Grandparents are returning to the role of parents in ever-increasing numbers in Korea for the last decade. According to the statistics, in 2000, 45,225 or 0.3% percent of Korean households were maintained by a grandparent. By 2010, this number had risen to 119,294 or 0.7%, representing a 135 percent increase over the 10 year period. Whatever the reasons for these grandparent-raising grandchildren families, both parties of this families face multiple challenges.
This study provides an in-depth examination of everyday life experiences and enduring family relationships between grandparents and grandchildren of poor grandparent-headed family. The goal of the present study was to begin to build an understanding of the essential meaning of life experiences of grandparent-headed families in poverty. Given the paucity of research focusing on the nature of family life, a qualitative interview study was conducted with pairs of grandparents and grandchildren who have been in a grandparent-headed household for a minimum of 7 years. The verbatim transcripts of these interviews were analysed using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. Giorgi’s method of analysis aims to uncover the meaning of a phenomenon as experienced by a human through the identification of essential themes. Total of 10 families composed of 10 grandparents and 23 grandchildren participated in this study.
This yielded five major constituents and fifteen sub-constituents with grandparents, and four major constituents and eleven sub-constituents with grandchildren as the essence of family life experiences of poverty-struck grandparent-headed families. The five main constituents of grandparents were: (a) forced to raise grandchildren in an unavoidable situation (b) desperately trying to fit in as a competent care-giver (c) finding ‘the’ proper role among given multiple roles (d) wishing time will do the work (e) hastening the self-resilience of grandchildren left behind after my death. Meanwhile, the four main constituents of grandchildren were: (a) embracing absent parents (b) granting my grandparents as the only parent figure (c) knowing what it is to live as grandparent-headed family (d) feeling pressured being rushed to be self-resilient.
Second, the time-based situational meaning structure of poor grandparent-headed family’s life experiences were analyzed. Both parties went through a sequence of compliance, confusion, conflict, and resolution which eventually proved to be a process of adjustment to each other. Unlike any other family types, grandparent-headed family was formed at some given time point as of no choice, and efforts to be a family came in later. In this process, both generations met various cognitive, emotional, and physical, and financial challenges. They accepted to be bounded as a family consisted of grandparents and grandchildren, and then faced with confusions in this newly formed family structure. Grandparents became keenly aware their limitations in bringing up and disciplining grandchildren. In the meantime, grandchildren suffered the loss of parents, confused and were unfulfilled with new care-givers. The intermittent reinforcement and erosion of these experiences with time passes, both generations get used to each other.
Third, participating grandparents and grandchildren shared the living, but viewed their life experiences with their own perspectives. Grandparents put forward the hardships of bringing up their grandchildren while grandchildren hide their longing for their absent parents worrying that would taint the relationship with their grandparents. Both parties shared the same home environment, but rather they did not open their experiences and thoughts to each other and did not seek understanding. Because of their old age and repetition of a hard day’s work to make living, grandparents presumed not to be sensitive and responsive enough to the grandchildren’s ever-changing needs. As grandchildren became used to these unresponsiveness and disappointment, in turn, they kept their true feelings and worries secret.
In conclusion, the relational essence of life experiences of grandparent-headed family seemed to be the ‘tend to’ attitudes of both generations. While grandparents ‘tend not to know or understand’ that grandchildren had longing for reunification with their parents’, grandchildren ‘tend to look OK’ for their grandparents when their true feelings were not. Of course, both generations also expressed appreciation and pride for being a family against all odds. Life-long economic deprivation came as another essence of life experience of these families, which in turn put pressures and anxiety over the unknown future.
Several policy and practice implications were drawn from the results of this study. For the practice implications, efforts to strengthen family relations by communication improvement stood out. Because of the generation gap as well as being forced to be a family all of a sudden, the communication of these families seemed to be limited to maintenance concerns only. Working on the effective and efficient communication between the two parties were essential. Improved communications can intensify emotional bonding of members of these families.
Custodial grandparents often found themselves isolated from sources of support as they face unique emotional, physical, and financial challenges on a daily basis. Despite the initial assumption that grandparent-headed families are temporary, this family type was already situated as another form of family which provides safe environment for children who lack parental support for whatever reasons. Services for strengthening family functions such as parenting classes, family counseling in addition to the usual elderly support programs for grandparents are in need. In addition, efforts for family reunification is another key to plan children’s future after the death of grandparents. Case management with complicated service plan for relatively longer period such as educational and care communality including family, school and the community seems in the order.
These discussion comes to a conclusion that an alternative legislation for this family type such as ‘assistance for grandparent-headed families’ is in need. Grandparent-headed families have unique needs than other single families or two parent families in poverty because it cannot be presumed for grandparents to work for financial independence, and grandparents’ imminent death ahead must be considered in child assistance plan. The strengths inherent in grandparent-headed families need to be supported and celebrated as numbers of children living with grandparents continue to escalate. The time is right for carefully planned and sesitively administered programs that support the custodial grandparent family.