Perceptions of Custodial Grandparents Among Young Adults

Abstract

This study's purpose was to investigate young adults' perceptions of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Over 1,200 young adult volunteers (M age = 21) read a randomly assigned scenario describing a grandparent raising a grandchild. Scenarios varied in terms of grandchild gender, grandparent ethnicity, the presence/absence of grandchild problems, and the reason for the assumption of the grandparent caregiving role. Results suggested that perceptions of custodial grandparents varied across reason for role assumption, wherein the most negative perceptions were tied to less socially acceptable circumstances for the assumption of the grandparent role (e.g., child abuse, drug abuse, abandonment). In addition, perceptions varied in terms of whether the grandparent was raising a problematic child. These data suggest that in varying degrees young adults may perceive custodial grandparents differently dependent on the life circumstances of the grandparent.

KEYWORDS:

• young adults
• grandparents
• custodial grandparents

INTRODUCTION

The frequent absence of the parent in many families has redefined the traditional grandparent role, causing the grandparent to assume the parental role and responsibility for rearing the grandchild(ren). The increase over the past two decades in custodial grandparenting can be attributed to the parents' death, unemployment, divorce, incompetence, teenage pregnancy, or to the abuse of the child by the parents (Casper & Bryson, 1998; Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2000).

Assuming that the experience of raising a grandchild is, to a certain degree, best understood in light of relationships with others (Hayslip & Patrick, 2003), there are numerous reasons to explore the views of custodial grandparents held by young adults. Understanding the views young adults have regarding custodial grandparenting may at minimum help us to more clearly understand the impact of a grandparent's assumption of the parental role on other grandchildren for whom he or she is not providing care (Shore & Hayslip, 1994). Furthermore, young adults' perceptions of grandparent caregivers may impact their views of older persons as both capable individuals and as viable role models. As younger adults constitute an important dimension of the custodial grandparent's convoy of support (Antonucci, 2001), they may directly or indirectly influence (a) the grandparent's access to social or educational services, (b) the availability of instrumental or emotional support, or (c) the affirmation of a caregiving grandparent's values as a competent parent in the face of chronic health difficulties, social isolation, lessened income, depression, or the stigma associated with raising a grandchild. In this light, the present study explored those factors influencing perceptions of custodial grandmothers held by young adults, utilizing multiple measures of such views, helping us to more clearly understand the interpersonal context defining custodial grandparenting.

Assuming Responsibility for Raising a Grandchild

In that many situations that result in a grandchild being raised by the grandparent are stigmatizing, custodial grandparents often report feelings of isolation and loneliness from their age peers and family members (Baird, 2003; Emick & Hayslip, 1999; Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2000). Moreover, they may feel responsible for having raised an adult child who has failed as a parent. Other social relationships are affected by feelings of guilt connected to seeing oneself as having failed as a parent, leading to alienation from others and to feelings of invisibility (Wohl, Lahner, & Jooste, 2003). Many custodial grandparents also report psychological and physical difficulties that stem, in part, from their own perceptions of their responsibilities as parents.

Gettinger and Guetschow (1998) argue that proper parenting requires meeting the emotional and medical needs of the child as well as assuring the child's success in school. Custodial grandparents may have more difficulty meeting these expectations and/or the needs of the grandchildren they are raising due to the circumstances surrounding their role acquisition (e.g., parental divorce, drug abuse, incarceration, living on a fixed income) and the often unforeseen nature of the responsibilities they assume. Existing family relationships may also be affected—custodial grandparents are four times more likely than traditional, noncaregiving grandparents to report declines in marital satisfaction (Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2000). Grandparent caregivers may also be unable or unwilling to continue meeting the obligations they have toward their own adult children whose child(ren) the grandparents are now raising (Shore & Hayslip, 1994), resulting in a loss of feelings of stability as grandparents realize their expectations for their adult children and grandchildren may not be met (Blieszner & Mancini, 1987). Moreover, custodial grandparents often lose contact with other grandchildren, leading to regrets about the loss of such relationships (Shore & Hayslip, 1994).

Feeling shame associated with the stigma attached to reasons for assuming their new caregiving roles is common (Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2000). Grandparent caregivers' grief over such losses is disenfranchised (not recognized by others as legitimate or worthy of public expression) (Miltenberger, Hayslip, Harris, & Kaminski, 2003–2004). As their social networks may be disrupted by such feelings, the physical and mental health of custodial grandparents, as well as their ability to parent, may be undermined.

