parenting responsibility for the
children. Many grandparents
raise grandkids part-time or on
and off for weeks or months at a
time. Some grandparents simply
decide not to report what they’re
doing to any government agency
because they fear the kids
might get taken away, or they’re
ashamed because their own
child dropped the ball, or for
some other reason. I’ve heard
estimates that as many as a
million grandparents in Canada
are raising grandkids at least
part-time or temporarily.
Statistics Canada calls
grandparent-headed households
‘skipped-generation families.’
That term simply means the
grandparents have taken on
parental responsibility because
the parents aren’t doing it or
were doing it badly enough to
require intervention.
I wrote Raising Grandkids:
Inside Skipped-Generation
Families (University of Regina
Press, 2018) to honour these
households by showing people
what life is like for retired or
nearly retired men and women
to raise children who have
experienced abuse, neglect,
or pre-natal substance addiction
and who suffer the trauma
of separation from their
own parents.
Not only are skipped-
generation grandparents
misunderstood by social workers,
psychologists, and the general
public, but many of them also
take on undeserved shame for
having raised children who
are irresponsible as parents,
which turns them inward,
further isolates them from their
neighbours and their peers, and
compounds the difficulties they
are already dealing with. These
include their own ageing bodies;
reduced incomes; lack of dental
and prescription benefits for
children and for themselves,
which they would have had
if they were still working; a
radically reduced social life
because they are raising children;
and the constant worry about the
children’s missing parents.
Skipped-generation
grandparents also have to help
the grandchildren deal with
their own issues. These issues
include possible pre-natal brain
damage from the mother’s use of
drugs or alcohol; the profound
trauma of separation from
their biological parents, which
experts say is at least as serious
as post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) in soldiers after combat;
feeling socially ostracized
because all their classmates
have mom and dad at home
and they have only grandma
and, if they’re lucky, grandpa;
and having to meet with
caseworkers, who sometimes
call them out of classes to do so.
For millennia, grandparents in
Indigenous communities have
helped raise grandchildren. In
fact, the extended family and
the whole community have all
shared the work of child-rearing.
In Canada and elsewhere,
colonialism, disease, and
racism have seriously damaged
Indigenous peoples, especially
children, but the rest of us
have a lot to learn from them
about honouring the support of
grandparents and the cultural
traditions and elder wisdom they
share with younger generations.
Several years ago, Bob
McDonald, the host of CBC
Radio’s Quirks and Quarks
program, said, “Grandparents
are mutant superheroes.” The
program featured a scientist
doing research on human
evolution who noted that
homo sapiens is one of only
three species of mammals who
experience menopause and
live long enough after their
reproductive years to help raise
their children’s children. The
scientist claimed that menopause
is an adaptive response that
humans developed to ensure the
survival of the species.
I have yet to meet skipped-
generation grandparents who
think of themselves as heroes,
but what word better describes
persons who give so much of
themselves for others purely
out of love? ●
news&views SPRING 2019 | 27