FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 19, 2001
"Grandparenting"on the rise in California, nation
Also in this issue: Cattle parasites, oak regeneration

Nearly 500,000 children in California are being raised in households headed by their grandparents, a number that has been rising steadily, a UC researcher reports in the March-April issue of California Agriculture.

Nationwide, 5% of children under 18 were being raised in grandparent-headed households in 1990, a 53% increase from 1970 (2000 data is not yet available for analysis). In California, the rate was even higher with an estimated 6.4% of children living in grandparent-headed households in 1990.

"The conditions faced by many of these grandparents are dire, and support services are usually not geared toward older parents," says Mary Blackburn, UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Advisor in Alameda County. “You can’t talk about parenting to a 75-year-old the same way that you talk to a teen parent.”
Through the 1990s, UCCE received numerous requests for information on children being raised by their grandparents, Blackburn says, but the state-specific census data had not been compiled and reviewed. Interim surveys conducted by the U.S. Census confirm the upward trend.

In a peer-reviewed study, Blackburn provides county-by-county data for children being raised by grandparents in California, and discusses the difficulties faced by older caregivers. “Custodial grandparents may have multiple health problems and experience severe stress when confronted with the attendant costs and responsibilities,” writes Blackburn, who has been an important advocate for California grandparents raising grandchildren.

Blackburn found that San Francisco County had the highest percentage of children under 18 who lived with their grandparents (10.62%), followed by Imperial County (9.03%). Mono County had the lowest percentage (2.22%), followed by Marin County (2.71%). Blackburn can be reached at (510) 567-6812.
Also in the March-April issue of California Agriculture:

Cattle parasites prevalent
In a major study of 35 herds across 16 counties representing a wide range of California’s climatic and geographic areas, 60 percent of cattle sampled (N = 1,323) that had not been dewormed within four months were shedding eggs and larvae of intestinal parasites in their manure. (The parasites included Strongylate nematodes, coccidia and tapeworms.) Furthermore, UC researchers found no relationship between diarrhea and parasitization, even though diarrhea is widely considered a symptom of parasitism. While deworming treatments are common for cattle, they may not be effective because of widespread pasture contamination by asymptomatic cattle shedding parasites.

Oak regeneration and animals, fire
California’s native oak woodlands are under increasing pressure from encroaching development and agriculture. Two studies published in California Agriculture provide important guidance for efforts to regenerate oak woodland habitat. In a 12-year trial, brush piles and mesh cages protected notoriously slow-growing blue oak seedlings from damage by large and small animals. The blue oaks in this study grew between one-half and one inch per year. In a second study, the majority of blue oak (70%) and coast live oak (56%) saplings resprouted within one year of a prescribed burn, UC researchers found. Prescribed fires “probably have little effect on overall sapling survival, and may benefit individual saplings by reducing competition and recycling nutrients,” the authors write.