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COPYRIGHT 2001 JAI Press, Inc.
1. Introduction
The study of grandparenthood among African Americans has had a relatively narrow focus in recent years, concentrating on the grandmother's role as a surrogate parent to her grandchildren (Minkler, Roe, & Price, 1992). This paper goes beyond that concentration, to explore the role of very old black grandmothers who are in their late eighties and nineties. Their relationships with their grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren vary widely, ranging from closeness to a particular individual, to distant relationships. Some know only the numbers of grandchildren, but not their names. Such diverse reports led us to explore what conditions create constraints and what factors contribute to closeness in these multigenerational family relationships. Generally, these women in advanced old age are found to be quite remote from their descending generations, yet as the following will illustrate, they take pride in their large number.
2. Background
Empirical research on black grandparenting has been dominated by a social problems focus and how black grandmothers ameliorate family crises (Hunter & Taylor, 1998). Black grandmothers as surrogate parents have become a subject of study particularly in their care of crack cocaine babies (Burton, 1992; Fuller-Thomson, Minkler, & Driver, 1997; Minkler & Roe, 1996; Minkler et al., 1992). Similarly, coresidential grandparenting among African Americans has been fairly extensively investigated in situations of adolescent motherhood and parental crises such as illness, drugs, or incarceration (Hunter & Taylor, 1998). The media even refer to some grandparents as "silent saviors," or the "second line of defense" (Jendreck, 1993). Studies devoted to black grandparents performing other family roles are few in number. Nevertheless, black grandmothers are commonly romanticized as the family matriarch, linchpin, kinkeeper, or "the guardian of the generations" (Burton & Bengston, 1985; Frazier, 1939; Hunter & Taylor, 1998). They also are portrayed as persons of "action, involvement, hope, and dignity," women who are rarely passive but rather are "authoritative" or "influential" (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986; Kornhaber, 1985). Contemporary social researchers recognize that black grandparenthood is in transition because of shifts in mortality, fertility, and diversity in off-time childbearing (Burton & Dilworth-Anderson, 1991). Little is really known about African American grandparenthood beyond the fact that they provide various types of assistance when needed (Szinovacz, 1998).
Even less is known about great grandparents. Their position in the family is usually overshadowed by the functions that grandparents perform, leaving a nondescript and tenuous role for the oldest generation (Hunter & Taylor, 1998). In fact, the prevalence of great grandparenthood is quite unprecedented, so that there are no ascribed rights or duties associated with the role. While Uhlenberg and Hammil (1998) delineated the important predictors of contact between generations, their analysis omitted consideration of the grandparent's age or numbers of great grandchildren. Burton and Bengston (1985) in a study on the timing of black grandparenting did incorporate great grandmothers, but their age of becoming a great grandmother ranged from 41 to 70. They found that two main issues for the youngest great grandmothers centered on acquiring an "old age" role at a relatively young age, and suffering from an overload of competing commitments. At the other end of the spectrum are the very old, 85 years of age and older, who are quite unlike the "young" or "young old" black great grandmothers.
Some researchers have suggested that grandmothers in advanced age may be too many years removed from their grandchildren or great grandchildren to provide or receive instrumental or expressive supports from them (Martin & Martin, 1978; Shimkin, Shimkin, & Frate, 1978). Great grandparents' relationships to their descendants is mediated through two generations rather than one, which adds a further complication (Hunter & Taylor, 1998). By the time grandmothers reach their late eighties, they are no longer part of the "sandwich generation," but rather are the "dessert," with no competing demands. In their later years, great grandmothers may be ready to relinquish the grandparenting role, feeling too old to provide kin keeping and material assistance (Martin & Martin, 1978).
Those in advanced old age may face impediments to intergenerational relationships because of the increase in age segregation in our society (Uhlenberg & Hammil, 1998). Entitlement programs for the elderly, such as social security benefits, alleviate family obligations between generations. Additionally, the availability of senior housing in urban areas eliminates the...
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