PLACENTIA : Help With Raising of Grandkids

When Trina Browers talks about her grandson, Christopher, her voice and face clearly reflect the affection she feels for him. When Christopher approaches Browers with a purple visor, she gently encourages him to place it on her head and laughs with him when he pulls it off again.

But the gentle manner Browers uses with Christopher disappears when she talks about the boy’s mother.

“I have this special number I can call to see if she’s in jail again,” Browers said. “Right now she is in Chino” state prison for women.

Browers is telling this to a group of grandparents who gathered at a park on a recent Saturday morning. Like her, they are all raising the children of their children.

For Browers, the group offers a much needed outlet for the frustrations and fears that have accompanied the last two years, since Christopher came to live with her at the age of 10 months.

At 3, the boy is the size of a child three or four years older, but his mental development has been delayed. Browers said her grandson was born with such extensive medical problems from his mother’s drug use that she can’t afford to raise him on her own.

“I am actually his foster mom,” Browers said, so the state will pay for his medical care.

Raising Our Grandkids was formed by Georgia Breault and Claudia Reott, both grandmothers with custody of young granddaughters. Although the two girls attended the same child care center in Placentia, both women thought they were the only grandmothers raising grandchildren.

“I went five years thinking I was the only one raising a grandkid,” Reott said. “It was such a relief to find Georgia.”

The two formed the group to offer support and advice to others in their situation. In the nine months since they began meeting every other Saturday, Reott said she has become very adept at spotting potential members.

“I can always tell when (a grandparent) is raising a grandkid,” Reott said. “They have this harried look about them.”

While the group offers new members advice on navigating the labyrinthine regulations involved in gaining custody of grandchildren, its primary purpose is to give grandparents a chance to talk.

“You can forget about your senior years,” said Diane, who asked that her last name not be used. “And forget about making it up to the (grandchildren for being abandoned by their parents). You can’t, so don’t even try.”

Another grandmother said she resents having to assume the responsibility for her two young grandchildren after their mother, her daughter, joined the Army.

“My daughter called the other day to say she was going camping,” the woman said. “I would love to go camping.”

Many of the grandparents said they fight to keep their feelings about their children to themselves, to let their grandchildren decide for themselves how to view their parents.

“I walk a really fine line,” Reott said. “I don’t want to run down her mom, but it isn’t that easy.”

Some grandparents who don’t have legal custody of their grandchildren also live with the fear that their children will come at any time and take the grandchildren away.

“I pay my daughter to stay away,” said a woman who came to her first meeting last week. “I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer (to get custody), so I give her whatever she wants.”

Raising Our Grandkids meets the first and third Saturday of the month from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Arroyo Verde Park. The group will not meet Oct. 16 but will resume its schedule Nov. 6. For more information, call Claudia Reott at (714) 996-0134 or Georgia Breault at (714) 996-3034.