When Granny is Your Nanny 

By Sue Shellenbarger, The Wall Street Journal 

June 24, 2009

Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal 
Jacqueline Rafla (center) helps care for her daughter (right) Nashwa’s triplets and for another daughter’s three children.

Text goes herMarie Rej, a consultant and mother of two, and her mother, Antoinette Traniello, often clash over the right way to raise kids. Antoinette thinks Marie is too lenient, and Marie regards Antoinette’s rules as too black-and-white.

But the Wakefield, Mass., mother and daughter are swallowing their differences so Antoinette can provide the summer child-care help Marie needs after a recent layoff and job change. Disagreements aside, Marie says gratefully, her mother “has told me she’ll pitch in wherever she’s needed.”

Similar scenes are playing out nationwide, as grandparents step up to meet the erratic child-care demands imposed by a rocky economy. Prevailing child-rearing beliefs have taken many turns in the past 60 years, creating ample grounds for disagreement between caregivers, whether they’re tradition-minded World War II-era grandparents, hovering baby boomers or the family-focused, informal moms and dads of Generation X. Other parents wrestle with how to divvy up authority or whether to pay grandparents for their help The problem-solving and peacekeeping strategies families must use to make these two-generational setups work can make already complicated family relationships even more challenging.

Some forecasters predicted this generation of grandparents would be too self-absorbed to help with child care. But there’s no evidence that today’s grandparents are backing away. The proportion of preschoolers cared for primarily by their grandparents while their mothers work rose to 19.4% in 2005, the latest data available, from 15.9% in 1995, the Census Bureau says. A wave of closings and cutbacks in child-care facilities suggest the trend is continuing.

Some 40% of grandparents who live within an hour’s drive of young grandchildren provide regular child care while their mothers work, says a 2008 survey of 500 grandparents by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, an Arlington, Va., nonprofit. And grandparents’ child-care hours rise significantly in the summer, the Census Bureau says.

It seems “boomers aren’t as spoiled as we thought,” says Georgia Witkin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, and a senior editor for Grandparents.com, a Web site on grandparenting. “It was anticipated that a lot of grandparents might establish separate lives and might resent having those interrupted,” she says. While some have, others “like to feel needed.”

Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal 
Sameer Rafla sometimes helps out when his wife cares for their grandchildren, such as 3-year-old Quinn.

Rebecca Mitchell, 58, of Burlingame, Calif., recently stopped playing on several competitive tennis teams and quit her volunteer post as a food-bank coordinator to care full-time for her 23-month-old grandson, Angelo. This enabled her son to job-hunt after a layoff without paying hefty child-care fees; his wife also works. Her son has since found a new job. But Angelo has been wait-listed at a new child-care center, and Ms. Mitchell’s commitment to care for him is open-ended. Noting that toddlerhood “doesn’t last forever,” she says she cherishes the closeness with Angelo.

Even the most doting grandparents must extend themselves to meet the just-in-time child-care needs of stressed parents. Whenever Jacqueline Rafla’s daughter gets called in for a job interview, the Staten Island, N.Y., grandmother drives to her daughter’s Brooklyn home and picks up the daughter’s 3-year-old triplets. Ms. Rafla also cares for the triplets one or two more evenings to give her daughter and son-in-law a break, and she helps another daughter several days a week by shuttling her children, 6, 9 and 12, to and from school, karate and baseball. 

To keep all her child-care commitments straight, Ms. Rafla, 65, maintains a long to-do list on a piece of dry-cleaner shirt cardboard in her car. “Where are we supposed to be going?” she sometimes jokes with her grandchildren. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Her daughters are flexible in return. Nashwa Rafla-Savio cedes authority over the triplets’ nutrition and schedule when they’re with her mother. Even when Ms. Rafla lets them stay up much later than usual, “when they’re in her house, the decisions are hers,” Ms. Rafla-Savio says. The setup requires “give and take. You have to let go and let someone else be in charge.”

This two-generational two-step is too much for some families. Although Nicole Pelton’s parents have often helped with child care for her two children, now 5 and 6, she has begun reserving grandparent visits for “fun stuff,” such as weekend outings. Although the Sunnyvale, Calif., mother is grateful for her parents’ help, she prefers avoiding daily conversations with her mother about child-rearing and other issues. Her mother, herself a former working mother, “wants to make all these suggestions, and she has very strong opinions” on matters ranging from toilet training to modern parents’ need for “50 books on how to get your child to sleep,” she says. Reserving the kids’ grandparent time for fun affords a more comfortable distance, Ms. Pelton says.

The setups transform old parent-child bonds into a new caregiver-parent relationship, sometimes raising thorny questions about pay and control. Budget problems are the reason many parents ask for a grandparent’s help, of course; because of that, the awkward issue of paying a grandparent is seldom even raised. Just 8% of grandparents who help with child care receive any pay, the 500-grandparent survey shows. But experts say too many parents neglect to express gratitude. At the least, says Susan Stiffelman, a Malibu, Calif., author and marriage and family therapist, parents might say, “I’m so grateful; how can I compensate you?” This opens the door for a discussion of any feelings the grandparent might have on the topic.

Some parent-grandparent teams resolve control issues by negotiating territory, divvying up authority over sleeping, eating, homework, TV and computer use, Dr. Witkin says. For example, parents might have sole authority over diet and school issues, while grandparents get a say in recreational or artistic activities.

Ms. Rej, 48, who works part-time, gives her mother, who is 75, almost complete control over her household when Ms. Traniello helps with her sons Daniel, 12, who has Down syndrome, and Matt, 16. Ms. Traniello bought a cellphone to keep in touch with Matt, who “calls me whenever he’s stranded,” she says; she provides rides to school and sports practices and other help. If she breaks one of Ms. Rej’s rules in the process—like letting Daniel eat ice cream in front of the TV—Ms. Rej looks the other way; “she’s helping me—what can I say?”

The two disagree on whether Matt, an active teen athlete, should be required to do more chores and keep his room tidier; Ms. Traniello believes Ms. Rej and her husband should set stricter rules. But Ms. Rej counters that Matt behaves well, and contends that raising a modern teenager requires a lot of listening and give and take. “We’ve gone head-to-head on that sometimes,” Ms. Rej says. Ms. Traniello sidesteps the issue by avoiding Matt’s room, and tries “not to say too much,” she says. If tensions flare, “I don’t hold a grudge, and she doesn’t either.”

Keeping the peace is worth the effort, Ms. Rej says; their differences aside, she and her mother “are really close. I’m so fortunate” to have her help. Ms. Traniello, a retired government staffer, won’t accept pay; Ms. Rej shows her gratitude in other ways, surprising her recently with tickets to the musical “Jersey Boys.” Ms. Traniello says caring for her grandsons is its own reward. 

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