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Grandchildren often face tough emotional issues
Thursday, October 22, 1998 By LaMont Jones, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Andre Sharpley, 18, still remembers the day 10 years ago when he had to choose between living with Dad and stepmother or the paternal grandparents who had raised him since he was 3 months old.
Faced with what seemed an impossible choice, Andre wept in frustration.
Then he chose his grandparents.
During the prior three years of living with his father, Andre had had to share attention and resources with two stepsisters. But when he had lived with Grandpa and Grandma, he had received more toys at Christmas and all the attention. Who can condemn the self-centered rationale of an 8-year-old boy?
It pains Andre, now a freshman theater student at Point Park College, that he doesn't have a close relationship with his father, who was angry with his decision and now lives with a second family in Wilkins. But Andre believes he made the right choice a decade ago.
"They've always been there for me," he says of James and Nydia Sharpley, with whom he still lives. "Being raised by your grandparents, I feel, gives one more wisdom in certain areas because you have that intergenerational relationship. It makes you a well-rounded individual. You get a little bit of spoiling, too."
Parents are responsible for raising and disciplining their children. Grandparents usually have the privilege of spoiling them with love. However, when grandparents take on the role of parents, the added burdens can steal the joy of grandparenting and introduce new problems to the home. While grandparents may find themselves confronted with new legal, financial and emotional crises, grandchildren must often work through feelings of abandonment and anger. The scars can last a lifetime.
"How do you explain to a child your Mommy still loves you when Mommy may be in jail or Mommy may be on heroin in the streets or Mommy may be dead?" says Patty Henderson, co-facilitator of a support group for grandparents at Vintage, a senior center in East Liberty.
Henderson sees the pain of grandparents who struggle to communicate effectively with grandchildren in their care. But except for psychiatrists and close friends, few people really know the internal turmoil experienced by children raised by grandparents or other non-parent caregivers.
One downside of being raised by grandparents is their tendency to be overprotective, Andre says.
"I think a lot of grandparents are afraid of letting go," he says. "Sometimes you gotta let go and let the bird fly."
But Jonathan DiDolce, 15, of Duquesne has had a different experience. He says being raised by his grandmother, Judy DiDolce, has taught him responsibility. Jonathan, the oldest of four grandchildren with another on the way, sees himself as a role model for his siblings. He says his grandmother has taught him the importance of staying in school and out of trouble.
"It's not real hard" to resist the lure of the streets, he says. "It depends on what's in the mind."
Although he doesn't deal much with his father, Jonathan says he's close to his mother and considers his grandmother one of his best friends.
"We're real close. She'll do anything for me."
Dayron Malloy was always close to his grandmother, Thelma Malloy, so going to live with her in East Hills wasn't a tough transition.
"I've always been used to her because that's always the person I could confide in," says Dayron, who turns 15 next month.
His grandmother, who gained legal custody six years ago and adopted him and three siblings earlier this year, taught him morals and respect "and to trust myself more," he says.
Dayron says sometimes his grandmother is more lenient than his friends' parents, such as when he invites friends home. But when it comes to curfews and back talk, she's stricter, he says.
"She's also strict on girls," he adds, noting that she says he's too young to date and seems fearful he'll become an unwed teen father.
Jasmine Sanders is the oldest of five grandchildren being raised by her grandparents, Ralph and Janet Carter of Garfield Heights. Their job got a little tougher in June when Jasmine, who turned 15 on Friday, gave birth to a girl.
Jasmine, a freshman at Peabody High School, is reticent about her relationship with her parents and grandparents. Her grandmother says Jasmine often lashes out at her, probably because she is angry with her mother.
But Jasmine is "pretty good with the baby," Carter says. "She feels like now this isn't something that's going to leave her like her mother did."
Andre says he isn't bitter that his parents have been an almost non-existent part of his life.
"If that's the way they felt it had to be done, then so be it," he says. "I'm not supposed to hold grudges. That's biblical. I love my mother and I love my father. I know my mom loves me. I hope my father loves me. I'm glad that it happened this way, because I won't grow up and treat my kids the same way."
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