Beyond Boundaries: A Grandparent's Dedication with Betty Wilkes

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Do you struggle with legal complications and the often overwhelming responsibility of single handedly raising a grandchild? Well, you're not alone.

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Stay tuned for episode seven. Beyond a grandparents dedication welcome to grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity in this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma, and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you.

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Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored.

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The first six months to, I would say, at least a year was very complicated. Trying to navigate what legal course to take, how to cope with complicated family issues, among other things. One day, I read an article in the New York Times about grandparents raising grandchildren. It was one woman's experience, and I realized I wasn't alone and that there were a lot of other people like myself out there coping with the same issues. Betty Wilkes was one of those women. I'm talking today with Betty Wilkes, who's a single parent, a grandmother of three, and that's caregiver for one of her grandchildren, nine year old Ayanna, but has no legal guardianship, which is now presenting its challenges. I adopted two girls in 2001. The older one got pregnant, had a baby in 2015, but at that point, she had reconnected with her biological family, so her lifestyle switched. Well, when, as I said, when the father's mother got involved. Ayanna was two months old at the time, and the father's mother did not like the way my daughter was living or where she was living and how she was treating the baby. She was just kind of leaving her with whoever will keep, and she got involved, petitioned for guardianship. This was like, probably September. In October, we go to court, and, you know, they tried to help my daughter get the parenting classes, the job placement, all of that.

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She didn't go back to the next court hearing. I was out of town. So the paternal grandmother is actually her legal guardian. Her work schedule was not very conducive to child rearing, and I had just retired, so I offered to help her out temporarily. Well, here it is. The baby will be nine years old in June. You know, I'm the one that would take her to daycare, pick her up. You know, she worked, like, from six in the morning to seven or eight at night. So when she would come and get her, it was already late. So your mom tried to be nice when she started school. Well, it really doesn't make sense for you to come pick her up

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00. She's right here by the school. You know, you can. We can work something out. Well, her schedule went from working Sunday to Thursday to Sunday to Saturday.

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So I have her six days a week, but I don't have any legal recourse, and that's my next step because she's struggling in school right now and I want to have some testing done. And the paternal grandmother is not in agreement, and I have to remind her that the mother and the other sister that I raised, they both had learning difficulties. One of them is diagnosed with dyslexia. And I see all these signs in this child.

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She doesn't want to have her tested. Why would you not want to have her tested? I know where she came from. I struggled. You know, I raised the mother, I raised the auntie, and they were both struggling in school. So I don't get any assistance because as I said, I'm not her legal guardian.

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She does get free health insurance. She still gets that? Yeah, she still gets that. And it's because most of the time when they send the letter to say they're going to end it, I have to encourage the other grandmother to know she's entitled to that. She's entitled to free healthcare. It doesn't make sense for us to pay well. I know mine at my job while I'm retired now, it would be really expensive. I retired in 2015, and I have yet to enjoy the life of a retiree because I'm still on mom duty. I'm not on grandma duty. Cause grandma duty means you pick them up and you take them home, drop them off. I have, you know, I'm still doing the dance lessons, I'm still doing homework, I'm still going to parent teacher conferences. I'm doing everything except being able to jump up and go on vacation when I want.

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I had to go back to work part time because when I retired, I did not factor raising a kid in with my pension and Social Security. I was through raising kids. I was, uh, you know, just do me. I haven't really had a chance to do that. And then the relationship with the other grandmother is not a good one. I feel like I'm in a bad custody situation with her. It's definitely been a life changing experience, because as far as assistance, like, I don't, I don't know what's out there, because right now I'm at the point where really what I want to do is just, I kept fighting it because I didn't really want to get custody of her. But if I'm going to get her the help she needs, that may be where I'm going to have to go with this. I asked Betty to tell me who was one of the greatest influences in her life and what she thinks it takes for a person that grows up in challenging situations to be successful.

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And part of the reason that I just had to just sold my house and skip town is because my grandmother raised me. My grandmother raised me and two brothers.

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I asked Betty if she was getting help from her family.

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Well, they helped as much as they can, you know, because nobody, I mean, you know, I think people forgot that before I adopted my girls and I kept everybody's kids in the summertime, I'd go pick up my nieces and nephews, and I'd keep them for a couple of weeks, you know, to give the parents a break. So I think a lot of times, people forget that you did it for them.

