When a family is in crisis, it can mean that everyone may have to rally around. Because of the number of divorced and separated families there is an increasing group of grandparents who find themselves parenting a ‘second time around’. If in addition to the breakup of the family there is a further crisis, grandparents who may have been very happy to be a supportive backup, find themselves in the front line, and hands-on parents again.

For Bob and Mary, retired and in their sixties, their life changed when the phone rang in the middle of the night and they heard their daughter had been killed in a road accident. They drove 300 miles to be with their shocked and traumatized grandchildren.

I heard of grandparents who, at a stroke, gave up plans to travel, forsook a rewarding job, or a quiet retirement when it came to the choice between a grandchild being taken into Care or they themselves taking on the role of parent. ‘What else could we do?’ I was asked again and again.

Of course I knew that there always have been grandparents who have been prepared to be involved with ‘bringing up baby’, but it is the growing number of senior citizens now in the position of being entirely responsible for caring for their grandchildren which is surprising.

Grandparents can often feel isolated from their friends who do not have small children to care for, and perhaps for this reason grandmothers and grandfathers were very willing to talk to me when I was researching for my books on family issues.

Jim told me that the cause of their family trouble had not only been divorce, but had been drugs and premature deaths: ‘My ex-son-in-law died of a drug overdose, and when two years later my daughter died of cancer, my wife and I had no choice but to take on two very very unhappy children’. Jim and Jane had not been in touch with their daughter for several years, and it was with a heavy heart they accepted the role of parenting again. This was especially difficult because they had no shared history with their grandchildren. They described the misery of those first years as they struggled to create a family. Jim: ‘At times I thought we would have to give up, the children were rude, rebellious, and of course deeply unhappy. It seemed we could do nothing right.’ Jane agreed, and said they both felt they were running out of energy and at their lowest ebb, when Jack surprised them all by saying: "Grandpa...can I call you Dad?" That was a turning point for them, and six years on they feel that they have all got their feet on the ground again and are recovering from the bad times.

Yet for many others there is a plus side to it all. ‘It’s like having my son back again’ and ‘I feel I am a better parent this time around. I have more patience.’ But often not without some reservations: ‘I was fine until he began to run in the park...now I can’t catch him!’

I first heard of the expression ‘revolving door grandmother’ from Jenny. It was a scenario which became familiar to me. Jenny told me that her daughter Janice can’t ‘make a go’ of relationships, and has had three partners in the last five years. Janice asked Jenny to have her son until she ‘get’s on her feet’ and once she was in a new relationship came to take little Benny away. This has been repeated several times. Similar stories were told to me by grandparents who have to help out whilst a son or daughter who is a single parent ‘sorts things out’. The grandparents who contacted me felt they were faced by a dilemma. Whilst prepared to offer shelter and love to the grandchild, they feel torn apart by the upset of the often sudden, 

With one voice all the grandparents told me that they had found some of the questions the children ask to be painful to answer. Fiona is adamant that it is important to answer the questions truthfully and directly: ‘I tell my granddaughter we love her, and so do her parents, but the problem is neither of her parents can really take care of her.’

So there are legions of grandparents caring for their grandchildren. A silent army battling away, and often unrecognized by us all. Let’s end on a positive note and hear first from Matilda: ‘My grandson asked me, "Do I come from a broken home?" I said, "Certainly not. Grandpa and I have mended it." And from Jackie (aged fourteen) ‘I don’t know where I’d be without Granny - but I do cry sometimes and wish I was with Mum and Dad. I haven’t seen them since I was six. Do you think they still love me, and remember me?’

© Jill Curtis 2001