A parent's sense of efficacy is a prerequisite to good parenting (Gettinger & Guetschow, 1998) and, in this respect, custodial grandparents may face more barriers than the average parent because their own views of their efficacy to parent might be seen as poor at best. However, while grandparents may struggle with becoming a surrogate parent, this second chance at parenting often leads to an effort to perform better in their parenting role with a grandchild versus that accomplished with their own children (Emick & Hayslip, 1999).

Developmental, Emotional, and Behavioral Difficulties in Custodial Grandchildren

Two distinct groups of custodial grandparents exist: those whose difficulties primarily stem from the demands of the parenting role and those whose difficulties relate to a grandchild with developmental, emotional, or behavioral difficulties, the majority of which are male (Emick & Hayslip, 1999; Hayslip, Shore, Henderson, & Lambert, 1998; Hayslip & Shore, 2000). Among this latter group, such difficulties are likely to exacerbate the challenges such grandparents face beyond those described previously (McKinney, McGrew, & Nelson, 2003; Kolomer, McCallion, & Overeynder, 2003), placing many at increased risk for depression, often to the detriment of their own physical health. Hayslip and Shore (2000) found custodial grandparents who reported greater degrees of problem behaviors in their grandchildren to experience more psychosocial distress. In addition, those custodial grandparents who had sought mental health care assistance were the most psychosocially impaired and had the most conflictual relationships with their grandchildren.

Race/Ethnicity

Relative to other influences on custodial grandparenting, that of race/ethnicity has been largely unexplored. In this light, African Americans emphasize the role of extended family and African American grandparents often play an active and respected role in the rearing of kin (Pruchno, 1999; Solomon & Marx, 2000). While Hispanic Americans tend to view grandparents' caregiving roles as extensions of their relationships with both adult children and grandchildren (Cox, Brooks, & Vacavel, 2000), Caucasian grandparents define the family as nuclear in nature and tend to be less accepting of the new grandparent-grandchild relationship when the grandparent assumes parental responsibility (Pruchno,1999; Toledo, Hayslip, Emick, Toled,o & Henderson, 2000). Thus, cultural differences in parental expectations may also impact the success of two otherwise equally competent grandparent caregivers.

Rationale for the Present Study

The parameters chosen here to operationalize young adults' perceptions of custodial grandparents reflect several important themes that have defined the concerns custodial grandparents have regarding their own skills as parents as well as concerns they perceive others to have about them, for example: the impact of custodial grandparenting on one's physical and psychological well-being, the importance of social support for such grandparents, and their needs for a variety of social services. Of primary interest here is the manner in which young adults' perceptions of these custodial grandparents might be impacted by particular developmental, emotional, and behavioral difficulties of the grandchild in their care, which may be in response to the new caregiving arrangement and/or as a function of difficulties that predate the grandchild's new relationship with the grandparent (Emick & Hayslip, 1999; Hayslip et al., 1998; Young & Dawson, 2003). Indeed, individuals who hold more problematic parental attitudes and/or who feel less efficacious as parents might also experience more parental stress, due to the bidirectional relationship between parental attitudes and dysfunctional child behaviors (Holden & Buck, 2002). An understanding of the basis for the perceptions of custodial grandparents by young adults might therefore greatly help in understanding influences on parental efficacy among custodial grandparents and, thus, may benefit both these grandparents and their grandchildren.

As the feelings and attitudes of grandparent caregivers (e.g., feeling isolated and alienated, experiencing shame and depression) have been well documented, it becomes important that the bases for the views others might hold about custodial grandparents and their grandchildren be explored. Such feelings may be related to (a) the stigma attached to the reasons for the assumption of the caregiving role, which also may vary with ethnicity (Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005); (b) the fact that such grandchildren are often labeled as different by age peers because their grandparents are raising them; or (c) the fact that some grandchildren seem to have more difficulty adjusting to their new family arrangement than do others (Hayslip et al., 1998), often externalizing their difficulties and interfering with their relationships with others (Silverthorn & Durant, 2000).

