It's a job they never expected. A club they never wanted to join. According to the Statistics Canada census released this week, there are more than 65,000 grandparents in Canada raising grandchildren on their own, without the parents present. They're called skipped generation families. And their number is growing by about a thousand every year.
Most of the grandparents - more than two thirds - are actually grandmothers and step-grandmothers. Women who have turned their lives upside down to parent for a second time. They do it because their grandchildren are at risk - abandoned or neglected, and destined to become wards of the state. Theirs are stories of love and devotion. But also of real struggle - physical, emotional and financial. These grandmothers are the subject of Alisa Siegel's documentary this morning called Call Me Nana.
Call Me Nana was produced by Alisa Siegel of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and airs as part of the international documentary collaboration, Global Perspectives: Escape!
Call Me Nana was produced by Alisa Siegel of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and airs as part of the international documentary collaboration, Global Perspectives: Escape!
Links:
National Center on Grandparents
A Georgia State initiative to support grandparent-headed families.
Help in raising grandchildren
An AARP guide for raising a kin.
Books:
 The Blended Family Sourcebook: A Guide to Negotiating Change
by: David S. Chedekel, Karen O'Connell, Karen G. O'Connell 2002
This guide provides solutions on intergrating families: from gay and lesbian families to grandparents raising grandchildren
 Grandmothers as Caregivers: Raising Children of the Crack Cocaine Epidemic
by: Meredith Minkler, Kathleen M. Roe 1993
This books looks at the consequences of grandparents with the economic, physical, and emotional health at stake in taking care of their grandchildren.
 Ticklebelly Hill: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
by: Hilda Osborne 2003
An account of the author's struggles in raising her grandchildren. A good read!!
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