JoAnne McCann loves raising her 31/2-year-old grandson, Keegan, but wishes the timing had been better.

“You have more patience, but you’re not young enough to keep up,” said McCann, a divorced mother of four older children including Keegan’s father.

Newly released 2000 Census data show that the Bangor grandmother is one of more than 5,000 Maine grandparents to take on second families after their children were unable to do the job. Substance abuse, mental health problems and poverty are some of the reasons grandparents typically are forced to step in.

Washington County leads the state in the number of households in which grandparents are raising their grandchildren. The region had more than 2 percent – or 312 – such families. That’s probably because of the high rates of poverty and substance abuse, according to Len Kaye, a professor of social work and director of the University of Maine Center on Aging.

At first glance, the statistics may not reflect a huge problem, according to Kaye. But they are bound to increase, he said.

“As long as families continue to struggle to make ends meet and as long as drug abuse is a troubling fact of life, especially in rural communities, we’ll continue to see [families turning to] grandparents. They represent the last line of defense for maintaining the integrity of family life,” he said.

The number of grandparents raising grandchildren actually is higher than is reported, according to Kaye, who said the Census didn’t account for grandparents

who care for their children but don’t actually reside in the same home.

Meanwhile, the Center on Aging is working with Family Connections in Bangor to create support groups for grandparents and develop a task force to review issues that concern them and present recommendations to the Legislature next year.

“You have no idea how difficult a time grandparents have dealing with the legal system, educational system, health care system and housing system,” said Kaye.

This time around

Sitting at her kitchen table recently, McCann, 46, wasn’t worried so much about the big picture, but about keeping up with the energetic little red-haired grandson who’s been with her almost since the day he was born. She finally adopted him when he was about 2 years old.

“I do my best, but sometimes when he begs me to play ball, I just have to tell him, ‘Mom’s too tired,'” said McCann, a cook at the Bangor Mental Health Institute who begins work at 6 a.m.

But she sees herself as a better parent this time around. “You look at things so much differently. You don’t worry so much about the small stuff,” said McCann, admitting she hadn’t been nearly as relaxed with her other children.

Divorced, McCann looks to a neighbor and to her married daughter, who has three children, to help baby-sit for Keegan. Even so, because the little boy was often sick as a baby, she was forced to take off more time from work than she anticipated.

Juggling work and child rearing continues to be a challenge. At one point she decided to turn down a position that would have meant a better paycheck, but also more time away from Keegan.

“Keegan’s needs come first,” said McCann, who can’t shake the feeling that she didn’t give “enough guidance” to her first son – Keegan’s father – when he was young. She is determined not to go down that road again.

Raising a grandchild is easier because you know what lies ahead, she said. “You make mistakes, but not the ones you already made.”

Traveling together

Life with her 5-year-old grandson has been “marvelous,” said Kathie Oldis, a former Foxcroft Academy teacher who lives in Dover-Foxcroft with her husband, Frank, a retired Air Force navigator.

The couple took Evan Saunders, their daughter’s child, into their home when he was 4 months old. They are his legal guardians, although he spends each weekend with his father.

An easy baby with few health problems, the little boy has happily accompanied his grandparents as they indulge their “travel bug,” as Oldis calls it.

Each winter the little boy spends three months in Florida with his grandparents. He’s also been to a dude ranch out west.

“We’re more fortunate than a lot of people because we’ve been able to do some of these things,” said Oldis, 63. “It keeps us young, and it keeps him happy.”

Sometimes the grandparents worry that “being with older people, he’ll grow up too fast,” Oldis said one morning as she watched Evan play quietly with his collection of toy dinosaurs.

“But he does his little boy things – he has his fort and a little motorized riding jeep. We have 3 acres of land and when Grandpa mows, he follows behind,” she said.

While the couple is more laid back than they were when their two daughters were small, they admit that dealing with an active little boy has been a whole new ball game.

Still, they are sticklers for good behavior. “Frank and I are hard on Evan,” Oldis said. “We’ve tried so hard with his manners. You go places and you see such wild kids. We’re trying to be disciplinarians. It has been kind of a struggle, but we’re more consistent now.”

In the end, grandparents simply are doing what they have been since the beginning of time, said Barbara Kates, director of Family Connections, which has offered programs for grandparents raising grandchildren for several years.

“In a lot of cultures it’s more accepted to have extended family step in,” she said. “Now we need to get back there and say, ‘Let’s support them.'”