This study examines perceptions held by young adults regarding (a) the efficacy of custodial grandparents as parents to a grandchild, (b) the efficacy of custodial grandparents as parents to their natural child(ren), (c) custodial grandparents' needs for social support, (d) custodial grandparents' needs for social and mental health services, (e) disruption in the lives of custodial grandparents, (f) the grandchild's degree of overall adjustment, and (g) the grandchild's ability to share his or her feelings with the grandparent. These are all predicted to vary, dependent on (a) the reason for role assumption—less socially acceptable circumstances surrounding the natural parent may influence young adults' views of the grandmother/grandchild, and on (b) the presence or absence of problems in the grandchild— a problematic child may stigmatize the entire grandparent/grandchild relationship despite the reason for role acquisition. The gender of the grandchild may also influence participants' perceptions of custodial grandmothers, as boys may have more difficulty adjusting to their new families than do girls (Emick & Hayslip, 1999; Hayslip et al., 1998). The impact of ethnicity was also explored here because there is clear evidence for its influence on the physical and emotional distress grandparent caregivers experience.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were 1,281 young adults (381 males, 900 females) enrolled in an introductory undergraduate psychology course who volunteered to participate in exchange for research credit. The vast majority of participants (95%) were under the age of 30 years [Average age (M) = 21.00, standard deviation (SD) = 4.5]. Approximately 70% of the participants were female and Caucasian, while the remainder were male and/or African American, Hispanic, or Asian American. Ninety-one percent of the sample was single.

Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two orders of administration, wherein half first completed a demographic survey and then were randomly assigned to read a particular scenario depicting a relationship between a custodial grandmother and her grandchild (see Appendix). Participants then responded to a series of questions as they applied to the scenario. The remaining half first read the scenario to which they had been randomly assigned and responded to the questions pertaining to it and then answered the demographic questions. Cell sizes (complete data) ranged from 14 to 25, with the average cell size being 15.

Items pertinent to all scenarios were developed to measure participants' perceptions of the profiled custodial grandmother; their content was based on the first author's experience in workshops with custodial grandparents (see Hayslip & Patrick, 2003; Wohl et al., 2003) and on a review of the grandparent caregiving literature. Each question was designed to measure perceptions of the custodial grandparent in the scenario along the following parameters: (a) life disruption (10 items), where higher scores indicated more perceived disruption in the grandparent's life because of caring for the grandchild (alpha = .77) (e.g., the life of this grandparent is disrupted by caring for her grandchild; this grandparent does not have time for herself); (b) needs for social and mental health services (12 items), where higher scores indicated greater perceived need for social/mental health services (alpha = .73) (e.g., this grandparent is fearful about what will happen to her in the future; this grandparent is feeling frustrated); (c) parenting efficacy (24 items), where higher scores indicated greater perceived efficacy of the grandparent as a parent to the grandchild she was raising (alpha = .83) (e.g., this grandparent is a better parent than the child's natural parent; this grandparent is a loving parent; this grandparent will be able to communicate effectively with this grandchild); (d), needs for social support (9 items), where higher scores indicated greater perceived needs for social support from others (alpha = .72) (e.g., this grandparent is being taken advantage of; this grandparent is feeling ignored by her friends); (e) efficacy as adult parent (6 items), where higher scores indicated perceptions of the grandparent as a more adequate parent to her adult child (the grandchild's parent) (alpha = .51) (e.g., this grandparent was a poor parent; this grandparent should have been a better parent to her children); (f) grandchild adjustment (4 items), where higher scores indicated better perceived emotional adjustment in the grandchild being cared for (alpha = .92) (e.g., the grandchild will experience problems in school; the grandchild will experience emotional problems); and (g) grandchild openness (4 items), where higher scores indicated greater comfort and security of the grandchild being cared for in expressing his or her feelings toward the grandparent (lpha = .81) (e.g., this grandchild feels close to this grandparent; this grandchild trusts the grandparent).

Independent Variables

The independent variables were defined with regard to those that were manipulated via the construction of the scenario: gender of the grandchild, the presence/absence of a problem in the grandchild (e.g., behavioral/learning problems), race/ethnicity of the grandmother (e.g, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic), and the reason for role acquisition (e.g., abandonment, child abuse, death of the parent, parent's drug abuse, imprisonment, job loss, divorce). This resulted in 84 unique scenarios representing combinations of the previous independent variables; participants were randomly assigned to read a single scenario that varied according to the previously mentioned variables. As the vast majority of grandparent caregivers are women (see Hayslip & Kaminiski, 2005), only grandmothers were portrayed in the scenarios as raising their grandchildren.

