Land of Oz

Grandparents

This morning on the way in to work, I heard a story on NPR about Washington D.C. paying a stipend to grandparents who are taking care of their grandkids instead of the kids parents. Keep track of this now - we got kids, parents and grandparents. The grandparents are taking care of the kids because for whatever reason the parents can't. In the case involved in the story, the parent's problem was crack. The grandmother said her daughter "can't seem to get it together."

OK - my question is, if the parent is messed up, who's responsible? Seems to me that the grandparent didn't do such a good job raising the parent - least ways, not good enough to raise her own kid. Now if the grandparent screwed up the parent, what's to keep her from screwing up this kid? Somebody dropped the ball here.

Is actually better to put the kid in with a grandparent who definitely messed things up at least once, or in some other venue? Personally, I have no idea. Neither choice seems to have much going for it. The kid is the one who loses no matter where they get stuck. Why don't people who don't want to take care of a kid, just not have them? I have no intention of having a kid - I'm too afraid of the kid ending up like me - and that wouldn't be fair to anyone.