Older relatives answer need, step in as later-in-life parents

Forget the data and the family experts who say millions more American grandparents – along with lots of other older relatives – soon will be rearing young humans who aren’t their biological children.

About 1 in 9 children already live in households with grandparents or some other relative who aren’t their biological parents, according to the last census count. The roles of those older and younger relations range from full-time caretaker to casual observer, so it’s not clear exactly how many grandparents are actually raising grandkids. But whatever that number is, several factors – some good, some bad, some simply about demographic change – suggest it’s going to jump in a big way over the next two to three decades.

Still, when it comes to explaining what that actually means for the kids and the stand-in parents, cold numbers tell only part of the story. A more complete version might come from warm, funny – but, hey, no pushover – Bob Ruble.

He’s 64 now, still living in Buena Park and still running the electrical contracting business he’s had for decades. But in 2002 Ruble and his then wife were in their early 40s, living in Orange County as a childless, relatively carefree couple. They traveled a lot. They went out to dinner whenever they wanted. They partied with friends. And they gave zero thought to raising children.

“We never really talked about kids or got into it,” Ruble said. “And I had no parenting skills, other than the way I was raised, which wasn’t very good.”

Then came Kindra.

She was 8 at the time, the child of Ruble’s drug-addicted sister and a father who Ruble said was already out of the picture.

On the day of Kindra’s arrival, her biological mother was scheduled to start a jail sentence for drug possession and, among other things, child endangerment. Ruble said other relatives were either addicted or otherwise unable to care for Kindra, and Orange County child welfare officials told Ruble that he was Kindra’s last option before she’d be placed in full-time foster care.

“Just to kind of clarify, I didn’t really know my niece,” Ruble said. “I mean, obviously I saw her sometimes, but I wasn’t around her very much. And when I was, I was usually yelling at her mom: ‘Why isn’t she in school?’ ‘Why isn’t she dressed?’

“So, to the extent that Kindra knew me, at all, she probably saw me as the (jerk) uncle.”

After she was released by child welfare officials, Ruble and his wife took Kindra out for dinner. They ate “smiley-faced, funny pancakes.”

Then they went home.

Kindra, they learned, didn’t sleep in a bed, spending her nights on a hard floor instead. She also still used a toddler’s toilet, something her mother insisted on so she could harvest her daughter’s urine as a way to pass drug tests.

“The first night was pretty shocking,” Ruble said.

Still, while Hallmark wasn’t likely to make a movie about their story, Ruble’s life of instant parenthood soon would feel familiar to millions.

Family way(s)

None of this is new, of course. Grandparents or other relatives have been subbing in for missing parents since families have been families.

In some cultures, older adults are expected to play a strong role in child-rearing. And in America, families in which teens become parents, or when parents work away from home, or die, or go to prison, often have been led by grandparents and others who provide financial and emotional support and serve as the adults – literally – in the room.

Still, while federal data doesn’t track family relationships as closely as experts would like, people who work with older, stand-in parents say that particular type of family structure might be hitting a modern high-water mark.

Census results show that roughly 7.6 million children currently live in a household headed by a relative other than their parent. And 2.4 million of those kids are being raised entirely by a grandparent or older relative, with no biological parent in the home. In the region that includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, about 405,000 local children were sharing a home with at least one grandparent in 2020.

Since then, several factors suggest the numbers have spiked.

The opioid crisis is killing tens of thousands of parents a year and leaving many others unable to care for their children. In 2022 alone, more than 90,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States, with 71% of those deaths hitting people ages 25 to 54, prime parenting years. Meanwhile, COVID-19 has killed about 1.2 million Americans since 2020, leaving an estimated 140,000 children with no parents.

That’s the current picture. Going forward, experts believe living situations alternately referred to as “grand” families or “kinship” families – “Different parts of the country use different terms. It’s like East Coast/West Coast rap,” Ruble explained – will become even more common.

The reason for that is demography. The slice of the population ages 65 to 84 grew by 42.2% over the past decade, and experts say by mid-century nearly 1 in 4 Americans will be 65 or older. Whatever else those numbers might or might not portend, that swelling crowd of older people in American life will be a huge, growing pool of potential stand-in, late-in-life parents.

