Bessie Clayborne, 83, and 6-year-old grandson Malcolm, whom she's been raising since he was a newborn
Bessie Clayborne, 83, has been raising 6-year-old grandson Malcolm since he was a newborn. (Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times / June 19, 2013)
By Titania Kumeh, Los Angeles Times
June 23, 2013, 8:42 p.m.
Bessie Clayborne has big dreams for her grandson Malcolm. She has been raising the 6-year-old since he was a newborn, when, she says, his mother was jailed and his father — Clayborne's son — shirked all parental responsibility.
Clayborne, who's had eight children of her own over the decades, says Malcolm was 3 days old when she picked him up from the hospital and police officers took his mother away. "I wasn't going to let him be out there with somebody" in foster care, the 83-year-old South Los Angeles resident said. "That was my grandbaby."
Clayborne, now the child's legal guardian, is one of more than 300,000 Californians who are caring for grandchildren, many without extended family assistance. Seniors such as the Mississippi native have spared the state from spending millions of dollars that would otherwise have gone into placing their grandchildren into foster homes.
But a UCLA report issued recently says these grandparent caregivers are not receiving adequate support from public aid programs, making them among the state's most vulnerable residents due to the high cost of living. Nearly half of custodial grandparents ages 65 and older in California do not