We Must Get A Compass, Develop A Map

I had just gotten off light-rail the other morning when the honking of Canada geese flying overhead caught my ear.

I stopped and looked up, as did a man walking slightly behind me. As we watched them etch the sky, I asked if he didn’t find it strange that we - creatures with supposedly superior brains - are often so baffled and confused down here while the geese flying south for the winter know exactly what they must do to survive.

“How true,” the man said, sighing.

The idea came to mind because the moment before I’d been thinking about a Sacramento grandmother who feels more than most that we’ve truly lost our way. I’ll call her Ailene.

A couple of weeks ago, Ailene returned home to find residents of her apartment building standing outside shaking their heads.

Police and emergency crews were busy on the scene, and it didn’t take long for Ailene to learn that, as she put it, “one of the little babies upstairs had been beaten and was probably dead.”

As it turns out, the death of the 14-month-old child is being reviewed as a possible Sudden Infant Death Syndrome case, not a beating. Yet Ailene saw in the tragedy of the dead baby her own fears.

She recently had felt compelled to ask Child Protective Services to rescue her four grandchildren from her daughter because she feared for their safety. It was the second time authorities had taken the children away.

Ailene says she had to call. She alleges her daughter, a drug addict, was neglecting and abusing the children before CPS stepped in.

The five came to stay with her this summer, and it wasn’t unusual for Ailene’s other children to come home and find the grandchildren - ages 4, 3, 2 and 4 months - left alone while their mother was out, allegedly rounding up her next fix, Ailene said. She also alleges her daughter beat the kids with a hanger.

The mother has since returned to the children’s father in a Southern California county, Ailene said, and authorities are preparing to transfer the children there. Ailene said she’s been told that county will no doubt initiate a reunification program - to which she asks, “What about those kids?”

“I looked up at that baby’s apartment and thought, ‘This is going to be my family if I don’t do something,”’ Ailene said. Without intervention, “These children have only three ways to go. Either they’ll end up dead like the baby or totally emotionally messed up and physically abused. Or, they’ll end up drug addicts like their parents.

“They’re just so sweet,” she said, and then she began to weep.

They were afraid of the night, so she prayed with them for angels to come down and protect them while they slept.

Ailene seemed so concerned, I asked if she’d ever tried to become their guardian. It’s not that unusual. One study recently found that one in 10 grandparents is raising their children’s children.

Ailene danced around the issue for a moment and then answered - quite honestly, I thought - that much as she wants to be the children’s grandmother, she isn’t the best choice for a surrogate parent. She had eight children and an abusive spouse - and few parenting skills, she said.

“My fear,” she said, “is the cycle is going to continue.” And in some families, the dysfunctional behavior only gets worse.

“There was an incident in my apartment while my daughter was living here,” Ailene said. “The door was kicked in. People were here with guns looking for my daughter. We thought we were all dead. That’s what all this had come down to.”

And while she’s “not a big Newt Gingrich fan at all,” Ailene laughs, she’s been mulling over the Georgia Republican’s much-maligned orphanage idea for a while.

“I was appalled at first, but I hadn’t lived with my daughter and grandchildren to see what they go through,” she said. “I know an orphanage isn’t the best thing for kids, but at least it would be an improvement over what these kids are living through now. It would. After one of their fights, they found children sitting in glass.”

I thought about the geese again and wondered if they know how to survive the winter instinctively or because older birds show them the way.

Children like Ailene’s grandkids can’t negotiate the path through their volatile families alone. They need to fly to safety. We have to find a way.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Diana Griego Erwin McClatchy News Service