Desperate actions can be necessary when desperate situations surface. This is often the case when grandparents pursue the adoption of their grandchildren. In some situations, this may not be realistic due to health and financial difficulties.
However, in other cases, it may turn out to be the solution to give these youngsters a better chance at life. The other scenario: being forced to stay with absent or drug-addicted parents.
More grandparents taking care of youngsters
A stable home with dependable caregivers is what your grandchildren need. And you are not the only grandparents to have taken the step to permanently welcome grandchildren into the home. More and more grandparents are doing so because the children’s parents are unable to raise them.
According to the PEW Charitable Trusts, an estimated 2.9 million children lived with grandparents in 2015. That number marked a 16% increase from 2005.
Reasons such grandparent adoptions may occur
But why is this happening, other than the fact that their grandparents love them unconditionally? Here are some of the reasons:
- The deaths of the child’s/children’s parents: Families usually look after each other. In such tragic circumstances as the death of one parent or the deaths of both, grandparents may feel that it is their duty to raise the grandchildren.
- A parent’s substance abuse: Twenty years of the opioid epidemic has left many parents strung out on drugs and incapable of functioning, let alone raising their children. Many of these children temporarily wind up in foster homes until their grandparents adopt them.
- Increased number of incarcerated mothers: Nearly 4% of American children (an estimated 2.7 million) have at least one incarcerated parent, according to PEW Charitable Trusts. Many mothers have sole responsibility of their children. If they wind up in prison for a violent crime, who will raise the children?
Sometimes, there is no other resolution but for grandparent adoption.
A safe place to live
Extreme circumstances usually are at the root of grandparent adoptions. However, grandparents know that their grandchildren need a stable home that can provide love, understanding and a safe place to live.