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So I don't really have a lot of help, per se. My younger daughter, she has a child of her own, and she would help out, but the other grandmother does not want her keeping her. And, you know, that's my thing. It's like you have all these rules, but yet if you want me to give up all of my life to stay here with her, and you're still working 1213 hours a day, you knew when you went out there and got her that your lifestyle was not conducive to child re, you knew that.

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Why did you go get her? So then her thing was, well, you didn't want her growing up out there in the hood. And I told her, I'd worked in the school system here for 31 years, and some of my children that grew up in the hood turned out better than the ones that grew up in suburbs because they had a desire to do that. What have you seen makes a kid survive the worst situations and some not? It's a desire to want better, because even with me, I remember growing up and, you know, we grew up poor. We were poor, poor. And I remember my grandmother always saying, you got to want better. Nobody can give it to you. And some people get, you know, they repeated the cycle. They started having babies and, you know, just doing what mom and daddy were doing, little boys.

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And then I run into ones when I go to conventions, and they've turned out to be doctors and lawyers, and they chose, it's about choices. And I think sometimes they just don't make the best choices. It's like, you know, my younger, my brother, under me, of course, he's a recovering addict, in and out of jail, in and out of rehab. Constant, constant, constant. And my younger brother got arrested, so he was in the navy. He died while he was in service. But about the choices, and even now, I look back at some things with my granddaughter and I see the insecurity in her always wanting to get everybody's approval. And I was like that. I was that overachiever. Always gotta be good, kid. You know, if I'm good, they'll keep me. They won't, you know, it always felt like love was conditional, and I see that in her, and I'm trying to deter it. I try to make her understand, because even when she doesn't do well at school, she was like, granny, are you mad at me? No, baby, I'm not mad at you. You did your best, that's all you can do. And I see that.

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Wanting approval, wanting people to like me. And then realizing, like I said, as I get older, I realized people are gonna like it. They like it. They don't, they don't. But when you're a kid and, and the most important person in your life has already rejected you, it makes you want other people to accept you, to be accepted, to be like. And I'm trying to deter that. In her, you mentioned, you know, your. Family, you saw your mother and grandmother. My mother had six kids and raised one. She had me. I'm the oldest, and there were two boys under me. She left us with my grandma. I have, there's another sister that she walked to my grandmother's house, but there was an uncle and aunt who had already adopted her. My grandmother didn't know it until they came to pick her up.

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So after they get that baby, my mom goes off and she has another one that she leaves with a friend of hers in another city. We knew about her, but, you know, we didn't know.

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As my grandmother said, she didn't know how to go about getting well. You are one of those kids that have the will to survive and want something better for yourself, right?

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And then she had my younger sister. She ran off to Boston and had her. She raised one child, and I sometimes feel like if she could have come back without that one, she would have left her in Boston with a friend.

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As I said, I was a senior in high school when she came back into her life. And I remember her telling my grandmother that she wanted to come home. She was going to leave my sister with a friend of hers until she got settled. And my grandmother told her, no, you bring her with you because you don't go back and get your penis. And she made her.

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Yeah. My grandmother was my inspiration. She's been gone now since 2008. But my grandmother was my inspiration because, uh, my grandfather, he was actually my step grandfather.

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But I remember hearing him at night telling her that she needed to send us to an orphanage because he couldn't feed the kids he had in his house and he didn't need any more.

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And she would always say, they're not going anywhere. They're mine, and I'm keeping them, you know? And I just remember it was always, of course, you know, around time, payday time, we were eating. She stretched and made it happen. But he was frustrated, and he would always counter that. And I know probably because I was about six, maybe, when my mom left, and I know up until the time I was probably in fourth or fifth grade, I would always hear him saying, we got too many kids in this house. You need to send them children somewhere. But she held on, and she said, no, no, no. And by the time I graduated from high school, my grandfather and I were actually really, really close. And I don't think his frustration was just so much that he didn't want us. It was that he already had enough on him. And they were barely making ends meet.

