Grandmothers Raising Grandchildren: Balancing Burdens and Blessings

This chapter explores the increasing phenomenon of grandparent caregiving and the impact on caregiver health and well-being. This chapter presents demographic data on grandparent caregivers as well as a profile of the unique challenges that they face with the hope of informing readers about how to best serve this particular group of older women. The population of grandparent caregivers is predominately female and, although the majority of grandmothers are not necessarily within the traditional ‘aging’ population, a significant portion of this population is over age 60. This chapter focuses on the ways in which these grandmothers differ from their non-caregiving grandparent peers as well as the unique challenges that they face, including risks to their physical, psychological and social well-being, balanced against the benefits that they describe associated with their caregiving roles. The authors include practice and policy implications for interventions with grandmother caregivers to assist social workers in their work with this population and present case examples with follow up questions to place the issue in context.

Keywords: Grandmothers, Grandparent caregivers, Health and well-being of caregivers.