“Once the recession occurred we actually saw a real uptick in the number of kids living with their grandparents, and now the numbers are close to 8 million,” says Gretchen Livingston, who’s studied the trend for the Pew Research Center. “To put that in perspective, that means that about 1 in 10 kids are living with a grandparent.”
Sometimes grandma comes to live with the family — and sometimes grandma is the family. In about a third of these families, there is no parent present. Grandfamilies are so common that you’ll see public housing complexes designed with this in mind: wide walkways, everything on one floor, guardrails — and then outside the window there’s a playground…
“They usually aren’t expecting to be taking care of the children, so they’re not prepared financially. Their home may be great for a retired person or a retired couple but not for little toddlers. Many of the grandparents — about 58 percent — are still working, so trying to juggle taking care of a child,” Butts says.
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