Grandmothers Hold Up More Than Half the Sky: Contemporary Grandmother Caregiving

LaShawnDa Pittman – University of Washington – Department of American Ethnic Studies

There are more grandparents raising their grandchildren today than at any other time in American history. These caregivers are more likely to be women, poor, and disproportionately African American. This project illustrates that the race, class, gender and geographic inequities experienced by low-income Black grandmothers living in or near inner-city communities makes them both more likely to parent their grandchildren in skipped-generation households, defined as grandparent-headed households without parents present, and to be highly marginalized in the process. Specifically, I outline the development of skipped-generation households among Black grandmothers in the U.S.; investigate the role of social problems, parents, and the State in coercing grandmothers to provide care; and analyze the complex strategies they devise to provide care amidst these coercive forces and the gross insufficiencies of the multiple systems within which they are embedded.

lpittman@uw.edu