African-American Grandmothers: Rationale for the Support They Give to Their Parenting Adolescents

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore low-income African-American grandmothers’ rationales for the support they gave to their adolescent sons and daughters who were adolescent parents, specifically the types of support grandmothers provided, grandmothers’ rationales for providing support, and contextual influences to grandmothers’ provision of support. A purposeful sample of 20 grandmothers participated in this study: 10 mothers of adolescent mothers and 10 mothers of adolescent fathers. Babysitting, advice, financial, and shopping were the primary types of support provided by both groups of grandmothers. Love was a major reason grandmothers reported for providing support. Small numbers of grandmothers identified their work and the adolescent parents’ school as influences to support they provided to their parenting adolescents. A larger number of grandmothers reported that religion, their neighborhood, current life happenings, and past experiences were influences to the support they provided. The adolescent parents’ personal characteristics were also found to influence maternal and paternal grandmothers’ provision of support. Both the paternal and maternal grandmothers reported to receive limited support from friends and families and identified limited resources within their community. These grandmothers received inadequate assistance from support networks and identified a limited number of resources within their community, but continued to support their children who were adolescent parents. Parenting support groups should be developed specifically for grandmothers who have adolescent children who are parents. Studies should be directed at evaluating the needs of the grandmothers, and health care providers need to explore ways to strengthen support networks for grandmothers. Health care providers should utilize grandmothers’ experiences and include grandmothers during the development and implementation of intervention programs designed to improve the outcomes for adolescent parents and their children.