RESULTS

Data were analyzed via a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) manipulating grandchild problem (2 levels), grandchild gender (2 levels), grandparent ethnicity (3 levels), and reason for role assumption (7 levels), followed by univariate tests and post hoc comparisons as appropriate. The previous perceptual dimensions served as dependent variables.

As no main effects for ethnicity were found in an initial analysis of data, a subsequent MANOVA crossing the previous remaining 3 independent variables was carried out. This MANOVA (where the F test statistic, probability level p, and variance accounted for [eta² ] are reported in each case) yielded multivariate main effects for grandchild problem, F _7,1049 = 76.04, p < .01, eta² = .34, and for reason for role assumption, F _42,4924 = 6.90, p < 01, eta² = .04. There were no multivariate interaction effects and, in addition, there were no multivariate interactions involving ethnicity. Subsequent univariate tests revealed the main effect for grandchild problem was substantial for all dependent variables (all Fs _1,1055 > 10.34, p < .01, all eta² > .22). Likewise, the effect of reason for role assumption was common to all dependent variables (all Fs _1,1055 > 3.12, p < .01, all eta² > .02 < .04) except grandchild openness (p < .07).

Complete tables reflecting the univariate findings regarding prorated/adjusted means (accounting for differing numbers of items in each scale) for each dependent variable can be obtained from the senior author.

Main Effects for Grandchild Problem

In general, grandmothers raising grandchildren who were not experiencing behavioral or emotional problems were perceived as providing more adequate parenting to their grandchildren (M = 4.11) than were grandmothers raising grandchildren who were experiencing these problems (M = 3.84). Those grandmothers raising grandchildren without problems were also perceived as having provided more adequate parenting to their own adult children (M = 3.74) than those grandmothers raising grandchildren with problems (M = 3.65). This analysis also indicated those grandmothers raising grandchildren experiencing behavioral or emotional problems to be perceived as being in greater need of social and mental health services (M = 2.83) as well as in greater need of social support from others (M = 2.55) versus those grandmothers raising children without these problems (Ms = 2.36 and 2.33 respectively). Those grandmothers raising problem grandchildren were also perceived as having experienced more life disruption (M = 2.75) related to caregiving than were grandmothers raising children without problems (M = 2.48). Those grandchildren with problems were perceived as being less well adjusted (M = 2.23) than were grandchildren without problems (M = 3.15), even though these distressed grandchildren were also perceived as feeling more comfortable in sharing their feelings with the grandparent (M = 2.57) than grandchildren without problems (M = 1.98).

Main Effects for Reason for Role Assumption

With regard to the reason for role assumption, analyses for all dependent variables were found to be statistically significant (all Fs _1,1055 > 3.13, p < .03, eta²s > .01), with the exception of grandchild openness (p < .07). Data suggested that grandmothers were perceived as being in less need of social and mental health services if the reason they had assumed custody of the grandchild was related to death (M = 2.56), incarceration (M = 2.55), job loss (M = 2.55), or divorce (M = 2.50) than if the reason was related to abandonment (M = 2.68), child abuse (M = 2.68), or drug abuse (M = 2.63). Likewise, participants perceived less disruption in the grandparent's life if the reason for assuming the custodial role of the grandchild was related to death (M = 2.46), incarceration (M = 2.58), job loss (M = 2.54), or divorce (M = 2.55) than if the reason was related to abandonment (M = 2.84), child abuse (M = 2.68), or drug abuse (M = 2.64). Finally, grandchildren were perceived to be more well adjusted if the reason for the grandparent's assuming care was related to death (M = 2.85), incarceration (M = 2.78), job loss (M = 2.84), or divorce (M = 2.80) than if the reason was related to abandonment (M = 2.60), child abuse (M = 2.50), or drug abuse (M = 2.53).

Data also indicated grandmothers who were perceived to be in lesser need of social support were those who had assumed care for their grandchild due to death (M = 2.17) versus the remaining reasons for role assumption: abandonment (M = 2.64), child abuse (M = 2.41), drug abuse (M = 2.50), incarceration (M = 2.43), job loss (M = 2.45), or divorce (M = 2.45). Grandmothers who had assumed the custodial role due to drug abuse (M = 3.96), job loss (M = 3.85), and divorce (M = 3.91) were perceived to be less adequate in this role than those who had assumed custody due to abandonment (M = 4.02), child abuse (M = 4.06), death (M = 4.00), or incarceration (M = 4.05).

