PenPenWrites

This harsh economic downturn takes it toll in many ways. Our 401ks may be lighter and tighter but our grown children face even grater perils: job loss, job change, job downgrade. Where they might have had full time nannies before, that is now a luxury. Or is it? Some of us are filling that gap. The only stat I've seen is one quoted in the article below, that about 40 percent of grandparents who live within an hour’s drive of young
grandchildren provide regular child care while the mothers work; only 8 percent of them are rewarded financially. I have several friends who've answered the call for help–more about those stories in future blogs. Meanwhile, here's the phenomenon as reported by the Wall Street Journal (June 24). 

WHEN GRANNY IS YOUR NANNY

By Sue Shellenbarger

Marie
Rej, a consultant and mother of two, and her mother, Antoinette
Traniello, often clash over the right way to raise kids. Antoinette
thinks Marie is too lenient, and Marie regards Antoinette’s rules as
too black-and-white.

But the Wakefield, Mass., mother and daughter are swallowing their
differences so Antoinette can provide the summer child-care help Marie
needs after a recent layoff and job change. Disagreements aside, Marie
says gratefully, her mother “has told me she’ll pitch in wherever she’s
needed.”

Similar
scenes are playing out nationwide, as grandparents step up to meet the
erratic child-care demands imposed by a rocky economy. Prevailing
child-rearing beliefs have taken many turns in the past 60 years,
creating ample grounds for disagreement between caregivers, whether
they’re tradition-minded World War II-era grandparents, hovering baby
boomers or the family-focused, informal moms and dads of Generation X.
Other parents wrestle with how to divvy up authority or whether to pay
grandparents for their help The problem-solving and peacekeeping
strategies families must use to make these two-generational setups work
can make already complicated family relationships even more challenging.

Some forecasters predicted this generation of grandparents would be
too self-absorbed to help with child care. But there’s no evidence that
today’s grandparents are backing away. The proportion of preschoolers
cared for primarily by their grandparents while their mothers work rose
to 19.4% in 2005, the latest data available, from 15.9% in 1995, the
Census Bureau says. A wave of closings and cutbacks in child-care
facilities suggest the trend is continuing.

Some 40% of grandparents who live within an hour’s drive of young
grandchildren provide regular child care while their mothers work, says
a 2008 survey of 500 grandparents by the National Association of Child
Care Resource & Referral Agencies, an Arlington, Va., nonprofit.
And grandparents’ child-care hours rise significantly in the summer,
the Census Bureau says.

It seems “boomers aren’t as spoiled as we thought,” says Georgia
Witkin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical
Center, New York, and a senior editor for Grandparents.com, a Web site
on grandparenting. “It was anticipated that a lot of grandparents might
establish separate lives and might resent having those interrupted,”
she says. While some have, others “like to feel needed.”

Rebecca
Mitchell, 58, of Burlingame, Calif., recently stopped playing on
several competitive tennis teams and quit her volunteer post as a
food-bank coordinator to care full-time for her 23-month-old grandson,
Angelo. This enabled her son to job-hunt after a layoff without paying
hefty child-care fees; his wife also works. Her son has since found a
new job. But Angelo has been wait-listed at a new child-care center,
and Ms. Mitchell’s commitment to care for him is open-ended. Noting
that toddlerhood “doesn’t last forever,” she says she cherishes the
closeness with Angelo.

Even the most doting grandparents must extend themselves to meet the
just-in-time child-care needs of stressed parents. Whenever Jacqueline
Rafla’s daughter gets called in for a job interview, the Staten Island,
N.Y., grandmother drives to her daughter’s Brooklyn home and picks up
the daughter’s 3-year-old triplets. Ms. Rafla also cares for the
triplets one or two more evenings to give her daughter and son-in-law a
break, and she helps another daughter several days a week by shuttling
her children, 6, 9 and 12, to and from school, karate and baseball.

To keep all her child-care commitments straight, Ms. Rafla, 65,
maintains a long to-do list on a piece of dry-cleaner shirt cardboard
in her car. “Where are we supposed to be going?” she sometimes jokes
with her grandchildren. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Her daughters are flexible in return. Nashwa Rafla-Savio cedes
authority over the triplets’ nutrition and schedule when they’re with
her mother. Even when Ms. Rafla lets them stay up much later than
usual, “when they’re in her house, the decisions are hers,” Ms.
Rafla-Savio says. The setup requires “give and take. You have to let go
and let someone else be in charge.”

This two-generational two-step is too much for some families.
Although Nicole Pelton’s parents have often helped with child care for
her two children, now 5 and 6, she has begun reserving grandparent
visits for “fun stuff,” such as weekend outings. Although the
Sunnyvale, Calif., mother is grateful for her parents’ help, she
prefers avoiding daily conversations with her mother about
child-rearing and other issues. Her mother, herself a former working
mother, “wants to make all these suggestions, and she has very strong
opinions” on matters ranging from toilet training to modern parents’
need for “50 books on how to get your child to sleep,” she says.
Reserving the kids’ grandparent time for fun affords a more comfortable
distance, Ms. Pelton says.

The
setups transform old parent-child bonds into a new caregiver-parent
relationship, sometimes raising thorny questions about pay and control.
Budget problems are the reason many parents ask for a grandparent’s
help, of course; because of that, the awkward issue of paying a
grandparent is seldom even raised. Just 8% of grandparents who help
with child care receive any pay, the 500-grandparent survey shows. But
experts say too many parents neglect to express gratitude. At the
least, says Susan Stiffelman, a Malibu, Calif., author and marriage and
family therapist, parents might say, “I’m so grateful; how can I
compensate you?” This opens the door for a discussion of any feelings
the grandparent might have on the topic.

Some parent-grandparent teams resolve control issues by negotiating
territory, divvying up authority over sleeping, eating, homework, TV
and computer use, Dr. Witkin says. For example, parents might have sole
authority over diet and school issues, while grandparents get a say in
recreational or artistic activities.

Ms. Rej, 48, who works part-time, gives her mother, who is 75,
almost complete control over her household when Ms. Traniello helps
with her sons Daniel, 12, who has Down syndrome, and Matt, 16. Ms.
Traniello bought a cellphone to keep in touch with Matt, who “calls me
whenever he’s stranded,” she says; she provides rides to school and
sports practices and other help. If she breaks one of Ms. Rej’s rules
in the process—like letting Daniel eat ice cream in front of the TV—Ms.
Rej looks the other way; “she’s helping me—what can I say?”

The two disagree on whether Matt, an active teen athlete, should be
required to do more chores and keep his room tidier; Ms. Traniello
believes Ms. Rej and her husband should set stricter rules. But Ms. Rej
counters that Matt behaves well, and contends that raising a modern
teenager requires a lot of listening and give and take. “We’ve gone
head-to-head on that sometimes,” Ms. Rej says. Ms. Traniello sidesteps
the issue by avoiding Matt’s room, and tries “not to say too much,” she
says. If tensions flare, “I don’t hold a grudge, and she doesn’t
either.”

Keeping the peace is worth the effort, Ms. Rej says; their
differences aside, she and her mother “are really close. I’m so
fortunate” to have her help. Ms. Traniello, a retired government
staffer, won’t accept pay; Ms. Rej shows her gratitude in other ways,
surprising her recently with tickets to the musical “Jersey Boys.” Ms.
Traniello says caring for her grandsons is its own reward.