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But she steadfast, and she's always been like that. No matter what happened. Anybody in the family that was homeless, that was needing somewhere to stay, we had some of the people in our house, but she would not turn anybody out. She wouldn't turn them away. That's the way she was about family. You're going to take care of family. So that's what inspired you to step up and take care of your. And I think I remember in the survey you sent back to me that you find clinical depression sometimes. Yes. And I shared that with the other grandmother. I said, there's some days I don't want to be bothered with me. I need to de stress. I need to just go in my room and pull the covers over my head and just relax. Just get rid of everything. Well.

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And that's when she said, well, you just want her to be something wrong with her because there's something wrong with you. I said, well, you know, there's really something wrong with all of us. Some of us just don't admit it. Yes. Yeah. Because she herself was sexually abused as a child. But I don't throw that in her face. And I know that's why she doesn't really want a lot of people keeping her. But just as I told her, you're going to have to get more of a support system. She's 47, 47, 48. And I'm 63. Just like I told her, girl, I'm getting old. I don't have the energy to deal with this. And, you know, then the stuff that she's coming home from school with, I'm like, this third grade math had me about the craft.

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You got to step up and do more. But then I have to hear that, well, you got all those college degrees. You supposed to be smart, but not one of them is in math, you know? And that's what I have to explain to her. A college degree, you specialize in an area that you're good at. Math is not my error.

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So what would you say has been your greatest feeling of failure in what you're doing now? Sometimes with her, like, last night, we were doing homework, and she started crying. And I said, what's wrong? She said, I just don't know this stuff, granny. She said, and I'll ask some of the kids at school to help me, and they won't help me. You know, she was just crying, and I was like, ayanna, baby, we're doing the best we can. I said, and that's all you can do.

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But then I told her, I said, maybe I should have done a little bit more with you. We're gonna make you, you know, put that iPad up, and we're gonna sit down. We're gonna have to try to get you caught up with this reading. But I know from dealing with my daughter that has.

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Has dyslexia, we can sit here and read forever, because if I read the word to her, she can answer it. She can do it just like that. If she has to do it, it's not connected, you know, the connection is not there. But again, I can't make the grandmother understand, and she always has. You don't know everything. I'm not saying I know everything, but I'm also certified in special education, and I know what I'm looking at here. What would you say, what would you say has been your greatest success? Most times, she's happy, you know, most times she's extremely happy. And she tells me, sometimes you're the best granny in the world. My daughter also has two other children that she's not doing right by them either. But I just. I cannot, you know, DC's called me and I told them I can't. I said, yeah, I can't do it. Because again, I know when I get frustrated dealing with my own depression and stuff and see, Ayanna is old enough now when I tell her, okay, can you go in your room? Granny needs to de stress. I need a timeout.

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And she'll go in her room and I'll go in my room and I'll set the timer and then I come out and I tell her, okay, I'll talk to you now. But it's time. I have to get away from her too, because it's just too much. I think that's very important, don't you think, for the kids to know that they are kids, they're every second. Yeah. Cause she told me one day, she said, I was in class and I just had a meltdown. I said, girl, I know how you feel.

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Cause some days I have them, too. I said, you know, when I tell you I need a timeout, that's when I'm about to have one, you know.

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So, you know, I try to make her aware of the fact that even though I'm an adult, I said, we don't know everything. I said.

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And sometimes we have to say I'm sorry. Cause, you know, there's times I've yelled at her and I have to catch myself and I'll have to step away because I don't want to. I hear all this, you need to spank her, but you need to do this. And I'm like, no, y'all, I don't need to spank anybody.

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Because the frustration that I feel would not be what she did, it would be the situation I'm in. Communication is the key to coping with complicated family dynamics, but that isn't always possible in the case of sometimes complicated situations of caregiving.

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Yeah, because like I said, the girl, even the grandmother, when she got her, it was hard for her to find babysitters because nobody wanted to keep a child those hours, you know, daycare is open from six in the morning to six in the evening. That's it. But they said the first thing I did, I had a friend whose daughter was not working at the time, and they lived around the corner from my granddaughter and her grandmother. And she said, I'll help you out for a while because they were right there. But then it went from she was not picking her up like at six, she was picking up like at night and then bring her right back the next morning. And that started to become a problem. So I told her, I said, well, you know what, I know a lady owns a daycare out here because at that point I was kind of working part time. And I said, just bring her to me. I'll drop her daycare, I'll pick her up and you can come get her. But then when I realized how late she again, how late she was, I said, it's just easier to leave her here during the week.

