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Shirley and Chuck Young are not your ordinary great-grandparents. The North Idaho couple are raising their four great-grandchildren, ages 5 to 9. They’re praying to live long enough to see the children, who spent two years in foster care, through to graduation. Sunday, in the first installment of a two-part story in The Spokesman-Review, photographer Kathy Plonka and reporter Alison Boggs document the Youngs’ struggles and triumphs.
Question: Do you know any Seasoned Citizens who are forced by circumstances to raise their grandchildren.
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Cis on May 15 at 10:46 a.m.
my friends who are 60+/70+ are raising their 17/18 grandson’s. They have had them since they were 2/3. They were sexually abused, and have AHDD and have been a hand full and still are. The oldest one is graduating next month, maybe.. and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
4 years ago, I talked her into writing a blog for a release. During this time she has gone back to work, and her husband had a heart attack. It has been a hellish life…Yet they still hang in there.
mike_s on May 15 at 10:59 a.m.
Nice story.