Grandmothers who had assumed the custodial role due to abandonment (M = 3.47), child abuse (M = 3.50), drug abuse (M = 3.56), or incarceration (M = 3.61) were perceived to have been less adequate in the role of parent to their own adult child than those who had assumed caregiving due to death (M = 3.94), job loss (M = 3.87), or divorce (M = 3.88).

Impact of Ambiguity of the Reason for Role Assumption

There is substantial agreement among grandparent caregivers that their relationships with their adult child whose child they are now raising is a significant source of distress to them and to the grandchild they are parenting (Cox, 2000, Hayslip & Goldberg-Glen, 2000). When it is clear that the adult parent has relinquished both formal and informal contact with the grandchild, matters often improve for the latter. Many grandparents' and grandchildren's lives are disrupted by the ambiguity associated with a lack of clear legal standing regarding the former's caregiving role as well as the desire by the adult parent to maintain some, albeit inconsistent, contact with the grandchild, where the parent's entrance and exit from the child's life is more disruptive, not less so (see Wohl et al., 2003).

In light of the complexity of analyzing interrelationships of the many reasons for role assumption, we conducted the use of exploratory analyses utilizing only two categories of ambiguity in order to make findings more interpretable. Reasons of death, incarceration, and divorce were considered to be less ambiguous in that there was perhaps a greater likelihood that a more clearly determined grandparent/grandchild relationship was established wherein the grandparent had been officially designated as the care provider for the grandchild. Job loss was also categorized as less ambiguous in that often when a parent is unemployed for long periods, his or her ability to regain employment is jeopardized, creating a need to rely on the grandparent to provide support and care for children; job loss may also covary with both incarceration and divorce in this respect. More ambiguous reasons were those where the parent was thought to be more able to move in and out of the grandchild's life at will, creating less consistency in defining the grandparent's parenting role, such as parental abandonment, drug use, and child abuse. Thus, we defined death, incarceration, job loss, and divorce as less ambiguous and parental abandonment, child abuse, or drug abuse as more ambiguous.

The main effect for ambiguity was substantial for all dependent variables (all Fs _1,1055 > 7.06, p < .001, eta² > .008 < .06), with the exception of grandchild openness (p < .06). Grandmothers who had assumed custody of the grandchild for more ambiguous reasons were seen as in greater need of social services (M = 2.67) and of social support (M = 2.52) than were grandmothers who had assumed custody for less ambiguous reasons (Ms = 2.54, 2.37 respectively). These same grandmothers (those in the more ambiguous reason condition) were also perceived as having experienced greater life disruption (M = 2.72) than were grandmothers who had assumed custody due to less ambiguous reasons (M = 2.53).

Grandmothers who had assumed custody of the grandchild for less ambiguous reasons were also perceived as having been more adequate parents to their own adult children (M = 3.83) than were grandmothers who had assumed custody of the grandchild for more ambiguous reasons (M = 3.51). Finally, grandchildren whose grandmothers had assumed custody for less ambiguous reasons were perceived to be more emotionally well adjusted (M = 2.81) than those grandchildren whose grandmothers had assumed custody for more ambiguous reasons (M = 2.54). Though it failed to reach statistical significance (p < .07), the impact of ambiguity on grandchild openness nevertheless favored those grandchildren in less ambiguous scenarios, perhaps reflecting their enhanced emotional adjustment.

DISCUSSION

This study is unique in that its focus is not on the grandparent caregiver's perspective, but on that maintained by the young adult, reflecting the social interpersonal context in which custodial grandparenting occurs. Indeed, these data clearly suggest custodial grandparents' interactions with others as well as those of their children and grandchildren (both those for whom they provide care and for those for whom they do not) are likely to be colored by others' knowledge of and attitudes toward them as potential failures as parents, as persons who helped create the necessity for their newly acquired roles, as persons who are victims of circumstances over which they have little control, or as persons in need of both formal and informal support and help from others. That these perceptions would covary with the presence of behavioral or emotional problems in the grandchild and the reason for role assumption suggests that some grandparent caregivers might be more differentially affected by such biases than others. This suggestion is mirrored in grandparents' reports of feeling isolated and of having difficulty obtaining needed social services (see Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005), in such persons stating that their lives have been disrupted by caregiving (Jendrek, 1994), often to the detriment of their personal and marital well-being, plans for the future, and relationships with both their children and grandchildren (see Cox, 2000). Such factors interfere with their roles as grandparents, parents, spouses, workers, and friendships/relationships with age peers (see Hayslip et al., 1998).

