And we are:

The children came to us for various reasons; among those are parents who are unable to care for the children because of illness, substance abuse, incarceration, or various other reasons. We have stepped in to help and protect these children, because we love them and because we are family. We are family people and this is not a new concept. But, over the last few years our numbers have increased significantly to well over 7+ million people redefining the role of caretakers.

Welcoming the children is the easy part; oftentimes we need to make many adjustments to our lives and those include our changing relationships with the children of these parents. The adjustments can be financial, legal, emotional and geographical.

Many of these children require assistance and theraputic resources to offset and heal their losses and possible damage from abuse/and/or neglect. This is where the real caring and work comes in. It takes a lot of dedication and work to ferret out things these children need to become healthy, productive people among us.

Some of the frustrations I have heard of are not so much with the children but with the parents and the court systems and state agencies, which our new roles require us to interact with.

We caregivers are united in our quest for betterment of the lives of these children and there are concerns we all share and mountains we climb together reaching our goals.

There are changes in our society causing harm to children; and the resolutions are not fully in place. It is our wish to improve our society and our individual lives opportunities.

Some of us seek support through others experiencing the same things, living with similar challenges and if there is a hope or goal for this website, it is to further communication and thus enhance the strength we need to do the best for our children.

There are those among us who remember the days when grandparents often played a more active, supportive role in raising and caring for the young children in the family because often the parents were busy farming and the grandparents had more time to spend with the children. It is similiar now in some ways; except that often we take the children into our homes and "parent" them. These are challenges we have not quite prepared for - but most of us are up to it because we have learned patience, and have much life experience and we are able to draw on methods and ideas that were proven; tried and true.

My grandsons:

In other words, these boys are "normal" boys who have the same needs as others boys - they need to be cared for and parented and as a grandparent I have had to adjust my thinking on my role in their life. Questions arise for me: am I going to harm them by bonding with them as their primary parent; when often I am it? And I correct in saying that little boys don't wait a year, two years, or three years to want a "mother" figure in their lives? And if I give this to them; how can I best maintain a relationship with their parent, my child? And when the children return to their parents, how will this affect their lives?

Perhaps this site will serve as a starting point to sharing experience, ideas, resources and support to those of us, "New-age Caretakers."

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