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You pick her up on Friday, bring her back. That went from being Friday to Monday. So now, you know when I'm going on a new shift, they want me to work third shift and I'll be working from Sunday to Thursday. I was like, okay, that sounds good. I have my weekends for that went from Sunday to Saturday. Now she working almost seven days a week and she gets upset when I tell her, no, I am not going to keep her, I have something to do this weekend. So now the insults and the personal attacks and, you know, I mean, it got so bad couple of weeks ago, I just had to block her. I was like, just call the eight year old and talk to her. I can't do you. We explored the complex issue of self worth, balancing feelings of success and failure as grandparents raising grandchildren. And then there's the resentment that rears its ugly head once in a while. And, you know, when I deal with her other grandma and I get mad at my daughter all over again, I wouldn't even know this woman. I would never have met her anywhere if you had brought her into my life. Why you happen to be mad at me? Why wouldn't I be mad at you if you were raising your child? I wouldn't have to deal with that woman that much. I mean, you know, you can always run into the other grandparents when you go to programs and stuff like that, but not on a day to day basis. And that's the thing that I do have some resentment because of the way her other grandmother treats me. And it's like, lady, you should be thanking me. But you know what?

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I just, I don't say anything. As I said, when I get kind of listen to her, I just block her from the phone and I don't deal with her because my focus is on making sure that this child gets what she needs. But what gets us through is when the kids themselves let us know what we really mean to them. You sound like an amazing woman, and I think your granddaughter is very lucky to have you. Yes. And she told me one day, she said, you do such a good job with me, why won't you take my sisters? And that's when I had to explain that it was just too much. I said, I can't do it. It's just too much. The reason that we oftentimes find the need to get legal authority over our grandchildren's lives is financial, to get food for them and the medical assistance they need, but sometimes also the educational help that they need. Have you gotten legal advice about how you could get custody for it? All I need to do is just go down to juvenile court and just file the paperwork. Just call and get an appointment, go down there and file the paperwork.

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But just as I told her it should, we shouldn't have to go to juvenile court. We're both adults here and we should be able to go down there and sit down and do, you know, joint custody thing? I said, well, I shouldn't have to take you to court to get custody, to be able to make decisions about her. I explained to her that this is going to have to be done because if we don't get her the help she needs, she's going to be repeating the grade when actually, if you get her the assistance that she needs with reading, she can do the work. She can do the work. It's just, she reads it, it's not connected. Oh, and I did mention neither parent is involved in their life. Her son, who's the father, is in jail.

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You're a single mother, you're a single parent. I'm a single parent. I adopted the sisters, the two daughters. Now his mom is 31, the other one is 25. I was their foster parent for four years, and then I zopticked them because they were going to separate them if they put them back in the system for adoption. The older one, Ayata's mom, was in counseling. She had reactive attachment disorder. Both kids that have been like in the system, they really don't have a lot of emotion. They don't really care about too much of anything. And that's what was going on with her because I doubted her when she was eight and I adopted them when she was twelve. But while she was in therapy, the therapist recommended that I adopt them because she felt that she was attached to me. I said, she is. And she said, well, she, her biggest fear is that she'll be sent back home to live with her mother. I said, okay, and I adopted them in. The adoption was final in November, and in February, she went in and found her biological mother. She found some cousins that had been in the system that went in foster care with them. She found the cousins, and the cousins had gone back home.

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And right after that, everything just started going down here. Before I became a grandparent raising grandchildren myself, I had a complete lack of awareness of this growing segment of society. My primary focus with this podcast is to create community and support for grandparents raising grandchildren. But my secondary focus is to raise awareness for the general public. What do you think are one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about us?

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That we did not raise our children right. My pastor even said that at church one Sunday. If you don't raise your kids, you end up raising your grandchild. I emailed him before church was even over. Good. I was sending him an email saying that that is the worst thing anybody can ever say about grandparents who are raising grandkids. Grandparents have to step up because the parents make horrible choices. It's not about them not being raised. And don't you think most of us do the best we can? Most of us would do the best we can. My grandmother had ten children, five year olds, five days. My mother is the only one who did not raise her children, but the other girls raised theirs.

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You know, they did not so much, but they were supposed to, as far as, you know, getting married, having children, but they raised their children, so it wasn't about raising kids. I agree with you. One of the primary goals in the role that we're playing in our grandchildren's lives, in a sense, is to change the course of history for these kids, to leave an even greater legacy for them.

