Carol Johnson has raised her granddaughter, now 17
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Grandparents Parenting Again: Profile of Carol Johnson
By Erin Toner
December 15, 2008 | WUWM | Milwaukee, WI
In Milwaukee, where many families struggle with poverty, unemployment and violence, children are often not living with their parents. Many of these kids are taken in by their grandparents. This presents all sorts of challenges. These grandparents often face financial and health problems, or struggle to help their grandkids resolve lingering trauma. Over the next three days, WUWM’s Erin Toner profiles grandparents in Milwaukee who are raising children for a second time.
Click here for a list of resources for grandparents caring for grandchildren, courtesy of Kids Matter Inc.
When I visited Carol Johnson at her small home on Milwaukee’s northeast side, her granddaughter wasn’t there. Carol hadn’t seen her in days.
“Now she’s ran off with her boyfriend, living with him now,” Carol says.
And this boyfriend, Carol says, is a terrible influence on her 17-year-old granddaughter, who for this story, we’re calling Morgan.
“He doesn’t work. He’s got a very extensive police record. And he just recently, a few weeks ago, got caught for possession of marijuana. Plus he was trying to sell some drugs to some young kids. If he keeps this up with this drug stuff, he could get hurt, she could get hurt, they could actually get killed,” Carol says.
Carol says the last couple of years with her granddaughter have been horrible.
“She just never had to turn out the way that she did. She’s had every opportunity. And just threw it away,” Carol says.
Carol is 58 years old and works as a receptionist at a medical clinic. She’s had Morgan since she was a baby because Morgan’s mother is an alcoholic and doesn’t have a stable home. Carol says there was never any question about taking her granddaughter in – she had a good job and a supportive family. But she says there were problems from the beginning.
“Always in trouble. Never doing right. Lying, getting in with the wrong crowd. She got involved in a gang, they were talking about beating her up and my son had to get involved in all of that. It was awful, just awful,” Carol says.
Carol eventually became Morgan’s legal guardian, and got a few hundred dollars a month and help from social service agencies. Carol says she tried her best to engage Morgan. She paid for ballet and violin lessons, took her to plays and the fair – anything to keep her out of trouble.
“It didn’t work. She wouldn’t stick with anything other than the ballet. She met a lot of nice people that wanted to be her friend. She always would go right to the people that weren’t doing right,” Carol says.
Carol says she spent all of her vacation days last year in court because Morgan was running away, skipping school and stealing. The court placed her in foster care for six months, which seemed to straighten her out. But Carol says when Morgan came home, things weren’t any better. She says she’s pretty sure her granddaughter is smoking marijuana and having sex with her boyfriend.
Carol says a counselor once told her that Morgan never really bonded with her.
“And I didn’t know that. I thought I loved her and I thought she would love me. I’m easy to show affection where she never really was. Like now, she’ll give me a kiss on the cheek. No, I’ll have to kiss her on the cheek. She’ll do like this for me to kiss her, but not for her to kiss me,” Carol says.
Carol and I are sitting in her living room looking through photos of Morgan growing up, including the little girl in different ballet costumes. But Carol starts to notice the album’s disorganized and new pictures have been added.
“It wasn’t like this before. I don’t know what happened here. This is pretty bad, pretty bad,” Carol says.
She comes upon a photo of Morgan lying on her bed wearing just her underwear.
“Oh look at this. I didn’t see that. Boy. Well, that’s not the worst of it…” Carol says.
She says there have been many moments of outrage, like when she found out Morgan was sneaking her boyfriend into her bedroom at night.
We walk down the hallway to Morgan’s bedroom, which is simple – a dresser, a TV and two twin beds. One of the beds is unmade.
“I slept there last night. I just felt like it,” Carol says.
Carol misses her granddaughter and wanted to feel close to her.
She thinks Morgan’s behavior has a lot to do with her mother’s alcoholism and the fact that she’s never been in the picture. Still, Carol agonizes over how things have turned out. She says she has high blood pressure and sometimes chest pains.
“I think something really bad has gotta happen for her to turn around. And I’m just hoping that, that she can you know, spring back from it,” Carol says.
A few weeks after our interview, Carol called me to say her granddaughter was in jail. Her boyfriend was arrested for holding up a pet store. Morgan was the alleged getaway driver.
 This story is part of a group. Click for more.
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