Great-great-grandmother still raising three children

"If I didn't have faith, I don't think I could have made it through."

Mary Ward issued that declaration from an overstuffed chair in the tiny living room of her North Albany home, surrounded by pictures of family. Among them were photos of three of her great-grandchildren -- Datwan, 18; Ishaya, 13; and Nyjew, 12 -- whom she's been raising for the past 12 years.

Ms. Ward, who attends Wilborn Temple First Church of God in Albany, will turn 75 in August. Being a single parent to great-grandchildren, she said, is made easier only by God -- and knowing she's not alone, which she's learned through Catholic Charities' Relatives as Parents program.

"God kept me going, so this must have been what He intended for me," Ms. Ward mused. "I've given the best of my retirement life" to the children.

New calling

Parenting wasn't in the plan when Ms. Ward retired in 1991. The mother of five (who is also a grandmother of ten, great-grandmother of more than 20 and great-great-grandmother of one) had knee surgery and was looking forward to relaxing when her granddaughter contacted her.

"She was into drugs," Ms. Ward explained. "She asked me to take the children while she got herself together. It was supposed to be six months."

That was a dozen years ago. Ms. Ward went abruptly from being a retiree to having a young boy and two toddlers in diapers in the house.

"It was quite a lot!" she said, laughing.

Family life

Luckily, Ms. Ward had a daughter living upstairs, so she had some initial help in caring for the three children. With Ishaya, who was two, Ms. Ward worked on potty-training and weaning her off bottles. Nyjew, a one-year-old when Ms. Ward took him in, no longer remembers anyone else taking care of him.

"I tell Datwan I'm still trying to understand him, and he's trying to understand me, because of the generation gap," Ms. Ward said of her eldest charge, who just graduated from Christian Brothers Academy in Albany.

Datwan will head to the University of Buffalo on a football scholarship in the fall; Nyjew attends Public School 20 and Ishaya goes to the New Covenant Charter School, both in Albany.

Though the great-grandkids have gotten used to living with Ms. Ward, she admitted that "it's a chore, especially when you get to be my age," to ride herd on three teenagers.

"I keep telling them I'm not getting any younger," she remarked. "They've got to do a little bit more."

Togetherness

Ms. Ward has taught the children to do their own laundry, and two out of three have already taken on that task. All three attend church with their great-grandmother, and Ishaya is an usher and sings in the choir.

In addition to their church, the family has gotten support from another source: the Relatives as Parents program run by Catholic Charities. Ms. Ward said she got a letter about the program years ago, and "thought it was a good idea to get with a group and find out what other grandmothers are going through. They all have the same problems. It helps just to get out and talk about the problems you're having; you see you're not alone."

Besides, she added, the children enjoy the program: While their grandparents and other caregivers chat on one floor, they go to another to hang out or play basketball with a volunteer from The College of Saint Rose in Albany.

Datwan even spoke to a group of grandparents and grandchildren about the difficulties of not having parents, and how he's turned his life around and made good choices.

"I'm quite proud of him," Ms. Ward noted.

Future plans

The senior does worry about the future, noting that she can't keep up with active teens forever. Her granddaughter is currently petitioning to regain custody of another child; if that's successful, Ms. Ward said she may consider allowing Nyjew and Ishaya to live with her if they want to.

In the meantime, Ms. Ward keeps to her schedule of two Relatives as Parents support-group meetings a month, plus picnics and occasional trips sponsored by the program. The two younger children will also spend a week at Camp Scully, the Albany Diocese's summer camp.

"I don't think I'm strict," Ms. Ward said of her parenting. The children "go out, but [I tell them that] when you leave the house, you tell me. I should know where they are."

The senior citizen believes she's raised her great-grandchildren well, considering the hurdles they had to overcome. "Everybody tells me how nice they are," she stated.

Ms. Ward once asked Ishaya if she told her friends her great-grandmother was mean.

"I don't tell them you're mean," Ishaya responded; "I tell them you're tough."

(To learn more about the Relatives as Parents program, call Catholic Charities' Caregivers Respite program at 449-2001.)

(7/22/04)