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We may be changing their lives, but they are also changing our lives. What's the most surprising things you've learned about yourself during this time? Well, one of.

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One of the most surprising things I've learned about myself is that I can be more flexible than I thought. You know, I've had to open my mind and thought process because each generation is so different. You know, when I, as I say, when all of my old school friends always tell me about how I need to spank my granddaughter, I need to do this. I see. Y'all know we're dealing with a different breed of children. We. I've learned that if I take things from her, you know, it's just I get to learn to discipline her. Different. You have to open your mind. And what worked 50 years ago when my grandmother was raising us, you know, because they could eat the crap out of us. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything because I said so. That doesn't work. They still want to know why. That's why. I said, with my granddaughter, I'm much more open and explaining to her when I'm having a bad day. I've had to learn to be flexible and more available because, you know, she's better now, but that clingy. She had kind of had separation issues. It's like this weekend, I was at a conference, and I know she called me almost every today. I've just had to learn to shut up. That's basically it. You know how I used to react to everything.

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Can't do that now. Yeah. Even with the other grandmother, I can't react to everything because she picked.

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Ayanna picks up on my feelings, and she asked me one day, you don't like my gigi very much, do you?

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I suppose she's all right. And she looked at me, she was like, mm hmm. I suppose she sometimes. But she picks up on my vibe, so I try not to react well. Don'T just end with those real conversations also that we have with them matter. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Because she'll ask me sometimes, oh, my mama don't never come see me.

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And I just tell her, baby, I don't know. I said, I don't know. I said, your mom is trying to fix some things on herself. I said, when she gets better, maybe she'll reach out to you. And I think back to myself asking my grandmother that same question, you know, why my mama didn't want me. And her answer was always, baby, yeah. It doesn't mean that they don't love them, but they don't know how to take care of them.

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And that's it. And I see that, as I said, with the other two, but if I go, you know, I'll go get them for a couple of days because they're with her biological mother most of the time.

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And then some days, their father pops up, and he'll go get them and take them for a couple of days, you know, and the school calls, you know, the one that's school age now she's missing school, and they want to know because my name is on there as an emergency contact, and I don't know why because, again, Ayanna's mom really does not talk to me, so. But, you know, it's like she's not taking care of them either. And when the father has them, and he'll call me and you know, and I just told him, I said, when are you going to realize that she really does not want to be a mother she had as children? But that doesn't mean anything. If you want to get custody of your kids, go get custody of. But you can't make her do something she doesn't want to do. Right, but I. But I can't say that to Ayanna. I always tell her, your mom's trying to fix herself right now. That's what she. Because my grandmother used to tell me that she said, baby, she gotta figure out what she gonna do first. She can't take care of y'all twelve son. Ayanna. I said, it's not that she doesn't want you. She can't. I said, my favorite. Yeah, I don't know if she'll ever be there. We began wrapping up our session together, and I asked Betty what one of her favorite childhood memories was. What's one of your best childhood memories? My best childhood memory, believe it or not, I'm a nerd to a point. And I think it was just always, you know, I remember when I started school and I had an uncle that was a year older than me, and because I was kind of smart, you know, they wanted to move me ahead a grade.

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He didn't want anything to do with that. That's my niece. She's not supposed to be in the same grade with me. But I think that was one of the, one of the best memories was whenever I would bring my report card home, you know, I always made on a roll. I always, you know, always had some academic award or something just to hear, I think my. And that when I heard it from my grandmother, he told my grandmother one day, he said, that girl got right this sense. And to me, that was a compliment, because coming from him, who really didn't even want us around at first, said, she, that little girl kind of smart, isn't she? So, you know, and that was always why I tried to, you know, keep a grades up, you know, at scholarships, at college. I realized that that was one thing that I was good at with school. I was good at it, and I loved it. I loved going to school. And I guess because I didn't have to deal with the fact that my family, I love them all, God rest her soul, most of my uncle, all of my uncles. But you know how kids will say things to you that would just cut deep.

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You say your mama didn't want you, you know, those kind of things.

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But going to school because I was good at it. That was my thing. And I think those were my best memories. And that's why when I look at my kids now, no, they like school. My granddaughter doesn't like baby. School was a safe haven for me, and I think that's what it was.

