I’m In My 60s And Raising My Grandchild — I Love Her Deeply, But Starting Over Was Never Part Of My Plan
RonTech2000 | Canva It seems that grandparents are afraid to speak their mind on the very personal story of their lives with raising their grandchildren. I'm a grandparent in that exact position, and I am here to tell you, I'm frustrated.
My husband and I raised five children, and it wasn’t easy, and to be honest, it still isn’t easy. They're all adults now, but they still need help. Like all children, they've gone through phases where they think you suck; I understand that's part of parenting, but it isn’t fun.
Add to that the fact that we are completely exhausted from raising five children, and were hoping to actually have some peace, along with a bit more money in our pockets once our kids were out of the house.
Tragically, drug dependency bombed our life into smithereens, and my granddaughter was affected the most. That's right, my daughter became dependent on drugs after having a child. So what can you do in that situation? Truthfully, your options, quite frankly, are not great.
I'm in my 60s and raising my grandchild — I love her deely but starting over was never part of my plan
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You can do nothing, let the state handle it, the grandchild can go into foster care, and you can hope you will still get to see them.
You can pursue adoption for your grandchild, or try to find new parents for your grandchild who will consider an open adoption, so that you can maintain being a grandparent.
You can figure out how to remove the grandchild from your child's care and go for guardianship, and ultimately, if your child doesn’t get their life together, you yourselves can adopt your grandchild. None of these options is ideal.
My husband and I gave up our empty nest to raise our grandchild.
We came into our marriage with children from our first marriages, and it had never just been he and me. We were truly looking forward to our kid-free time and retirement together.
Of our children, one is severely autistic, who is now in assisted living, one is drug-dependent, and the others were in the “you suck” phase when we knew we needed to help remove our granddaughter from our daughter's care. I was not super-confident that we were what was the best option for our granddaughter; maybe we weren’t good at raising kids.
I also felt that my granddaughter was getting the short end of the stick. She lost both of her parents to drugs, and was inheriting two “olds”, and essentially losing her grandparents because we would now be acting as her parents.
Everything about this situation is messed up, to be blunt: Your child is dependent on drugs. The parent of your grandchild can’t take care of your precious grandchild. We always worry about our children being safe, even when they're adults. My child is flirting with disaster, which could ultimately kill her.
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My grandchild has lost the only parents she knows, and we have lost our freedom.
The finality to this saga: I got my grandchild away from my daughter and her partner, who are both struggling with drugs. I acquired guardianship of my grandchild, and then I removed my daughter’s parental rights. I say this so easily now, but nothing about this process was in any way easy.
Before we adopted my granddaughter, we tried to find new parents for her with an adoption agreement in place to maintain my family’s role in her life.
I believe, still to this day, that this is a good option for the child affected. The child gets parents who want nothing more than to be parents, and they keep your family, and you get to continue being their grandparents.
This ultimately didn’t work out for us because, really, no one has ever tried this before now, at least not that we were familiar with. I learned a lot from this experience, and although it failed, it showed me the path clearly that I needed to take: We adopted our grandchild.
As angry as I have expressed that I am, the anger is mostly bottled-up resentment. We love our granddaughter with every cell of our beings. We are navigating this chapter of our life better than I ever imagined.
She is precious, and we are a little family unit that is actually quite beautiful. I am so proud of her, and I am proud of us.
It isn’t easy being this age and starting all over, and we have made a lot of sacrifices, but she is so worth it. However, any grandparent who says they wouldn’t have it any other way is full of it.
Lisa Holliday is the Founder of Helping Grandparents, which offers support and resources to grandparents who are advocating on behalf of themselves and their grandchildren.
