Pubdate: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 Source: Associated Press (Wire) Copyright: 2003 Associated Press Author: Genaro C. Armas GRANDPARENTS ACT AS GRANDKIDS' CAREGIVERS WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of grandparents are acting as primary caregiver to their grandchildren, often because their own sons and daughters are in jail or on drugs. A Census Bureau report released Thursday found that more than one-third of the 2.4 million grandparents who are primary caregivers to a grandchild lived in a home without the grandchild's parents. The report, which looked at data from the 2000 census in greater detail, did not include reasons for that dynamic. Some grandparents do it because the parents have died, while other parents may be ill, said Sandra Horton, 59, of Lockhart, Texas, who runs a grandparent support group and cares for her 12-year-old granddaughter. But more often than not, it is because a parent is involved with drugs or alcohol, advocacy groups say. Horton called it the ``primary, underlying, number one reason.'' These caregiving grandparents typically have not reached retirement age - 64 percent are between age 40 and 59 - so they often find themselves juggling parenting and work. Data released last year by the bureau showed that the 2.4 million grandparents were responsible for ``most of the basic needs'' of a grandchild in the home. That is 42 percent of the 5.8 million grandparents living with a grandchild. In other homes, grandparents may not be the designated main caregiver, but may be helping a single, teenage mother, or may simply be baby-sitting the kids after school, said Amy Goyer of the Grandparents Information Center at AARP, the nation's largest advocacy group for older Americans. Horton said she took in granddaughter, Marissa, because the girl's parents have had drug problems and run-ins with the law. Horton works several part-time jobs to make ends meet. Horton wants Congress to change guidelines for many existing public assistance programs that make aid available to poor ``traditional'' families or foster parents, but not custodial grandparents. ``Grandparents need respect and recognition for the jobs they do,'' she said. According to Goyer, some public aid is available for caregiving grandparents, such as a program through the Health and Human Services Department's Administration on Aging. But it is limited to people 60 and older. The new census report found that grandparents serving as primary caregivers for their grandchildren are more apt to need help - 19 percent live in poverty, compared with 14 percent of all families with children. Congress first took interest in the plight of grandparents as caregivers while reforming the nation's welfare system in 1996. But because little government data existed on the issue, lawmakers ordered the Census Bureau to ask about it for the first time in 2000. Since then, legislation that would aid grandparents has been introduced in Congress. A bill approved this week by a Senate committee helps caregiving grandparents pay for housing, while a second bill would allow states to use federal funds to support subsidized guardianship payments to grandparents and other relatives. ``Those that need financial support deserve financial support to keep their families together and that's something that policy-makers have not dealt with yet,'' said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, which advocates for families in which elderly and young people live together. The report also found that grandparents living with their grandchildren were more likely to serve as caregivers in black and American Indian families than other race or ethnicity groups. There may be stronger cultural ties to grandparenting roles in those populations and those groups tend to make less money and are more apt to have several generations living in the same home, said Roderick Harrison, a demographer with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which looks at issues concerning minorities. The grandparenting data in 2000 comes from three questions asked on the ``long-form'' questionnaire distributed to one in six households. On the Net: Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/multimedia/grandparents.html - --- MAP posted-by: Josh