It was just a quick errand: Reba would be gone 15 minutes, 20 max. But her two granddaughters ran to her as if they didn’t know when they’d see her next. “Wait, wait, I want a hug!” screamed Denise, 11.



Michelle, 13, followed close behind. “I love you, grandma! I love you, grandma!” they murmured. “I love you, too, baby,” she replied to each of them.



The burst of affection for such a short absence was the only sign the girls might have faced some chaos in their lives. The two-storey house in Portland, Oregon, was immaculate. Brightly framed photos of the girls hung on the walls, and their shoes were lined up neatly underneath.



The school year had just ended, and earlier that day, the girls had been upstairs, listening to music while cleaning their rooms, putting clothes aside to give away – as instructed by grandma.



Reba, 53, wanted the girls to know that this is a real home and a real family – even if the middle generation, the girls’ parents, is absent. “I’ve put myself on the back burner. I’m not travelling; I’m not lying on a beach in Hawaii,” she says.

“I’m bringing up my grandchildren and I’m good with that.”



Reba is part of a growing cohort. Over 16% of American children who live with a grandparent have no parent present, according to the latest census data, a figure that has ballooned in a single generation. Compared with 1990, when only 5% of children lived in grandparent-run households, older American adults are experiencing an unprecedented role reversal: instead of adult children providing assistance to their ageing parents, an increasing number of seniors are looking after their adult offspring, including stepping in to take over their parental duties.



The grandparents’ responsibilities range from giving parents the occasional night off to the 22% of American grandparents who sustain their adult children by providing regular childcare and financial assistance, according to a Pew report.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Denise, 11, skateboards outside her home in Portland. Photograph: Leah Nash/The Guardian

The ultimate responsibility rests with the 2.9 million American grandparents who live with the kids with no parents around. The parents’ addictions, including to crack cocaine and opioids, are often a major factor.



These grandparents are bringing toddlers to doctors’ appointments, supervising homework, chores and playdates – much like Reba, who is disabled and uses a walker to get around.



Many of these grandparents had long anticipated some type of crisis. But for Reba it was a brisk transition. Five years ago she was living with her sister’s family in a suburb of San Francisco while working on a bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration. Then she got an unexpected phone call. Her granddaughters, then seven and eight, had been removed from their home due to parental neglect and were now in Portland’s foster care system, she was told by an employee of Oregon’s department of human services.

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“Would I come and do the classes and take responsibility for them? And I said, ‘yes, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ And within two days I was on a plane with just one suitcase and the clothes I had on my back,” recalled Reba. The required background checks and training took two months. Only then did the Oregon department of human services hand the children over to Reba and help her new multigenerational family find a suitable place to live.



Ultimately, that place was Bridge Meadows, a co-housing community in Portland with a rare vocation: to enable foster children to be adopted by a family member – an adult sibling, an aunt or a grandparent like Reba. Thirty youngsters now call Bridge Meadows home. It’s the first of three multigenerational co-housing communities in Portland, in which each female-led family lives in its own townhouse. Unrelated retirees, all living in apartments on-site, live in the community, too, in order to support and mentor these nascent families. These 27 “elders”, all between 55 and 93, tutor the children, take them to swimming lessons, help with homework, or just provide the love, oversight and companionship that’s par for the course among extended family members who live close by. In return, the retirees gain a purpose, a crucial one – and a reprieve from the social isolation common to older Americans.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Denise plays with a neighbor at her home in Bridge Meadows, which houses former foster youth, their adoptive parents and elders. Photograph: Leah Nash/The Guardian

The new bubble of custodial grandparents cuts across demographic lines. “People have a stereotype that grandparents raising grandchildren are all African American,” explained Donna Butts, the executive director of Generations United, a national organization that promotes the interests of intergenerational families. “But it’s not just one population.”



In the current generation, 28% of black children live with a grandparent with no parent present, while that’s true for 24% of white children according to a Pew report and census data.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A wall in the home of Reba and her two granddaughters.

Photograph: Leah Nash/The Guardian

Even if the tragedies that leave children parentless are largely class and colour-blind – two-thirds of grandparent-led families are middle class, according to the National Center of Family and Marriage Research – there are still some fine distinctions to be made. While 17% of children living with two grandparents (with no parents present) live in poverty, that figure is 48% for children living just with Grandma. It’s hard to make ends meet as a single mother, especially on a pension. Meanwhile, grandparents who have put funds aside for retirement are finding they have to cash in 401(k)s or return to work in order to support a young family.

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The federal policy to place vulnerable children with relatives doesn’t come with any financial, or other, support. Any supplements that might help foster and adoptive grandparents pay the bills vary state to state. Grandparents are stepping into the breach, largely unsupported and unrecognized. While this arrangement suits many states, there are also personal reasons – having to do with the shame of having a grown child still struggling to cope – that many of these grandparents opt to stay under the radar.



