The grandparents raising their grandkids and great grandkids
While no-one expects to be raising children in their 70s, a Taranaki group wouldn’t have it any other way as it means their grandkids are safe and sound.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
They’ve been faced with kids in their care running away, lying, stealing, dealings with the police, aggression and violence.
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren meet once a month at Flourish, above the Taranaki Bulls training gym in New Plymouth, to connect, gain new tools and remember they are not alone.
“There’s a wealth of knowledge in the group because you don’t know what you don’t know,” said Jeanette Hinton, support group co-ordinator. “A group like this is vital because they are the only people that understand what you’re going through.”
Some of the group members have raised their kids, grandkids and are now raising a great grandchild. Another in the group is attending for the first time but has been raising her grandson for 14 years, and another has been raising two of her grandkids for five years.
They say the group is so important because you get stuck in your own bubble and feel like you’re failing. However, the opposite is true.
Many of the grandparents have taken their grandkids out of environments where there are drugs, alcohol and trauma involved, and dedicated their lives to providing safety and stability for them.
“It takes great courage to come along, it’s not easy, you feel like you’re failing them, like you’re failing your children and your grandchildren,“Hinton said.
“It’s very common for grandparents to be raising grandchildren, I’ve got a contact list of about 80 people.”
It’s vital that the group remained a safe and private place where people could come and share without judgment, Hinton said.
She said you have no idea what people are going through until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. “You can come and say you had to nail the window shut so your granddaughter doesn’t escape and people will say ‘okay, that’s what you have to do’ but if you said that to Joe Bloggs on the street, he’d say ‘what the hell?’
“Everyone is full of great ideas, but these kids are broken through trauma.”
That trauma is why these grandparents keep showing up day after day, despite it being full on and tiring. They know that’s why the kids behave the way they do.
All have chosen to take on the caregiver role because they want the kids to stay within family and know where they came from. But the group’s members are aware they won’t be around forever.
“We’re getting older and there’s nowhere for these kids to go,“one grandparent said.
Raising your grandkids is a completely different ball game to raising your own kids, they say. It’s harder because they’re older now and times have changed.
“Rules we had for our kids don’t work for these kids,” Hinton said. “We’ve got to try something different.”