By Carol Thompson
Traverse City Record-Eagle
TRAVERSE CITY (AP) - Bev Wenger's life changes dramatically at 4:30 p.m.
That's when Estrella and Isaac Wenger return home from school. They tromp through the snowy back yard outside their Lake Ann home, hurl open the back door and race for the apples and oatmeal laid out on the green kitchen counter. The children fill the once quiet space with energy.
Bev keeps a tidy house with firm, but fair, rules. Not even her pastor is allowed to drink coffee in the living room. She relents when it comes to the children climbing on the furniture, instead focusing on instilling in them the skills and values they'll need in adulthood.
Bev - Isaac and Estrella's biological grandmother - can't shower the children with gifts and candies and send them home. She adopted them three years ago and is raising them on her own.
"I don't get to spoil these kids," she told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. "That is not in my mind an option. My mind is, I need to raise these kids to be ... God's children, and reach out from there and become good in the communities that they live in and be a positive force, not a negative force."
Bev turned 66 on Sunday, the full retirement age according to the Social Security Administration, but her life doesn't mirror that of many retirees.
Estrella, 11, and Isaac, 10, were born to Bev's daughter, but a Wyoming court terminated her parental rights in 2012 and Bev stepped in to adopt them that year.
"It wasn't a hard decision because I could not let go of these kids," she said. "(I said) 'I love you. You're part of me.' I want the best for them."
Bev is one of more than 1,000 grandparents in northwest Michigan responsible for their grandchildren, according to U.S. Census data. She's one of almost 300 doing so without help from her children's biological parents.
Grandparents are a natural fit when someone needs to step in for a parent who can't care for a child, said Grand Traverse Family Court Judge Melanie Stanton. The court and Department of Health and Human Services try to pair children with relatives.
"There's something to be said about family relations," Stanton said. "Kids know when they're with family and when they're not. They know, and they look for them. I think it's just in the child's best interest to maintain those family ties if they can be safe in a situation."
Seventy-four of 102 guardianships in place in Grand Traverse County in December involved grandparents and great-grandparents caring for children, Stanton said. DHHS figures show 60 percent of children adopted in Leelanau, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Antrim and Kalkaska counties were taken in by relatives in 2015.
Raising grandchildren can feel like a lonely job, said Deb Frisbie. She and her husband Dick Frisbie adopted their grandchildren Richard Frisbie Jr., 15, and Ryleigh Frisbie, 12, in 2007. The couple's peers spend winters traveling, not helping with homework and shuttling children to appointments.
"We're kind of isolated because our friends are retired," Deb said. "We can't have a relationship with them on an ongoing basis."
But the couple knows they're not alone. They launched a support group in 2014 for Benzie County grandparents raising their grandchildren and met other grandparents who find themselves in the same situation.
Census data shows almost 70 percent of 86 Benzie County grandparents responsible for their grandchildren in 2014 did so without those children's biological parents present. More than half of the grandparents were older than 60, more than 60 percent were working and more than 16 percent of were living in poverty.
Deb now works as an adoptive parent consultant with Adoptive Family Support Network, a nonprofit resource for adoptive and foster parents. She's motivated to do more than her part-time position requires. She believes every ounce of understanding and support makes parenting easier for older adults and improves life for their young children.
Richard echoed the philosophy.
"It's great to know there are other people out there like us," he said.
Richard remembers life during the adoption process, which was finalized when he was five. He was given a brown teddy bear, his sister's was red.
Ryleigh and Richard largely escaped the court system - Deb and Dick settled the adoption with their daughter privately, without going to trial. But they haven't escaped emotional turmoil that comes with adoption, something that heaps additional challenges upon families when children are separated from their biological parents.
Deb said grandparents and great-grandparents raising their grandchildren face stigma everywhere - at school, church, in the community, with extended family members.