In one of Bridge Meadows’ clapboard townhouses, all with porches and small gardens facing a central courtyard and a grassy area for the kids, 13 year-old Michelle struggled to put her finger on how her life has changed since the police arrived at her house five years ago during a chaotic period.

She used to be largely confined indoors. “Here, there’s room to play outside. And people don’t stay in the house; they actually hang out,” she said.



On the other hand, she doesn’t get to see her mother and older sister, she said, with a trace of complaint (she still sees her father, Reba’s son). “But that’s OK; I don’t really worry about my parents now… with parties and stuff,” she said. Before Reba took over, she wasn’t allowed to go to school, her grandmother reminded her. So, what did she do all day? “Bubble, bubble, we got into a lot of trouble. We’d write on the walls. Steal some food, because we were afraid to ask. I would technically do everything by myself because I was extremely afraid to ask. Cause I would get a whupping,” she explained, adding that she and Denise subsisted on Lucky Charms and ramen.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reba chats with her granddaughter outside their home in Portland. Photograph: Leah Nash/The Guardian

Whuppings are now a thing of the past, thankfully. Still, the transition from her free-rein early years to her grandmother’s reassuring, yet no-nonsense brand of parenting couldn’t have been easy – for the girls or for their grandmother.



Indeed, the injustice of her son and daughter-in-law’s abdication of responsibility hits Reba in her private moments. The relentless parental routine can be tough, and at times she feels resentful of her son and daughter-in-law. “They’re living their lives doing nothing! Which I truly, deep down in my heart do not mind. Because the girls are my life, and they come first. But sometimes I do get upset.



“When I got the call [from human services]… it was a crazy mess,” recalled Reba with a bitter laugh. Her son and daughter-in law eventually gave up their parental rights. “They realized they were not capable and asked me to adopt them.



“I have the paperwork but I still can’t bring myself to read it,” she said. “They’re safe now, living a positive, productive lifestyle. I know where they came from and that’s good enough.”



Drugs are one of the main drivers of the threefold increase in grandparent-led families since the early 1990s, experts say. Between 1999 and 2015, opioid-related deaths rose 401%, but the opioid epidemic doesn’t tell the whole story. Crystal meth and crack – often contaminated by fentanyl – are also deadly. A new study published in Public Health Reports shows that in several states, over 35% of death certificates for overdoses don’t specify the drugs involved.



“When you look at why kids are in foster or a grandparent’s care, substance abuse and domestic violence are the top presenting factors,” said Pamela Heisler, a project manager at Oregon’s department of human services. “However, when you look closely, neglect is why over half the cases come in.”

Many of these children now live with their grandparents because recent federal policy prioritises family placements when children are deemed at risk, which is usually a good thing for the children.



“The outcomes are much better if they’re in family – as opposed to stranger –foster care,” said Donna Butts, of Generations United, adding that children who have lived through trauma need the support and protection that relatives can provide. “They feel loved, they’re more connected to their roots, and more likely to have their siblings kept together. Grandparents are less likely to give up on the children, more likely to go through those tough times with the child,” she explained, adding that for every one child in the foster system, there are now 20 children being raised by grandparents.



Many of these grandparents are invisible. One out of every three grandparents (over 35%) living with grandchildren has sole responsibility for them, according to the most recent census data, but that ratio wouldn’t include a grandmother like Reba, because she lives in Bridge Meadows. Nor would it include a senior living in a retirement community. Only independent householders are counted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michelle plays with a neighbor at her home in Bridge Meadows. Photograph: Leah Nash/The Guardian

The UK and Canada haven’t experienced this social transformation, at least not yet. The number of grandparents taking over the parental role in those countries is still in the single digits. The US is indeed first on this score. For a social shift of this magnitude – and for the preventive role they fill – there is surprisingly little financial or moral support available to grandparent-led families in the US. It’s a patchwork, unlike in European countries such as Italy or Germany, where the state kicks in with benefits, and where participatory grandparenting is more common.

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Reba has a different perspective. Despite her disability and her new responsibilities, “I wasn’t just going to lay down,” she said. After fostering, then adopting the two girls in 2013, she eventually finished her bachelor’s degree. She had hip surgery in 2015. “My sister was here to help me and the Bridge Meadows community rallied in to help. They took me to doctor’s appointments, to therapy when I needed it. They were amazing. They were my family. They’re our family,” she said.



The majority of American grandparents living with grandchildren have much less to lean on. Recent studies show that those who take on major grandchild-related child care and financial roles experience poorer medical outcomes than their neighbors. Whatever the price, it’s worth it, they say. They’re in it for the long haul, according to Reba. “I love Michelle and Denise to the moon and back. They are my life. That’s what I chose to do,” she added. “They know I’m here, and I’m sticking it out until I see them walk across that floor to get that high school diploma, and then that college degree.”