Joann Ernst, 72, shook her head as her older grandson decapitated an action figure. The other laid out puzzle pieces in a line, surrounded by a sea of toys.
“You have to put all the Play-Doh back in the container so it doesn’t dry out,” Ernst called out to the 5- and 7-year olds.
Ernst is not the boys’ legal guardian. She’s spent the past two years living with her son Jack, helping with her grandsons on weekends. Jack had struggled to work after losing an arm in an accident, so Ernst took a job in the special education department of a local school, paid his rent, and spent weekends shopping for the boys and disciplining them “as a mother would.”
In June, she moved back to Oregon from Connecticut. She needed to help her daughter, Joanna, with her children in the same way she’s been helping Jack and his boys.
“I wish I could just be a grandmother, but I also discipline, school them, feed them, and provide a home for them,” Ernst said. “I enjoy it immensely, but I’m unable to retire, and my retirement money is slowly being spent.”
For some grandparents, helping adult children through illness, job loss, addiction, or other crises means taking on far more than occasional babysitting. They become the family’s financial and practical backstop, spending down savings, delaying retirement, or going back to work to help support both adult children and grandchildren.
This year, Business Insider has spoken with more than 60 grandparents and great-grandparents raising young children or helping adult children get back on their feet, just when they thought they’d be retiring. Some have legal custody of their grandchildren. Others, like Ernst, have no official parenting roles but pay bills, provide care, and prepare them for a good life. Census data show that more than 1.1 million US grandparents 60 and older were at least part-time caregivers for their grandchildren as of 2024.
“Where is my Barbie?” her older grandson asks.
“Barbie is long gone,” Ernst replies, adding that she threw her out after her leg fell off. “She’s in the city dump.”
“Can you buy a new Barbie?”
“I’ll talk about it later with your dad.”
Ernst raised three children, mostly as a single mother. Around 2016, her daughter Joanna developed a debilitating kidney condition that left her hospitalized for months. Ernst helped care for Joanna’s children and received a small state caregiver income.
“It never ceases to amaze me how, despite everything, my mom has always been there for my kids and me,” Joanna, 43, says. “She always wanted to make us thrive.”
In 2024, Ernst moved to Connecticut to support Jack after his injury. She found a house with $1,500 monthly rent payments and began her teaching job.
Now that she’s returned to Oregon, she continues to pay the mortgage on her current house in Connecticut so Jack and his sons can stay there. She also works 25 hours a week as a paid caregiver for Joanna’s son with autism and helps to support him financially.
Ernst has tried to balance being frugal with the instinct to give her grandchildren small treats, but even going out to the movies can become a budget decision.
This isn’t what she expected retirement to be.
“If you look at a traditional grandparent, they get to have their grandkids for the day, take them out, and give them ice cream,” Joann says. “I’m never at that point because I’m constantly disciplining and explaining things. You’re never relaxed.”
Althea Smith, 65, has faced a more formal version of the same pressure. She is raising her grandson as his legal guardian while also providing long-term care for her own parents. Smith has a job as a full-time support worker for older adults and said she doesn’t expect to fully retire soon.
“I want to see the world and take a cruise,” she said. “I miss being able to go wherever I want. My grandson will be 18 in four years, and then I’ll be able to think more about myself.”
Ernst’s kitchen table may be filled with receipts and bills — groceries, the mortgage, and a car loan — but she says it’s money well-spent. She tries to avoid thinking about her diminishing nest egg.
“I know it’ll all work out,” Joann said, watching the boys dash across the living room.
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