Older generation forced back into parental roles

Tuesday, March 9, 1999 | 11:23 a.m.

At an age when most couples are looking seriously at retirement, Chris and Sherry Palombo have started a second family.

The Las Vegas couple are like hundreds of thousands of other grandparents around the nation who suddenly find themselves rearing their grandchildren.

"We can't go anywhere or do anything, but it's fine," Sherry Palombo, 54, said. "We're a team, and close -- best friends.

"We're starting all over."

Chris, 50, adopted Sherry's two children 28 years ago, and now he has joined her in adopting three grandchildren, ages 8, 12 and 13.

It was a three-year battle, but the adoptions were finalized in May.

"The kids were so scared, insecure for so long," Sherry Palombo said. "They suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, but they're all pretty normal now."

The incidence of grandparents rearing their grandchildren is increasing at an alarming rate.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 4 million children in 1998 -- or 5.6 percent of the population under 18 -- were growing up in households headed by their grandparents. For 1.4 million of them, the grandparents were the only parents in the house.

That's a growth of 53 percent since 1990, Census Bureau figures show. And those numbers may not reflect current reality, say organizations that help grandparents who raise their grandchildren.

"We won't be able to get an accurate figure until after year 2000," said Ethel Dunn, an official with the National Coalition of Grandparents, a nonprofit organization based in Madison, Wis. "The 2000 Census was modified to ask specifically if you are a grandparent raising your grandchild. After that, we will have more specific numbers. I would say it is increasing."

The coming census will also give a better idea of how widespread the situation is in Southern Nevada. Currently no one in Nevada tracks the number of households headed by grandparents and the issues surrounding those households.

"I haven't seen any area studies," said Judy Poteet, a counselor at Robert Taylor Elementary School in Henderson, "but my guess is Las Vegas is at the average or even above average because of the nature of the town."

Poteet will lead an hourlong seminar, "Rearing your Grandchildren," at 7 p.m. tonight at the Southeast Area Service Center, 12 Commerce Center Drive, Henderson.

She knows the problem well. For a couple of years, her newly divorced daughter and grandchildren lived with her.

"I was one of the lucky grandparents," she said. "My daughter moved in in the middle of a divorce with her children. But now she's living independently. Many grandparents are not that lucky."

Grandparents who take on their grandchildren have many issues to face, Poteet, 55, said: loss of their freedom, trauma the children may have suffered before moving in, responsibilities that come with rearing children.

"The grandparents are not only dealing with their own change in life from grandparent to parent, but on top of that the child needs counseling," Poteet said. "They need caring and nurturing above and beyond, depending on what's brought them into that situation."

More than 80 percent of the time, the problem is drugs, said Rosalie Cauley, director of Grandparents as Parents, an organization based in Lakewood, Calif.

"Substance abuse causes so many of the problems," Cauley said. "It leads to (physical and mental) abuse, incarceration, to the death of the parent."

Grandparents deal not only with the psychological and emotional problems of the children who come to live with them, she said, but they must also do things younger parents do -- trips to Disneyland, rides on a wagon train, hiking, camping.

And there are the inevitable financial problems -- legal bills, medical bills, food, clothing -- that can be especially severe if the grandparent has already retired and is on a fixed income.

Cauley said she knows of one case in which a grandparent was forced to move out of a retirement home after taking in a grandchild.

There have been cases of grandparents more than 80 years old rearing infant great-grandchildren.

"It depletes any savings they may have," Cauley, who rescued one of her own grandchildren, said.

Margaret Hoolidge, direct of the Grandparent Information Center, operated by the American Association of Retired Persons, says she spent five years as member of a three-generation household.

"It's hard," she said. "I couldn't even provide my grandson with medical coverage."

Today, many grandparents qualify for medical assistance for their grandchildren through Medicaid. Those who think their income is at a low-enough level that they may qualify for state assistance -- medical help, food stamps or financial aid from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families -- should contact their local welfare office.

