UPDATE: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

It has been months since I wrote a heartfelt blog post.  I find myself feeling all kinds of crazy emotions lately, so I figured now was a great time to start getting back to what I originally created this blog around. I am a grandparent raising grandchildren.   The crazy part of that statement is that I am only one of 2.7 million grandparents that are currently raising grandchildren!

Just to give a quick update.  I am married to an incredible husband and we are getting ready to celebrate 25 years of marriage in a couple of months.  About 6 years ago our 2 oldest granddaughters came to live with us.  Our oldest daughter, their mom, has addiction issues in addition to some mental health things going on.  She has always been a great mom and so when she felt herself making some bad choices and running from some things that had happened in her adult life, she brought the girls to her dad and I.  I have always respected her for that choice, as she never drug her kids through the ugliness.

I always thought it would be a temporary situation, yet here we are 6 years later.  I believe at this point even though mom is working hard on making better choices, that the girls will live with us until at least they graduate.   They are 7th and 9th grade at this point, so it just makes sense to have them stay here with their Papa and I.

It has been a long time since I gave a full picture of how we became a part of that 2.7 million 2 grandparents.  You can find my original post written in January 2016 below.  

For this post, I want to give a brief update. Mom hit rock bottom about a year after the oldest 2 came to live with my husband and myself.  She was put on probation and did great for a period  of time.  She came to live with her dad, myself and the 2 girls.  She did extremely well for about 3 ½ years.   During that time her birth control failed and we ended up with a set of twin grandbabies, Kenneth and Karra!   They are amazing and our daughter stayed sober, working and on her mental health meds for a long time.  Yet, as it happens with addictions it reared its ugly head when the twins were about 2 and mom ended up with a violation on her original charge.   Over the next year or so, she caught 2 more charges and ended up going to jail. The twins dad has been doing an amazing job raising them and has every intention of helping mom when she is released.   As of about a week ago, she has been in jail for a year.  That is one full year of missed birthdays, missed holidays, in addition to all the other first she missed..her oldest daughter’s first day of high school, the twins learning to potty  etc.    I am proud of how she has changed and worked on improving herself since she has been in jail and we as a family are praying for the day she is released on Parole and is able to start being a healthy mom again.  

Her oldest girls that live with us have really had a hard time this past year.   They are both teenagers now and have had a ton of acting out behaviors.  They are angry , sad and at times indifferent to their mom.   Of course, they have been in counseling for years but counseling only does so much.   

When the girls first came to live with us, our youngest son was 15. He had to share his parent time with his nieces and for the most part did a great job of being an uncle who had to live in the same home with them. Our other daughter, has also had to do some adjustments through all of this. She has 3 of our precious grandbabies and I have no doubt that she has felt slighted at times from us as her mom and dad, even though her dad and I have worked hard to prevent those feelings. We are very blessed that she lives on our property so we see our grandbabies from her several times a day on a regular basis. Over the years, I feel that both of our other children have worked hard to be there for the 2 oldest granddaughters and pour into their lives.

I pray constantly for both the big girls that live with us, the twins who are now 3 ½ years old and of course our daughter!  I love all my grandchildren (we have a total of 12) and I have to admit it is hard that with my 2 oldest, I have to be the “parent” and we don’t get much of the “grandparenting” privilege’s with them. Yet, if I had it to do all over again, I would make the same choices and have the girls here with us.

I have decided for a variety of reasons to homeschool the 13 year old. My husband and I felt it was best to have her at home to be certain that we were her strongest influences in her life, instead of some friend choices she was making. I am really praying that she will have matured enough we can send her back to public school next year, but only time will tell. The 14 yr old started high school this year and has had some difficulty adjusting to high school. She has showed a lot of maturity in the past couple months, so I am confident that she will be excelling by the end of the year!

So that is my current update. I wonder how many of my followers are grandparents raising grandchildren? Or maybe you know families who are? I would love to hear from you in the comments section!!