The Impact of Grandchild Problems

Our findings clearly suggest that grandparents raising grandchildren with emotional or behavioral problems are perceived as in greater need of assistance as they work to provide adequate parenting to their grandchild. Of course, it may be that among such grandparents, such difficulties might be explained in terms of inadequate parenting practices and attitudes; these may also be a response to the demands made on grandparents by a problem grandchild (Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005) or reflect difficulties in a grandchild's adjustment that predate the assumption of the parental role by the grandparent. Under these circumstances, such influences are likely to undermine perceptions of a grandparent's parental efficacy by young adults who interact with the grandchild, such as teachers and service providers, by unfairly blaming the grandparent for the grandchild's problems.

Grandparents raising grandchildren in general tend to see themselves as less adequate in their parenting roles and in need of support from others (see Hayslip & Shore, 2000). This apparent parallel between what grandparents themselves report and what others say about them could still work to the detriment of many grandparents raising a grandchild who feel the need for help—those in a position to provide such assistance (often young adults) appear not to recognize this need and, hence, fail to provide social and emotional support related to role adjustments that all custodial grandparents must make. They assume that if the grandchild is not experiencing difficulties things are going well. Consequently, grandparents working to meet the needs of their grandchildren and who may be perceived as being able to meet those needs (since the grandchild is not experiencing any adjustment problems) may nevertheless have unmet needs of their own (e.g., depression, isolation from others) that are underestimated by young adults positioned to help them and/or their grandchildren.

Clearly, describing the grandchild as problematic or not also had a major impact on perceptions of custodial grandparents in this study. Surprisingly, however, if the child was described as problematic, responses to questions regarding efficacy of the grandparent as a parent to the grandchild were more positive, but less so regarding having adequately parented the adult child. However, if the child was not described as problematic, responses were more positive regarding efficacy of the grandparent as a grandparent to her other grandchildren, needs for social services, and life disruption. This might suggest these young adults perceived the acquisition of the problematic child as a dimension of the caregiving role that engages the grandparent more fully and provides more satisfaction than if the child were not problematic yet isolates her from her other grandchildren. It might also suggest that young adults may hold grandparent caregivers responsible for their caregiving situation; had they been better parents to their adult children, the present situation could have been avoided, mirroring what grandparent caregivers themselves say (Baird, 2003; Wohl et al., 2003). It appears that in some ways, young adults may underestimate the emotional and psychosocial demands on grandparent caregivers who are raising an emotionally and behaviorally problematic grandchild.

The Impact of Reason Ambiguity

In this study, grandmothers who had assumed the parenting role for reasons related to death, divorce, incarceration, or job loss (those reasons deemed to be less ambiguous) were also perceived by young adults to be in less need of social or mental health services and as having experienced less disruption in their lives. At the same time, the grandchildren they were raising were perceived to have higher levels of emotional adjustment. Consequently, the grandparent's assumption of the parenting role would be less ambiguous in nature and, therefore, present both the grandparent and grandchild with more clearly defined expectations of eac other. It would appear that grandparents who assume the custodial role of a grandchild in situations where the child's parent is more consistently absent are perceived by young adults more favorably than those grandparents who assume parenting in situations where the parent's absence is less final (e.g., drug and/or child abuse).

As expected, what some might define as less socially acceptable circumstances (e.g., child abuse, drug abuse, and abandonment, all of which are arrestable offenses) had the most negative effects on perceptions. In contrast, in less stigmatizing circumstances (and those not punishable by law) such as divorce, unemployment, and even death had milder effects on such perceptions.

