Grandparents: America's last line of defense?

When talk turns to today�s problems, conversations often wax nostalgic about the old days when grandma and grandpa were around to help with children and raise them the right way.

Recent data from the Census Bureau and an analysis released Aug. 6 by the Children�s Defense Fund shows that 5.6 million grandparents lived with grandchildren under 18 in 2000. Some 2.4 million of these grandparents were responsible for raising the grandchildren. Among grandparents who lived with grandchildren, the portion responsible for raising them ranged from one-fourth (26 percent) in Hawaii to two-thirds (67 percent) in North Dakota, according to the Children�s Defense Fund.

But for grandparents responsible for grandchildren, one in five (18.9 percent) lived in poverty, the Children�s Defense Fund noted. In West Virginia the poverty rate was one in three, just over 34 percent.

In earlier times, grandparents helped by serving as anchors for young couples or single parents struggling to raise children. But with today�s rates of divorce, drug addiction, AIDS, incarceration and single parenthood, grandparents aren�t the last line of defense�they are often the only line of defense.

Yet they are often denied social service benefits or money spent on foster care as they struggle to keep their beloved grandchildren under their care. In most cases, it would be cheaper to offer financial assistance to grandparents caring for children than to place the children in foster care. It is also better for the children and would help to make a loving environment a more stable and productive one.

The Children�s Defense Fund is lobbying congressional representatives and asking for comprehensive legislation to address many of the problems facing poor children. "The comprehensive bill, the Act to Leave No Child Behind, includes such measures as services for grandparent-headed families, reforms of child support enforcement, expanded child care assistance, and other measures aimed at ending child poverty," according to the advocacy group.

"Child poverty is not inevitable and hardship is preventable," said Deborah Weinstein, the group�s director of family income. "We can take one immediate step to reduce child hunger when Congress returns: ensure that working poor families, including legal immigrants, receive adequate food stamps."

The numbers of people who could benefit from such congressional help are significant: In Alabama, poverty among grandparents raising grandchildren was 20.5 percent; in Arkansas the rate was 26.4 percent; in Kentucky the rate was 22.5 percent; in Louisiana the rate was 25 percent; in Washington, D.C., the rate was 20.6 percent and in New York it was 23.4 percent.

A society that fails to protect those who are most vulnerable�the elders who paved the way and the children who will build the future�is a society that is faltering and failing. A society that fails elders caring for children is simply a disgrace.

But children in poverty remains a badge of dishonor for the richest country on earth. According to Children�s Defense Fund figures nationally 12.4 million children�more than one in six (17.5 percent)�lived below the poverty line. "Children suffered the greatest poverty rate in the District of Columbia (where 30.9 percent were poor)," the group said.

Children were likely to be poorer than adults in every state and in every state "the youngest children were the poorest; among children younger than five, one in five (19.7 percent) were poor," the group added.

The Children�s Defense Fund�s analysis was based on Census Bureau data, which considered a child to be poor in 1999 if the family�s annual cash income was below $13,290 for a three-person family or $16,400 for a family of four.

Perhaps America should spend more time solving problems on her shores and less time giving advice overseas. Charity begins at home.

FinalCall.com