The number of grandparents, great-grandparents, and other relative caregivers who are raising young children, teenagers, children with emotional trauma, and many with drug related health issues, are at an all time high. The illegal drugs being provided to our meth, heroin, fentanyl, opioid-addicted adult children are off the charts in numbers. Along with the addiction comes the loss of these adult children as parents.
That's where we come in. Grandparents and other relatives raising these children who were left behind as collateral damage. We have stepped up to make sure these children have happy, secure lives. We have taken on full financial and emotional support of them. Some of these children were neglected, abused and traumatized in their short young lives. These grandparents have picked up the pieces of these broken little lives and have given them love and security.
We are the ones at their recitals, their PTA meetings, their first day of school and with some, their very first newborn doctor appointments. We sit up with them at night when they are sick and fret when they are running a fever. We teach them to ride a bicycle. We watch them open their birthday presents, and we put the dollar under their pillow when they lose their first tooth.
We do the things that we did with their parents... when we were in our 20's and 30's. We are now in our 50's and 60's. We are older and it is harder. We move a little slower and take a little longer to get up out of the floor after a rolling a ball with a 2-year-old.
We wonder, on a daily basis, how our adult children can walk away from their children and not do everything possible to get help and be a parent again. We have days that we are resentful that we were put in this situation. There are days we will stand in the shower and cry. There are days where we would do anything to be able to lay in bed just a few minutes longer.
We love our babies and we will stand up and do what we have to do to make sure they are not harmed further by this unfair situation.
We will make a difference in their lives. We will make sure they succeed. We will hold them close and tell them how much they are loved and that we will never walk away or fail them.
We have lost our social standings. Our friends have grandchildren who they see occasionally and send them home. We aren't invited to dinner or to come over and watch the Super Bowl. They have earned their peace and quiet and we understand that, but sometimes it feels unfair.
But at the end of the day, we are the parents of these beautiful children, who need us so desperately and we will be there with a smile on our face and love in our heart.
If you are raising a child in this situation and you need a safe place to share with others who understand what you are going through. If you need moral support or you just need to vent, please email me and I will happily direct you to our support group. Our close knit family. I promise you are not alone.
Youarenotalone.grg@gmail.com