“The census asks if you’re a ‘head of household,’ but the answer to that can depend on how people see themselves, not what their actual role with children might or might not be. So that makes the census numbers on this topic a little vague,” said Jaia Lent, deputy executive director for Generations United, a non-profit that promotes connections between generations and helps get money and other assistance to state and county agencies that help grandparents and others raising young relatives who aren’t their kids.

“What we do know, for sure, is that if you look at the child welfare system you’re seeing the number of children being raised by grandparents in foster care is going up. Way up,” Lent said.

“And what we also know is that for every child raised by a grandparent in foster care, there are 18 others who are being raised by a grandparent or some other relative outside the foster care system.”

But even though the factors creating more grandparent-led families are often grim – “drug use is by far the biggest issue,” Lent said – the results of those pairings, often, are not.

Mental and emotional health, confidence, physical safety, school achievement – Lent and others argue that all improve for orphaned kids raised by grandparents or other relatives.

“The emphasis for child service and welfare agencies, in most places, is to get children who lose their parents into homes where they have relatives,” Lent said. “Children do much better in that situation.

“Mostly, those kids are more likely to say they feel loved,” Lent added. “That’s what’s important.”

Soccer mom

By the time Kindra was 11, Ruble’s wife was out of the picture. He says Kindra wasn’t the cause of this, but the result was that Ruble – the once distant uncle – became a solo parent.

He changed his life accordingly. He talked regularly with Kindra’s teachers. He bought books so he could help with homework. He set rules about getting to bed and watching TV and school. He tried to know Kindra’s friends and became friends with other parents.

He built structure for a child who previously had none.

“I became a soccer mom,” Ruble said.

Ruble, who these days volunteers to help others in similar parent-raising situations, said raising a child was often bewildering.

“I’ve done presentations, and I use a PowerPoint to show a series of pictures of Kindra looking happy, where she’s this sweet little kid. Then I show this one of her looking really pissed off, and I tell them, ‘That’s 13!,’” Ruble said, laughing.

“For a stretch there I didn’t know who this kid was. Hormones, first period, all that (stuff); I didn’t know what the hell to do,” Ruble said.

“That’s when I sought out some help and explained that none of this was in my toolbox.”

Because child welfare officials had physically removed Kindra from her mother’s care, the county was legally responsible for her. That meant they kept watch on how Ruble and Kindra were progressing, checking in on the family and tracking Kindra’s progress through school.

Though Kindra’s mother soon was out of jail, and often in touch with her daughter, the county chose to keep Kindra with Ruble.

After about two years, the county suggested Ruble make a choice – either adopt Kindra and take on the legal role of parent, or file paperwork to become her guardian.

The second option would leave open the possibility that Kindra might return to live with her mother. Ruble didn’t want that, necessarily, but he couldn’t rule out that it would be best for Kindra someday.

He chose guardianship.

“What they don’t want is for a kid’s life to be dangling,” Ruble said. “The idea is to create something solid.

“I didn’t want to overstep,” he added. “I was her uncle, not her dad.”

Their lives took on a sometimes unsettling routine. Ruble would care for Kindra, day-to-day, and her mother would visit, first one day a week and, later, for entire weekends.

Tension followed. Ruble set rules and Kindra’s mother broke them, telling Kindra that the rules weren’t important.

“At some point, my sister was doing everything opposite of what Kindra was getting at home. It was frustrating for me and really hard on (Kindra).”

Ruble said as Kindra got older there were periods when the pattern improved – mostly when Kindra’s mother was sober – but the tension never fully faded. It took several years, and a tragedy, before their lives were fully stabilized.

“My sister had back issues. And, at one point, she had an operation to fix them. But the minute she was given opioids for the pain, her (drug use) never stopped,” Ruble said.

“About 18 months ago, she overdosed and died.

“My niece, for a long time, had to play the role of the parent to her mother,” Ruble added. “Now, that’s over.”

New, old parents

Lent, of Generations United, says success for kinship families – however one defines it – often hinges on the support those families do or don’t get from the community and government.

Many grandparents-turned-parents struggle financially, particularly if all or most of their income is Social Security. If they live in an age-restricted community, their new, underage house member can force a relocation. Friendships can be strained; spouses don’t always understand. And many of the new, older parents have to fundamentally change their lives, if not their aspirations, to settle in as retirement-age people with young children.

