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| An SOS Family visiting their grandparents in Austria |
September 9, 2011: The holiday President Jimmy Carter signed into law in 1979 honors the special place that grandparents hold in their grandchildren’s lives. This year, National Grandparents Day falls on September 11, the first Sunday of September following Labor Day.
Grandparents are especially treasured by SOS Children’s Villages in recognition of the key role they play in raising grandchildren whose parents are unable to provide for them.
Today, tough economic times have forced American families to depend more than ever on grandparents to provide basic care to grandkids.
Assuming Greater Responsibility for Grandchildren
Some 6.7 million U.S. grandparents had grandchildren younger than 18 living with them in 2009. Forty percent of these grandparents, or 2.7 million of them, were responsible for most of the basic needs of one or more grandchildren.
More grandmothers than grandfathers take on this basic-needs care -- 1.7 million grandmothers compared to 1 million grandfathers.
The grandparents-as-caregivers trend cuts across race and ethnicity. Of grandparents with grandchildren living in their homes, 51 percent were white, 24 percent black, and 19 percent Hispanic.
Most grandparents love being surrounded by their own children’s sons and daughters. But providing them with food, shelter, and clothing just when they themselves were hoping to secure a comfortable retirement can be challenging. Half a million grandparents, or 8 percent of grandparents living with and caring for grandchildren, had income below the poverty level in 2009.
Older people with disabilities are not exempt from the responsibility of care -- 700,000 grandparents who care for grandchildren have a disability.
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| A girl is provided with a loving home at an SOS Village in Guatemala |
SOS Steps In When Grandparents Cannot
Around the world it is common for grandparents to give refuge to young kin when children’s parents die of AIDS and other diseases or are otherwise unable to provide the love and stability their children deserve. But older people fighting illness and poverty often find themselves unable to care for grandchildren over the long term.
SOS Children’s Villages, in 132 countries, provides warm homes and loving SOS Mothers when family members such as grandparents can no longer do so.
Make a donation today so that SOS can continue providing stable families to even more children in need.