'Grandfamilies' spotlights grandparents stepping in to raise children

By — Geoff Bennett Geoff Bennett By — Jackson Hudgins Jackson Hudgins Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/grandfamilies-spotlights-grandparents-stepping-in-to-raise-children Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio More than 2.5 million children across the U.S. live in households where grandparents have taken on the role of primary caregiver. But many grandparents face challenges navigating custody issues and accessing the resources and support they need. Geoff Bennett discussed these families with Donna Butts, author of "Grandfamilies: Stories of Children and the Loving Relatives Who Raise Them." Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: Today, more than 2.5 million children across the country live in households where grandparents have taken on the role of primary caregiver. These so-called grandfamilies provide a critical safety net for children, but many grandparents face challenges navigating custody issues and accessing the resources and support they need. A new book, "Grandfamilies: Stories of Children and the Loving Relatives Who Raise Them" by Donna Butts, tells the story of the fight for the rights of these unique caregivers and features testimony from many who are part of grandfamilies themselves. We spoke with one of them, Adam Otto. Adam Otto, Raised By Grandparents: I'm Adam Otto. I'm 36 years old, and I was raised by my paternal grandparents, Jack and Annie Otto. I'm very fortunate to have been raised by such amazing people who gave up their retirement for me in a lot of ways. My mother had issues taking care of me, a lot of love, but not necessarily a lot of great ability to effectively parent. So, eventually, I was placed in my father's care full-time. Unfortunately, he died shortly after I turned 9. And from there they raised me full-time until adulthood. The best thing about being raised by grandparents was the unconditional love. I could never make a mistake that was too much for them to help me see my way through. There's a lot of amazing foster parents out there, but people do better with relatives generally. And I think that was certainly the case for me. I had a lot of disciplinary problems in school, small town in West Virginia, not always necessarily equipped for, like, queer kids who are above average intelligence and kind of social difficulties, just like a little soup of everything. But here I am now because they never really gave up on me. Without familial support, I think I would probably be a victim of the opioid epidemic, be lucky to be alive. I think my outcomes would not have been particularly ideal. With the familial support that I had, I have flourished, right? I was able to graduate college, get a graduate degree, hold down steady employment, buy a house. And I think very little of that would have been available