandparents who were planning a holiday, downsizing their family home, or surviving on a pension fly out the door. If children are at risk most grandparents will put up their hands to step in. An ABS census in 2011 showed there were 47,000 ‘grandparent families’ in Australia, with an absence of parent-child relationships. That report is now six-years-old, so clearly there would be many more now.
Imagine what that means on a day-to-day basis? It means taking on responsibilities of parenting when you are most likely already over 60 years of age, and energy levels are not what they were in your 30s.
I spoke with a grandparent at my granddaughter’s kindergarten. She and her husband were the prime carers for a little boy. His mother was their daughter. They had no idea where she was except that she was a drug addict and his father had died of an overdose. This remarkable strong woman epitomised to me the strength and courage of all grandparents in a similar situation. This woman said to me quietly: “We had booked our first trip ever abroad, but when the call came from Centrelink we cancelled everything. No regrets.”
That young man is now in secondary school and his life is safe and secure. He is loved, he is your average teenager.
What I fail to understand or accept is that a Senate inquiry in 2013 set out 18 recommendations to improve issues around caring for these children. Only one of those recommendations has been introduced. Meanwhile, grandparents need financial, emotional and physical support to care for these vulnerable young people but despite the Senate inquiry nothing is forthcoming.
Grandparents who raise their grandchildren full-time deserve generous government support. It demands a large injection of money to support these vulnerable children. We can only admire the courage and commitment of these amazing grandparents.
ANNIE YOUNG