Today, we conclude our series of profiles of Milwaukee grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. It’s common in the city, where poverty, violence and addiction sometimes tears families apart. For the grandparents, raising young children can be a strain physically and financially. However, there are many cases where the arrangement works out well for both generations. WUWM’s Erin Toner has one such story.
“My name is Jerry Napier, I’m 63 years old. Ok, this is Jai. Jai is…Jai is 9 years old. And Gilton is 10.”
Jerry and his grandsons are smushed together on the living room sofa in the small apartment they share in downtown Milwaukee. The boys are incredibly well-behaved.
They sit up straight and don’t make a sound while Jerry tells me how this living arrangement came to be. First, he says he didn’t necessarily expect to still be working at age 63.
“Actually, yeah, I plan on retiring maybe in a couple years. I’ll be 66 and I’ll be able to draw my maximum amount of Social Security. I’m a graphic artist. Draw commercials for TV, print ad, different things like that,” Jerry says.
He wants to keep working, but he also needs to, with two young boys in the house. Jerry’s trying to become Jai and Gilton’s legal guardian, but the process is stalled right now.
“We have to get it settled with the mom and dad, which right now we can’t locate,” Jerry says.
The mom is Jerry’s daughter. She came to live with Jerry five years ago, after she broke up with the boys’ father. A few years later, she moved to Oklahoma for a job. Jai and Gilton stayed behind with their grandfather, who has plenty of relatives nearby.
“The boys are doing well. We have good support in Chicago. Four aunts and a grandmother in Chicago and they just take them everywhere. Three years ago, they took them to Disney World. It gives me a break and they enjoy it, too,” Jerry says.
Jerry is divorced, so he’s raising the boys himself.
“So you had the boys and your daughter here at one point?” I ask.
“Right, exactly,” Jerry says.
“And how many bedrooms have you got here?” I ask.
“One bedroom. Yeah, it’s kind of tight. We manage you know. Her and the boys slept in the bedroom and I slept here on the couch where I’m at now,” Jerry says.
Jerry says there was never a question in his mind about whether he could handle raising kids again.
“I considered it as a blessin. I was just here by myself. I didn’t really have anyone I was seeing or anything and we just bonded right away and they keep me live. For one thing, we joined the YMCA. They got me swimming and playing basketball again. We also do drumming with Ko-Thi. Are you familiar with them? Oh, they’re out of UWM. They have seminars for students, people want to learn the drum. And we take classes at the Milwaukee School of Arts on Saturdays,” Jerry says.
And they practice right here in their crowded living room. There’s a fish tank along the wall that contains Jai’s tiger fish and Gilton’s goldfish. And there are three computers in this small space – a desktop that Jerry uses and laptops for each of the boys.
Jerry says when they get home after work and school, they follow a strict routine.
“First thing they do is their homework. And then they have reading assignments that I give them besides their homework. And then we have our exercises. It’s the schedule right there on the wall. They either do yoga or they lift weights. And we eat dinner and then they can play with their games then,” Jerry says.
Ten-year-old Gilton says after homework, and yoga, and dinner, he likes to play with Legos. His creations nearly cover the bedroom floor.
I ask Gilton what he built.
“Well here’s basically bigger tanks, smaller speeders, and one’s built for high-tech, for longer space travel,” Gilton says.
He came up with the designs himself. But Gilton says he doesn’t want to be an astronaut. He’s more interested in building and acting.
Jai says he plays a lot of video games.
“I play Dragonball Z, I play wrestling. Sometimes I play football,” Jai says.
Back in the living room, Jerry says he’s been able to give his grandsons a lot of what they need and want, because he has a good job and gets kinship care from the state.
“They provide funding for parents and grandparents that are taking care of their grandchildren, so I get $400 a month for them, $430 a month actually, so it’s working out. You know, it’s working out,” Jerry says.
Jerry says someday the three of them will move out of this one-bedroom apartment and get a bigger place.
But for now, he’s says he’s just fine sleeping on the sofa, and for the boys, he’s ordered brand-new bunk beds.
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