Generations in Sync – San Diego Seniors Community Foundation
It usually starts small. A few nights while a parent gets back on their feet. A weekend that turns into a week. Then one day, the grandparent realizes they’re no longer visiting; they’re raising a child again, decades after they thought that chapter was closed.
Across San Diego County, this happens more often than most people realize. More than 80,650 grandparents locally live with their grandchildren, and a significant share are directly responsible for raising those kids. Roughly 1 in every 200 county residents is a grandparent caring for a grandchild. Most of these arrangements don’t begin with a plan. They begin with a crisis: a parent’s illness, incarceration, addiction, or death, arriving without warning and leaving a grandparent to step in overnight.
A Different Stage of Life
More than half of grandparents raising minor grandchildren countywide are 60 or older, and that number climbs past two-thirds in households where a child’s parent is entirely out of the picture. That means many of these caregivers are managing arthritis, heart conditions, or bad backs while also managing carpool lines, school portals, and bedtime routine, at a stage of life they expected to be scaling back, not starting over.
The financial picture adds another layer of strain. An estimated 1 in 5 grandfamilies in the county live at or below the federal poverty level. Retirement savings meant to last decades get drawn down fast by school supplies, medical co-pays, and everyday expenses that weren’t in the budget. And because so many arrangements start informally, without a court granting legal custody, grandparents often hit real roadblocks enrolling a child in school or authorizing a doctor’s visit, on top of a legal system that takes time, money, and patience they may not have to spare.
The Weight Nobody Sees
The hardest part isn’t always logistical. It’s emotional. Grandparents raising grandchildren are often grieving; for their child’s struggles, for the family they imagined, for the retirement they’d planned. Friends their age usually aren’t living the same reality, which can make the isolation feel sharper. And it’s common to hold two feelings at once: deep love for the grandchild, and quiet grief over the freedom set aside to provide it. None of that makes someone a less devoted caregiver. It makes them human.
What Actually Helps
Grandfamilies rarely need grand gestures. They need consistency. A few ways the people around them can show up:
- Offer real respite. A few hours of watching the kids so a grandparent can rest, run errands, or just breathe.
- Help with the driving. School runs, practices, and doctor visits add up fast on their own.
- Lighten the household load. A cooked meal, a mowed lawn, or help tidying up says more than words.
- Bridge the tech and school gap. Helping navigate a new school portal or an unfamiliar app can save real frustration.
- Listen without fixing. Sometimes the most supportive thing is just letting someone vent, without judgment or advice.
- Include them. An invitation to a low-key family outing can go a long way against isolation.
You’re Not Meant to Do This Alone
Grandparents stepping into this role are holding up families quietly, often without much recognition. If this describes someone in your life, or you, support exists: Live Well San Diego’s Kinship Families program, the YMCA of San Diego County’s Kinship Support Services, Grandparents Raising Grandchildren and Other Kinship Caregivers – 211 and SAY San Diego’s Project KEEP offer local guidance, while Generations United and the AARP GrandFamilies Guide connect caregivers to national resources.
Raising a grandchild later in life isn’t a side note in someone’s story. It’s love showing up again, in a form no one signed up for, at a moment life was supposed to slow down. That kind of devotion deserves the same support any parent needs and then some.
Generations in Sync – San Diego Seniors Community Foundation