METH EPIDEMIC FUELS RISE IN 'PARENTLESS' FAMILIES

Almost every day in Montana, a child awakens from a nightmare in which
the forces pulling his parents away have a chemical smell.

Methamphetamine has mom and dad on a short leash. Meth holds them so
tightly they no longer understand that their offspring need to eat or
have their diapers changed. They may not realize that the kids have
been home alone all night or even that leaving them alone is not a
good thing.

Someone has to step in, and increasingly it's grandparents, human
services workers say.

When Montanans were surveyed for Census 2000, results showed 9,526
children, about 4.1 percent of Montana children under the age of 18,
living in households headed by grandparents. Another 2,381 children,
or 1 percent of the total, were living with other relatives.

The census recorded that 6,053 Montanans, including 419 in Billings,
were raising grandchildren living in their homes.

Nationally, the percentage of children being cared for by grandparents
increased from 3 percent in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 1997.

There are a lot of reasons families end up "skipping" a generation -
death of parents, alcoholism, mental illness, incarceration, financial
troubles or military posting, to name a few. But the main factor
driving the numbers today is methamphetamine, said Doug Andersen, a
social worker supervisor in Billings for Child and Family Services, a
division of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

"They see the gradual deterioration of their own children," he said.
"At some point they can't take it anymore and go and get the
grandchildren. We don't have a lot of physical abuse cases. Seventy
percent or higher is just neglect."

When meth-addicted parents have become the problem, social workers
often see grandparents as the solution.

"Children are more likely to accept a future without parents, if,
through the grandparents, they have a window on the past - a link with
the absent parent," Andersen said.

As loving as foster parents may be, they can't provide that link, that
insight, into lost parents, according to Kevin Frank, regional
administrator at the Child and Family Services office in Billings.
They don't have pictures of mom or dad in better days and can't tell
the child about the good times and good things that happened when mom
or dad was growing up, he said.

Foster parents can't try to explain what went wrong.

Child and Family Services gets involved only when the safety of a
child is at stake, usually through a referral from the courts or a
social worker. There are many more grandparents who just quietly and
informally take over the rearing of grandchildren, Andersen said.

"For every one we see, there must be three or four more we never
see," he said.

Assumption of responsibility for grandchildren often sneaks up on
them, said Bernie Mason, an MSU Extension agent for Yellowstone
County. Mason was in charge of a support group in Billings for
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, a project of the Extension
Service's Family and Human Development Program.

"A lot of it just starts on an informal basis," she said. "An
unmarried daughter has a baby and she and the baby move home. The
daughter disappears occasionally, then more often, until one day she
doesn't come back."

Although state intervention has advantages, especially in helping
grandparents cover extra costs of raising a second family, many
caregivers would just as soon forgo it.

"They prefer it that way, and we do, too," Andersen said. "We like to
see families solve their problems themselves."

It's not a universal rule. Some family dysfunctions pass from
generation to generation if no one breaks the cycle. But grandparents
are increasingly sought as refuge for children living in unstable homes.

In part, it's because the law requires the social service system to
try placing children with family before turning to outside foster
care, Frank said.

"We've been actively seeking out grandparents more than in the past,"
he said.

Grandparent-led households also are becoming more acceptable, Frank
said. It's happening more often, he said, and sometimes for reasons
other than abuse or neglect. There is less stigma attached to families
who have blended for the good of the children, he said.

"Families come in all configurations and this is another type of
construction that we have," said Sandra Bailey, a family and human
development specialist with the Extension Service at Montana State
University-Bozeman.

The number of grandparents taking care of grandchildren rose sharply
in the last 10 years as methamphetamine bullied its way through the
generation in between.

"I think we're just getting started," said Bethany Letiecq, assistant
professor of family science at Montana State University-Bozeman. "The
state is unprepared to deal with a meth epidemic and we're in a crisis
situation."

Communities and the state need to do more to help grandparents who
step into the breech, she said. Raising kids is complicated,
especially if they are not your own. There are schools and sometimes
social workers to deal with. Kids occasionally arrive filled with
grief and rage. Retirements have to be postponed and in many families,
financial hardships have to be faced.

"We should be making this a lot easier for grandparents," Letiecq
said.

Bailey began working on issues important to grandparents raising
grandchildren three years ago, when the subject kept coming up at
meetings around the state.

"Rural states are the ones with the growing meth problem," Bailey
said, and that means rural states are most likely to see grandparents
taking in grandchildren.

Annie Conway, who formerly worked on the MSU project, wrote in April
2004 that Montana ranked ninth in the nation for the increase in
grandparents raising grandchildren. Between 1990 and 2000, the number
of grandparents responsible for caring for their grandchildren
increased by 53 percent, she wrote.

In the 2000 census, two Montana counties, Big Horn and Roosevelt, were
among the 20 counties nationwide with the highest percentage of
grandparents responsible for grandchildren. Big Horn ranked fourth in
the nation with 9.6 percent, while Roosevelt stood at 15th with 6.9
percent.

The census showed 588 grandparents in Big Horn County were caring for
grandchildren, while 369 Roosevelt County grandparents had taken on
the responsibility.

What those two counties and many others on the "top 20" list have in
common are large rural Indian reservations. Researchers say American
Indian grandparents traditionally have more involvement in raising
their grandchildren. Poverty and accompanying social and medical ills
are also higher putting more pressure than ever on traditional
societies' reliance on grandparents.