It may be that the more ambiguous reasons for the grandparent to assume parenting of the grandchild might also be more stigmatizing to the grandparent, stemming from the view that had the grandparent been a better parent to his or her own child the adult child might have been a better parent to the grandchild. This stigmatization might result in the grandparent being more negatively perceived as less worthy of support, resulting in more distress for her if she is raising a child who is less well adjusted. What needs to be remembered, however, is that even grandparents whose reason for assuming the parenting of a grandchild is less ambiguous and possibly less stigmatizing nevertheless need social support and services (Hayslip et al., 1998; Smith, 2003). Ultimately, such views held by young adults might result in the grandparent not getting the help and support from others in her convoy, resulting in her grandchild receiving less than adequate parenting from someone who feels overwhelmed with little formal or informal assistance.

Implications of the Present Findings

While understanding young adults' biases is critical to grandparent caregivers' well-being and parallels what such grandparents themselves report in terms of needed social support from others, more direct intervention in the form of support groups for both grandparent caregivers (Smith, 2003) might be helpful as might be educating young adults regarding the challenges faced by custodial grandparents. Thus, these data suggest redefining the experiential and social context in which custodial grandparenting occurs is a critical dimension of addressing the difficulties such grandparents and their grandchildren face: invisibility, loneliness, feeling different from others, and lessened access to needed social services.

At the minimum, these findings do suggest that to a greater or lesser extent, custodial grandparents' needs for social support, social (mental health) services, as well as their parental skills are in a relative sense, either overestimated or underestimated in the views of young adults. Clearly, in varying degrees, these findings parallel what custodial grandparents report: that they feel inadequate as parents, that their lives are indeed disrupted, that they do feel overwhelmed (if not depressed) by their newly acquired parental responsibilities, and that they feel isolated and alone. The perceptual biases presented here, therefore, have important implications for custodial grandparents' well-being, physical health, and social networks of support. For example, that grandparents often raise their grandchildren out of cultural and social necessity underscores the dilemma that such persons face coexistent health difficulties or other life stressors. Others' expectations of them may further impair their own efforts to redefine their roles as parents or simultaneously maintain their relationship with their other children and grandchildren while caring for a grandchild or in dealing with their own children over the extent of the latter's involvement in the grandchild's life, or over legal custody. In this respect, empowering grandparents to enable them to confront and overcome such attitudinal barriers becomes an increasingly important issue for service providers, educators, and therapists who deal with custodial grandparents (Cox, 2000). Thus, confronting others' biases by being assertive and clearly communicating their needs and feelings is critical to not only grandparents but also to grandchildren whose feelings may have been disenfranchised by divorce, death, or abuse. In each case, others may be less empathetic or less supportive than they might otherwise be, especially given the lack of direct and substantive experiences with such grandparents and grandchildren.

As increasing one's experience with grandparent caregivers may positively affect service providers' views of them (Waldrop & Gress, 2002), bringing young adults into direct contact with custodial grandparents and/or their grandchildren in the context of child care, day care, kindergarten in the public schools, or in the provision of social and mental health services may lessen their biases of grandfamilies. As grandparents may be uncertain about how to raise their grandchildren, internalizing others' views about what it is like to be a custodial grandparent could easily undermine one's efforts in getting needed information about social services, seeking professional mental health assistance, joining a support group, or availing oneself of respite care.

As problems with their grandchildren may bring caregiving grandparents into conflict with young adults (e.g., as teachers, social service providers) and demand immediate intervention (Hayslip, Silverthorn, Shore, & Henderson, 2000; Silverthorn & Durant, 2000), young adults' views about the extent of, and basis for, such problems are likely to impact grandparents' willingness to access parent training programs and/or influence grandparents' own efforts to seek professional help for a troubled grandchild (Daly & Glenwick, 2000). It may also limit information available to them regarding likely resources for help available in the community and interfere with timely referrals to professionals made by others.

APPENDIX

Mrs. Smith, a Hispanic woman, is a married grandparent and has several adult children. She has recently become a full-time grandparent caregiver to one of her grandchildren. Mrs. Smith has been caring for her elementary-school-age granddaughter for one year, and her good health has allowed her to provide for the grandchild. Her granddaughter has exhibited some behavior and learning problems in school and has been involved in fights with friends. Her grandchild has also begun to experience some symptoms of depression such as loss of appetite and trouble sleeping at night. Mrs. Smith became the primary caregiver of her granddaughter when the child's parents abandoned the child. Due to these circumstances, Mrs. Smith will remain the primary caregiver of her grandchild for an indefinite period of time.