Gina Levou, for example, gets $289 a month for the care of her two grandchildren, and the children are eligible for Medicaid.

In addition to medical coverage, grandparents have to deal with issues they haven't had to deal with for a long time -- immunizations, health check-ups, child-proofing a home, school enrollment.

Luckily, the Clark County School District does not throw obstacles in the paths of grandparents rearing their grandchildren as school districts in some parts of the country do. The school needs only a notarized statement of guardianship from the court.

"Anyone who is a legal custodian of the child has the same rights as parents," Willis said. "It's not as involved as in some states."

Teachers generally aren't aware if a student is being reared by a grandparent, he said.

But the grandparents doing the child-rearing are acutely aware of the burden, and about 630 grandparent support groups around the country can help them with it, according to Hoolidge -- a clear indication of the problem's growth.

"What you're seeing here is all the pressure of society since the '70s," Hoolidge said. "The increases in divorce and substance abuse -- all those pressures."

And it affects all classes of people. "It cuts across all social lines," she said. "It cuts across all races, all income levels, all levels of education."

It affects Southern black sharecroppers, Mormons in Utah and even the Amish in Pennsylvania, according to Dunn of the National Coalition of Grandparents.

"It's a problem that strikes everywhere," Dunn said. "It's not just an ethnic problem or an economic problem. Highly paid psychiatrists, surgeons, lawyers -- you name it."

A common decision most grandparents must make is the depth of their involvement -- whether they will become temporary caregivers, guardians, foster parents or adoptive parents, which can be a long, costly battle.

The decision is an emotional one.

"For grandparents as caregivers, a lot of the problem is in the emotional, psychological realm," Hoolidge said. "Usually the grandparent is not dying to raise the child. Something goes on that affects the middle generation. Something goes wrong and the grandparents step into the gap.

"The children have suffered a loss, and the grandparents have also suffered a loss. Sometimes there is a feeling of guilt: My God, what did I do wrong in raising my child that it has come to this?

"For a lot of grandparents, they would like their children to be good parents. They don't want to run in and adopt. But problems sometimes arise if they don't have legal custody, such as school enrollment or getting into the children's medical records."

If grandparents adopt, they may lose certain welfare benefits for the child, such as medical care and food stamps, not to mention possible alienation from their own children. So for many grandparents the decision is simply to be appointed guardian or foster parent.

Dunn said most don't adopt.

"It's very difficult," she said. "You've got to have termination of parental rights before you can adopt, and in many cases there is no reason to terminate other than the parents are never around. They haven't abandoned the children. They have left them with the grandparents. You can't accuse them of abandoning them."

Basically, she said, parental rights can be terminated for abuse, neglect or abandonment.

"But then, the grandparents are wary of adopting and in some instances can't adopt because of their age or don't want to adopt, if they are older, because they don't feel it's a good idea. By time little Johnny is 14, they're going to be 83 and not able to cope.

"Besides, most of the grandparents live with the hope their adult children will shape up and come back and be responsible parents."

Sherry Palombo is glad she adopted her three grandchildren, giving them a sense of permanence and belonging. "I have never regretted it," she said. "Everybody's put on Earth for a purpose."

A prolonged battle to rescue their three grandchildren from an abusive situation almost cost them their home.

However, the anger and resentment they feel is not at their children but at the legal system. "The laws have to be changed. The court system says everything is supposed to be in the best interest of the child, but that isn't true. The courts are abusive to the children."

Levou, 48, agrees.

She and Palombo started a grandparents support group at Community Lutheran Church more than two years ago. The group meets the second Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

Levou said the court system doesn't give enough credit or respect to grandparents, who often must make extraordinary sacrifices to rescue their grandchildren.

The courts, she complains, think nothing of taking children away from a grandparent who has provided a safe, nurturing environment and returning them to an abusive parent where they will suffer further physical and mental trauma.

"Once you've changed your whole life, gone through everything -- counselors, doctors, teachers, the court system ... it's as if it was expected you would do this," she said.

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