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Some forecasters predicted this generation of boomer grandparents would be too self-absorbed to help with child care. But there's no evidence that today's grandparents are backing away.
The proportion of preschoolers cared for primarily by their grandparents while their mothers work rose to 19.4% in 2005, the latest data available, from 15.9% in 1995, the Census Bureau says. A wave of closings and cutbacks in child-care facilities suggest the trend is continuing.
Some 40% of grandparents who live within an hour's drive of young grandchildren provide regular child care while their mothers work, says a 2008 survey of 500 grandparents by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, an Arlington, VA, nonprofit. And grandparents' child care hours rise significantly in the summer the Census Bureau says.
It seems "boomers aren't as spoiled as we thought," says Georgia Witkin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, and a senior editor for www.Grandparents.com --a website on grandparenting. "It was anticipated that a lot of grandparents might establish separate lives and might resent having those interrupted," she says. While some have, others "like to feel needed."
Source: The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009