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I just love learning and reading. I loved it.

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And, um, you know, just because I was never the kid that was outside playing all the time, I was always somewhere, as my grandmother would say, somewhere with a book in my hand. And I think because it just gave me. It helped me to escape the realities of what I was doing with life.

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It's always humbling, listening to other kinship caregivers stories. Someone's story is always worse than yours. You know, there's something like 2.4 million children being raised in the United States by somewhat other than their parents.

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Oh, yeah, I met her a couple of weeks ago.

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Yeah, last week at that third grade parent meeting, and she. And she told me she has. She has three girls that she's raising. She, you know, she was saying that she can't really help them with their homework because she doesn't have much of an education herself because her mother was always running and hiding from her father, who was abusive.

00:33:08.236 --> 00:33:30.415
So they didn't go to school a lot growing up. Yeah. You know, and when I was listening high, you know what? My situation is not as bad as some, because I do have a college education. I can go back out there and get back to work. Whereas, you know, a lot of people my age don't have that.

00:33:30.559 --> 00:35:19.677
Every time I get into one of those, I'm so sick of doing this. I'd be so glad this girl get herself together so she can get this baby, so I can get my life, and I'll run into someone whose story is much worse than me. I believe that the stories that we tell set paradigms. And when you want to change something, you need to change the story in the end. Love and unconditional support is really the greatest thing that we can give. What do you think we can do to change the story? How do you think we can? Better, maybe is the best word I can think of. Well, as you said, I think if there was more support from people as opposed to judgment, because, you know, like I said, that. That statement about it, you don't raise your children, you end up raising your grandchildren. I just think that people should stop being so quick to judge and try to say that's why it's happening. Because I've gotten to the point where a lot of my friends, I don't really deal with them anymore because I get sick of getting advice from them, especially the ones who never had kids. But my thing is, well, you should tell them this or you should do this. And I always tell them, just be glad you're not in this situation. Just be glad that your child is doing what they're supposed to do where their children are concerned. You know, I didn't get that lucky, but I'm not going to just leave them out there in the street either. People would get more judging this. Everybody's got a challenge that gets thrown their way at some point in life. And what doesn't crush you exalts you. You rise to the occasion or you give up. I'm not giving up on, you know, I'm not giving up on my granddaughter. I'm not giving up on her mother.

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But I am also not going to allow her to drop those other two kids off with me. The answer can sometimes be no. And as I said, that's why I will not allow her to move back home with the other two because I already know the scenario she's going to end up leaving them here. Yeah. And as I said, I ended up with this one by the default because I told the grandmother when she was talking about what she wanted to do, I said, don't take her child from her. Give her a chance. Because, I mean, this kid, this child was only four months old when she went out there and took her from my border. Give her a chance to learn how to be a mother, because if you go get that when you're going to make room for her to have some more. And that's exactly what she did. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And not only did she just have them, she told me herself, my daughter said to me, y'all can have her. I'm fertile. I can have some more. So, and I told her, you can have as many as you want. Just don't drop them off at Bob. And she'll call sometimes when they get on her about the child not going to school. But can I put her in school. Out there where you. No, you cannot. I really enjoyed my conversations with Betty Wilkes. She's an amazing woman. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee. I look forward to staying in touch with her.

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Please consider sharing this episode with a friend who may benefit from the support and insights shared here. Your view of the show not only helps others discover these valuable resources, but also raises awareness of the unique challenges faced by grandparents in similar situations. Your one sentence review can make a significant impact in spreading awareness and support for the mental, physical, and spiritual well being of grandparents raising grandchildren. Thank you for being a part of our community and for helping us amplify the voices of those in need. Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of grandparents raising grandchildren.

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Nurturing through adversity I encourage you to share your challenges and your successes with us. Your story is one someone else needs to hear. Submit your stories to the links provided in the podcast info.

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Did they live with a parent with mental illness, or cope with poverty or food deprivation? Do you wonder why your child is disorganized? Has issues with bedwetting, mood changes, or difficulty learning? All of these issues can be interrelated, so join us next week as I discuss this and more with pediatric physical therapist Els O'Rourke.

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Thank you for tuning in to grandparents raising grandchildren.

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Nurturing through adversity remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity.

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Peace be with you, and I pray that you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world.