CINCINNATI, Ohio – Lyric in his summer pajamas with daisy print when he gave up and started singing.
“I can fly,” he sang, prompting a smile on his “Mamaw.”
Mary Mahan of Taylor Mill wouldn’t be surprised if Lyric could do it. The busy, talkative 4-year-old woman “doesn’t walk,” Mahan said. “It’s more common for him to run.”
Mahan, 71, is Lyric’s great-grandmother and has raised the child since he was born. Lyric’s mother has a substance abuse disorder and the recurrent chronic condition has prevented her from maintaining full custody of her daughter.
Caring for a child can be tricky for a grandparent every day, Mahan said. Add the risk of COVID-19 and a school year to the mix, and the challenge is frankly agonizing.
“If I had it, who would take care of your full time?” Mahan asked, knowing there is no simple answer.
The threat of a severe COVID-19 attack or death from it is greater for others age 65 and older, according to the knowledge of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in Kentucky and Ohio, many older people raise their grandchildren.
The opioid epidemic, which has led more young people to leave their parents with drug addicts, has left many young people in the care of their grandparents. The family dynamic, however, is not new. The epidemic only increased the number of grandparents and grandchildren living in the same household. People of color are also more likely to live with school-age youth, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study, and blacks and Latinos are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. As a result, they may be most likely to be threatened with COVID-19 once young people return to school.
Mahan’s scenario is also doubly troubling: he bears the greatest threat of getting a serious COVID-19 case not only because he is 71, but also because he has had breast cancer twice. The last diagnosis — by which he tried and is fine — in March.
Mahan was hoping Lyric would move into kindergarten in a few weeks. The little woman qualified for it, and her great-grandmother said Lyric would gain advantages by having a teacher, school friends and new activities.
“She can count and say the ABC she wants, ” said Mahan. But Lyric is a typical 4-year-old girl and has trouble concentrating when her great-grandmother pulls out the thick preschool e-book and tries to teach her.
Mahan does not host the ideal schooling for Lyric.
Despite this, he relented and organized a school option that will allow Lyric to move to kindergarten from home, a Google Chromebook provided through the school and an online adjunct teacher.
“I’m involved with your departure and COVID,” Mahan said. “Even if she’s asymptomatic, if she brings it back…” his voice goes out.
“I hate that I can’t take the bus and interact with other kids.”
About 6% of Kentucky school-age youth lived with seniors in 2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation report. In Ohio, the percentage is 5%. Of course, there are many other children under the age of 65 who plan their grandchildren’s school for 2020-2021.
El Dr. O’dell Owens, president and chief executive of the nonprofit interactor Interact for Health, said urban schools are attended by many young people who have grandparent tutors and face complicated questions about what to do if young people get COVID-19.
“How do you quarantine this child? Where’s Grandma going?” Owens asked.
Dr. Chaitanya Mandapakala, pneumologist at St. Elizabeth Healthcare and an extensive care physician, said the grandparents she cares are involved in the care regimen of their grandchildren, even if they don’t raise the young. “They can take them to school and get them back,” he said. They can monitor young people when parents have to leave town.
There are risks, Mandapakala said, which treats patients with COVID-19.
“Logistics and practically, it’s not imaginable to be perfect,” he said. “We have to do our best.”
Both doctors presented these tips to grandparents who should send their grandchildren to school:
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