Reluctant grannies

GROUP of suburban forty and fiftysomething mothers chat about their children - who's doing what in college, what they think about their relationships, whether anyone has a wedding coming up. And they joke which of us will be the first "single granny"? With almost one in four births now taking place outside marriage, the odds are that at least some them will have to face this situation.

There has been a revolution in attitudes to single parenthood since these women were young. If one of their daughters became pregnant outside a relationship, they would almost certainly be kind, supportive and helpful, in stark contrast to the harsh attitudes they would have met in their youth.

But would they resent it? "Nowadays," says Margaret Dromey of Treoir, the Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and Their Children, "parents are most likely to rush in and say `of course we'll take care of you.' This may not be what they want for their daughter, but most will want, indeed, will feel they must, support her."

Society expects parents to be supportive, says Dromey. That's now the norm. But it's not unreasonable for the soon to be granny or granddad to feel - "I don't want to do this". There is no point in letting resentment build up. It is more honest to spell out specific ways in which they will - and won't - help.

The mother's parents, like the mother herself, should try to think things through. Her parents could spell out that they will support her financially, or will babysit on specific days or nights, or help pay for a childminder, or simply take over most of the responsibility for the new baby while their daughter goes back to school or college - if that's what they all want.

According to Nora Gibbons, senior social worker with Barnardos, it's important at all times to be clear who is the parent of the child. Even if the mother is a young teenager, grandparents shouldn't take over and make themselves completely available. In the long term, this is going to be important for the new baby, who must know who its real mother is, especially when, for, example, sake decides' to marry and/or move out of the family home.

When offering support, you have to remember that this support is needed even more beyond the baby stage, says Gibbons. A tone parent's need for practical help will be even greater at the hugely demanding toddler stage, from about age one and a half to four, when grandparents might be too old to cope.

Being kind, caring and supportive is good, but unplanned single parenthood, especially when the mother is still a teenager, can create lots of emotional trauma within a family.

Senior child psychiatrist Dr Michael Fitzgerald says: "Granny may have been looking forward to peace in her post child rearing period, and now those days are back again. It's quite stressful, and they miss their freedom, but increasingly, they will do their best to help their daughters."

He thinks that is as it should be: "Once the baby is there, the new mother deserves all the help she can get. And grandparents really should do everything possible to help their daughter to go back into education, because education is vital for lone parents - although the biological mother should do the bulk of the parenting.

A study which Fitzgerald carried out on lone parents showed, perhaps unsurprisingly, that those living at home suffered much less stress than those living alone. But that doesn't mean there aren't tensions, says Aileen Courtney, co ordinator of the Family Centre in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, a joint initiative of Barnardos and Dun Laoghaire Youth Service.

The Family Centre runs a group for teen parents one afternoon a week, where the young mothers can talk out their problems. And although most live at home with parents who are supportive, "there is still emotional trauma for families," says Courtney. "For a girl's parents, there are feelings of betrayal, of failure, and for the girl, the feeling of still being under a microscope, of not being taken seriously."

MARY, a mother of three living on Dublin's northside, became a granny of three non marital (as they're now called) children within the space of five years, and for a while, everybody - her son, partner and their child, and her daughter and her two children - all lived at home with Mary and her husband.

Aged 50, Mary has a job, takes care of her elderly parents, and still minds her children's children regularly, even though they have now got homes of their own.

Her daughter Jackie says there were tensions, "hard moments when I felt `I'm tired of everyone telling me how to rear my children' or `who's the mother here?'. But on the whole, we get on." Jackie now goes to her mother's house nearly every day, but doesn't think she takes her mother's support for granted.

Mary didn't quite see it like that for a while plunged back into minding several small children it came to a point where if Mary wanted to go out and couldn't mind her grandchildren, her children would say, "are you going out again?" She copped on and says, "now I can say `no' a lot more, although if I'm free, I do mind the kids so they can go out." But an element of being taken for granted was definitely creeping in. "Now I tell them, I didn't go out until my youngest was 15, I cooked and cleaned and had no money to go anywhere. And now I want some time for myself."

For teen mothers, there are definite conflicts living at home, says Courtney. "Many are fragile and defensive, they think people expect them to fail. And although they often have their own ideas about parenting, they might never get the chance to parent properly because their own mother takes over. And if they don't do as she says, it can create a lot of conflict in the house."

Love, it seems, isn't all you need when faced with becoming a single grandparent. You need to take the long view, and to consider your needs as well as those of your vulnerable daughter (or son). And if you need advice, look for it.