"They think the apple didn't fall too far from the tree," Deb said. "Drugs and addictions and everything else is no respecter of people. It doesn't matter what your background is. There's no compassion or sensitivity toward people who are raising their grandchildren until you hear our whole story, and people don't ever get to know us to hear the whole story of how we got our kids."
Bev Wenger has adjusted to her second round of parenting. She considers it another chance to be a mother and homemaker, something she always considered her calling. This time she is thrust into a social circle of younger parents, people in their 30s and 40s raising Isaac and Estrella's friends.
"I've had to change, not change my friends, but add to my friends," Bev said. "(My children) want to have friends, and they want to have play dates and things like that. I don't just go for play dates. I have to know the (other) parent, and the parent ought to know me."
Bev said her health is the biggest challenge to raising Isaac and Estrella. She was 62 when she decided to become a parent again, and at the time was 75 pounds heavier and reliant on oxygen support and a walker.
She's leaner now and lives without oxygen tubes or a walker. But Bev is diabetic, and last year suffered a heart attack and went through two surgeries. She's cautious at home, refuses to climb on her step stool without another person home or her phone securely in her pocket.
Bev relies on faith. She asked God to allow her to live until Isaac is 18 and Estrella is 20, and believes she'll be granted the request.
"I'm not worried because I know God's in control," she said. "I asked God when I'm laying there on the first night with Isaac, Sept. 1 in 2011, 'God can I do this?' and I felt like he said 'Yes you can. You can do both.'"
People are living longer and healthier now than ever before, said Mary Manner, coordinator of the Great Start Collaborative of Traverse Bay, a state-funded partnership between the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District and the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce. That's a good sign for senior citizens caring for children.
Resources for aging adults abound in northwest Michigan, but Manner said they don't reflect the needs of every senior.
"The things that are in place to support our senior citizens, do they accommodate senior citizens who are looking after young kids?" she said.
Great Start launched the 5toONE project with the objective of opening neighborhood centers for parents in northwest Michigan. The centers are meant to be places where parents can bring children, learn parenting skills and meet other families.
Some grandparents bring their grandchildren to play groups at the centers, but they're not all adoptive parents, Manner said. Some are helping care for children while their parents work, sometimes shouldering most of the child care responsibility.
"There's a continuum of reasons why grandparents wind up raising their grandchildren," Manner said. "It runs from the death of a parent, to incarceration of a parent, to the permanent termination of parental rights."
Another could be the dearth of child care options in the region, she said. Waiting lists for child care can run a year long. Grandparents step in when child care centers cannot.
Grandparents are great caregivers for infants who need security, eye contact and verbal stimulation, Manner said. Children need more when they start crawling.
"By the time kids are about a year of age they should be going to play groups and having socialization opportunities," Manner said. "We're a social species ... Those are things that are getting children ready for school and for life."
Providing affordable day care and more play groups will benefit all generations, Manner said. She hopes 5toONE neighborhood centers can fill the void.
Martie Manty, 5toONE program manager, said grandparents are a customary choice when parents can't raise their children.
But it's important those families know they're not alone, Manty said.
"Families are best when they are not isolated," she said. "Families do best when they have social connections, when they know the resources in their community and beyond, when they understand child development and when they have a strong emotional rapport with their children."
Bev considers herself a stronger parent now than she was the first time around. She's learned to be cautious and is diligent about tracking the organizations that are part of her children's lives, such as the school board.
"I think as an older parent, having gone through it twice, I know where I'm advocating," she said. "I find things out more."
Deb is busy advocating, too. She's reaching out to churches, community centers and schools to raise awareness of the support group for adoptive and foster families, and to teach the community about how the trauma of shuffling from family to family in the adoption system can later affect children.
"Our children sometimes have behavioral challenges because of the trauma, the loss," Deb said.
Deb has one request for the community, something she believes will ease life for adoptive grandparents and their grandchildren.
"Just love our kids," she said.
Published: Thu, Jan 21, 2016
