Grandmothers pull double duty

Page 21

Joyce Tapaquon sits in her living room braiding Raven's hair. The other children are nearby, she tells them they're her "House of Rainbows." Raven is of black and Native ancestry, Jason is Asian and Native, Tawny and Caitlyn are Aboriginal. All are her daughters' children, all depend on her for their food and shelter.

Joyce, 46, is one of many grandmothers finding themselves the sole caregivers for their children and their grandchildren.

Joyce is blind, a result of untreated diabetes, the consequence of an abusive lifestyle in her early years on Carry-the-Kettle Reserve.

Her story is one many other Aboriginal women will recognize.

"I came from a dysfunctional home. My mom had no parenting skills, she always told us to shut up. We didn't have any love when we grew up, we were never able to show our feelings, and we saw a lot of violence," remembers Joyce.

Her first husband died of pneumonia and when she married again, she married into a life of abuse. Abuse of alcohol and abuse by anger.

"I followed the cycle of my mother," she said. "It's disgusting to me now."

She stayed with her common-law husband for five years in a relationship full of fighting and beatings.

"I had black eyes and no one ever said anything because everyone was scared of him. He said he'd kill them all," continues Joyce. "I felt there was no way out, no one to talk to."

After several attempts, Joyce finally escaped by coming to the city and staying with her mother. She still had to deal with her own problem of alcoholism, though.

"I struggled with alcohol because when I was sober, I was depressed."

But by 1976, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous and began her healing. Unfortunately, the effects of her past life had left scars on her daughters. Joyce saw them following the same self-abusive path which she had just managed to escape.

One of her daughters gave birth to a baby with kidney disease. She was going to give him up for adoption because she didn't think she could look after him. Joyce decided she would look after Jason. And she's fought to look after him ever since.

It's been an uphill struggle against childcare workers, Social Services and her daughters, all part of a system that is very slowly recognizing the role that grandparents play in many families, and the legal, financial, and emotional support they need.

Jason was Joyce's first grandchild, and Social Services did give her money, the basic allowance for one child. But after a few years, Joyce had four grandchildren and her two daughters living under her roof. Because the mothers were there, Joyce wasn't able to receive additional money.

"There's really no help for grandparents. They don't consider them foster parents," said Joyce.

"I knew one of my daughters was using drugs, alcohol and working the streets. I didn't want the kids to go to foster homes. I wanted them to have the first five years of their lives in civility," she explains.

Social Services policies now have options to acknowledge a grandparent as the head of a household.

Joyce Adams Bauer, spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, saod, "If a grandmother is looking after the children and does not have legal custody, she can receive income assistance, but has to apply like anyone else. For situations where the children are living outside of their parental home, there is an escape hatch to allow the grandma to get money if she's the one looking after the children, but this depends on the social workers recommendations."

"There are no statistics on how often this happens, but it isn't an unusual scenario we've painted," adds Adams Bauer.

Joyce felt that the most effective and secure move she could make for her grandchildren would be to get legal custody of them.

"When my daughter saw the papers from the lawyers she threw them on the kitchen table," remembers Joyce.

And her fight began.

"The kids were at the daycare. When I came home from work for lunch that day, I felt strange, something was wrong. But I had to o do some shopping. When I came back again, Diane Cornelius from Social Services and Barry Guy from the Regina Police called and said they had the kids in custody."

Joyce's daughter had called Social Services and said Joyce was abusing the kids. The daycare manager, who knew Joyce well and knew it was a lie, wasn't even allowed to call Joyce and tell her the children were being taken away from the daycare.

It took one month to get the children back. In the meantime, Joyce went into a state of shock, mostly because the stress and confusion caused her to forget her insulin. She ended up in the hospital under psychiatric care for five days.

Carry-the-Kettle band stepped in, requesting that the children stay with Joyce's mom. Joyce was not allowed to see the children until the full investigation was completed.

"I was really mad, because I was sober, I was doing good things," Joyce said.

The community rallied behind her. People wrote character references and letters of support. And Joyce started counselling with Chris Sorenson, paid for by the band.

"I learned a lot of tools from my psychologist. I still have a lot of anger, but I know where it's coming from and I know there are other ways of dealing with it," Joyce said.

Joyce is taking her second chance at parenting seriously. She took parenting classes offered by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, which she qualified for because she only has five per cent of her vision left now. The classes taught her basic parenting skills as well as how to do it with little vision.

The Circle Project in Regina also offers parenting classes. Joni Adamcewisz, one of the women in charge of the program, said they work with healing circles as support groups, provide one-on-one counselling and work with Social Services for interventions.

"The groups are usually six people and often two out of the six will be grandparents. In one group, all six were grandparents," she remembers.

The classes are free and Circle Project also wors in conjunction with other groups like "Healthiest Babies Possible " to provide as much parenting education as possible.

Marita Crant has 13 grandchildren and is the legal guardian for one of them. She benefited from the Circle Project parenting classes.

Like Joyce Tapaquon, Marita was raised in a dysfunctional and abusive family. She was in an unhealthy relationship when another of her daughters put her child into a foster home. Marita was determined to help the little girl, but had to get herself in order so she could fight for custody of her grandchild.

"There was a lot of difficulty with Alexa when I first got her," said Marita. "Her little life was in such a turmoil. I didn't know what to make of her, if she had a split personality or what."

Marita had heard of the parenting class, but says she thought to herself, "What am I going to do with that? I'm too old. I've already raised my kids." But she decided to go in the hopes she'd learn new things.

Through talking about Alexa's behavior in class, she found out what was causing it, and learned how to deal with it. She also credits the class with helping her understand how to deal with children of today's world, not yesterday's world. She said children of today are more demanding and have different needs.

Both Marita and Joyce now work in the community, passing on their care and skills. Marita goes to schools and talks about Indian culture, has talking circles and has started storytelling.

Joyce speaks to community groups about the sort of support systems that are needed by Aboriginal people. Besides parenting, she's also concerned and has given talks on various reserves about visual impairment and the rising incidence of diabetes in Aboriginal people.

"Aboriginal people need more awareness of wellness, how to help others, especially the blind," said Joyce. "Us Indians, we're really shy, passive. Some people are too scared to walk across the floor and ask me if I need help. Others just don't understand the new Jyce. They say, 'Oh, Joyce, you're always trying to act white,' she said sadly. "But I'm not scared, because maybe my grandchildren can learn from me. If I can teach them respect and self-discipline, it's worth everything.

"Life is precious. It's too short for me to dwell on things that happened in the past," said Joyce. "I keep on going."