CHICOPEE, MA — Captain William Anderson of the Chicopee Fire Department never imagined that he would be raising six grandchildren in his mid-60s. The grandchildren, spanning ages four to fourteen, started living with Anderson when his son and daughter-in-law plunged into the throes of opioid addiction.
“Their parents are too far gone to really say anything,” Anderson told the HPR. “The father’s ten minutes away and you don’t ever see him. It’s a shame.”
Like many Americans, Anderson once envisioned for himself the quintessential family life: have children young, work to support them, and raise them before retiring and traveling the world. Instead, Anderson is now part of a growing group of grandparents that the opioid epidemic has compelled into a second round of parenthood.
According to recent congressional estimates, that group stands at 2.5 million. Drugs or alcohol are now implicated in 37.4 percent of child transfers out of parental care, up from 25.4 percent in 2009.
“Big cities, smaller towns, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania — wherever you’re out it’s really prevalent … It’s terrible,” Anderson’s colleague and Chicopee Deputy Fire Chief Matthew Cross told the HPR about the ways in which the opioid crisis has shattered communities and families. Cross has overseen the Chicopee Fire Department intervening in countless rescue missions for overdose cases.
According to Chicopee Police Chief William Jebb, it is difficult to assign an exact number to the frequency of grandparents serving as primary caretakers in Chicopee due to parental opioid use. However, Jebb acknowledges that this incidence remains a key issue in the area. “We’ve seen that a lot, where the grandparents have to step up,” Jebb said in an interview with the HPR. “You have to realize the magnitude of this problem,” he explained. “I can’t think of anyone that I know that’s not been touched [by the opioid crisis]. And if you haven’t been, the sad thing is [that] you may [be].”
The challenges of “stepping up” for grandparents are augmented by the exhausting realities of maintaining a work-life balance. For Anderson, work is almost a respite from running a busy, bustling household. “[There’s] no free time for me,” he stated. “Between trying to raise the [grandchildren] right, get them into things, [and] keep them busy so that they’re not into stupid stuff … there’s always something.” Fortunately, for grandparents like Anderson, help is on the horizon. The Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act, signed last July by President Trump, authorizes a federal advisory council to provide caregiving grandparents with resources to assist their efforts. The brainchild of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), the act is a step towards prioritizing the everyday heroes who have postponed retirement to fulfill an integral and nurturing role in children’s lives.
At a time when opioids are ripping the fabric of nuclear households apart in mass, supporters of the act hope that it will spread awareness about how the epidemic alters more lives than the immediate users’.
“The unfortunate thing [about the opioid epidemic] is the devastation that’s really left behind — families to wonder what they could have done,” said Jebb.
For Anderson, family means everything. And, along with the 2.5 million grandparents like him across the country, he is adapting to a challenging new reality for as long as this epidemic persists.
Image Credit: USDAgov