“I am continually stunned and amazed at how resourceful these grandparents are,” Lent said. “But no amount of love can make food appear on the table. People need help to make it work.”

Kevin and Susan Jetton want to offer some of that help.

The Yucaipa couple, both 65, have been parenting their grandson, Timmy, 11, for nearly a decade.

These days, Timmy is doing well. He goes to school, plays with friends, talks with a wide range of relatives, and recently spent time with his biological father. He struggles sometimes with controlling outbursts, and he tends to wait to join a crowd, but Susan Jetton says Timmy is “mostly a happy kid.”

But late in the night of Nov. 12, 2014, when San Bernardino County officials carried Timmy, not yet 2, into the Jetton’s home, that outcome seemed a longshot.

Timmy’s biological parents were struggling with drug use, and the struggle was such that county officials felt the need to take custody of their child. When the Jettons took him in, it was clear Timmy was suffering emotionally and physically.

He’d been burned by cigarettes. He was soiled. He was eerily quiet. Later, the toddler would regularly climb the shelves of the family refrigerator, take out food and hide it in secret places around the house – a habit that Susan Jetton believes was his way of making sure he had something to eat.

Though they knew Timmy prior to that first night, his arrival in their home, as a child in need of full-time care, came as a surprise. Susan and Kevin Jetton had only been married a few months at that point. They were in their mid-50s and financially successful – he’s a dentist and she teaches nursing at Cal Baptist University – and both had raised children in earlier marriages. Their plans, pre-Timmy, were more in keeping with middle-age newlyweds – travel, church work, volunteer projects. More kids weren’t part of the picture.

Their new roles as grandparent-age parents was – and remains – a series of surprises.

“When I was raising my children, I had friends who had children, too. But when I’m raising Timmy, it’s different. How many 65-year-olds do I know, closely, who have an 11-year-old child to take care of?” Susan Jetton said.

“We’ve created friendships for Timmy with some of my friend’s grandchildren, but it is an unusual situation.”

For grandparents-turned-parents unexpected situations, and questions, are constant.

How do they find the energy to keep pace with a toddler or a teen? What happens if they die when their grandkid is still a kid? What about other grandparents, siblings, friends, romantic partners? If their kids’ music made them crazy, how crazy will their grandkids’ music make them?

“There’s a lot of ambiguity with this role,” Susan Jetton said. “And a lot of people experience that. It can go between anger at your child, the frustrations you might have with your life, social isolation.”

Though both say they wouldn’t change their decision, keeping and raising Timmy has not been easy. And, they add, their financial situation – and support they get from other family members – has made it much easier for them than it is for most people their age who are thrust into similar situations.

It’s why the Jettons created a group, Grands Raising Grandchildren. They gather virtually on Facebook and hold face-to-face meetings at a church in Yucaipa. The couple said even without promoting the group, 28 people have signed on to share stories and learn from each other.

“Look, when Timmy came to us our other option was for him to go into foster care,” said Kevin Jetton. “So, what are you supposed to do? There was nothing noble about the decision we made. And we’re so glad we made it.

“Now, we just want to help others figure out how to make it work.”

Two

Kindra is 29 now, and thriving.

“I had three goals when we started,” Ruble said. “One was that she not get pregnant. Two was that she not get arrested or do too many drugs. Three was that she graduate from high school.

“I thought if I could give her a little boost toward that, just a little start, it would be a good thing.”

It’s been more.

Kindra has two degrees from Fullerton College. She works as an office manager for a woman who runs a hospice agency. Ruble describes his niece as a happy, functioning adult, one who is both confident and kind.

She recently moved back in with Ruble. They each have friends and active social lives, but their immediate tribe is down to two. They’re both orphans.

“She hasn’t seen her dad for 20 years,” Ruble said. “We don’t have anybody else left, either of us.”

For Christmas, Ruble said, they did “what we typically do.” That meant a tree, but not much in the way of decorations; a few presents. For dinner they went out for Korean barbecue, a favorite of Kindra’s.

“We didn’t do anything big,” Ruble said. “It was a little funky, maybe, but it was fine.

“We’re family.”

Source: Orange County Register