By the time she was in her 50s, Willie Mae Pittman imagined, she would be running her own dress shop, going on cruises and enjoying her life.
Instead, she found herself raising two young granddaughters–and giving up, or postponing, many of the hopes she had for herself.
“Giving your life to the grandchildren is the hardest job I’ve ever had in my life,” Pittman, 52, wrote recently.
“When DCFS brought me this little bundle of joy, I just looked at this curly-haired, brown-eyed, small-nosed baby and said, `Oh no, not me Lord, I’m not going to. I don’t care how pretty she is.’ But God had a plan for me, and it was to take this one.”
Although the phenomenon of grandparents raising their grandchildren is increasingly common, writing about it has been a new experience for the 15 grandparents who regularly attend a new writing group on the South Side.
At a meeting this week, Pittman told the group how her granddaughter, Ahmaani, 6, was rehearsing to sing in church on Sunday for Mother’s Day.
“She sang: `This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. And it will shine all over you, Grandma,’ ” Pittman told the group proudly.
“My other little one, she calls me her pearl,” she said of granddaughter, Siedah, 8.
Writing and talking about parenting the second time around has eased the transition back into motherhood for these women, some of whom get custody of the children through abuse or neglect cases brought by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
The group meets at the Urban Leadership Center on the South Side. Last April, they started turning their discussions into ideas for stories and essays.
Their prose and poems will be published Monday in the Journal of Ordinary Thought, the first edition of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance’s local anthology to focus on grandparents. The alliance, a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Illinois at Chicago, holds neighborhood workshops to foster communities of writers.
“The support and interest has meant so much for people going through difficult times. They no longer feel alone and isolated,” said Marilyn Epps, leadership coordinator at the Urban Leadership Center, which is part of the Cooperative Extension Service of the University of Illinois.
Most of the grandparents had little or no experience with writing, but with the help of their teacher and editor, Hal Adams, they have learned to channel their feelings into words.
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“They were surprised that other people in the group were interested in their stories,” Adams said. “But they all share common experiences.”
Many of the grandmothers talked about the questions they get from their grandchildren:
Why is your hair white?
Why are you so big?
Why are you so old?
They have taken these kinds of questions and woven them into a story.
Bertha Gunter, 55, who is raising four of her grandchildren, wrote a short essay titled “Self-Confidence.”
“I see myself in my children,” she wrote. “I was not a perfect child. A stubborn, willful, daring child I was. I thought that I was so important. My parents made it so. They treated me with love and discipline. I grew into the person I am today.”
Gunter, whose youngest child is 31, gained custody of four of her grandchildren in 1992 through a DCFS case. It was not part of her life plan to raise children again, but she said it has been worth the sacrifice.
“This is their only childhood,” said Gunter, watching over her grandchildren as they worked on the computer and finished homework in the basement of her home. “I want them to have a chance at life, and they can’t have it unless somebody gives it to them.”
Gunter also encourages her grandchildren to write and read. On a recent afternoon, her granddaughter, Chanel, 13, was seated at the basement table looking for a word in the dictionary that she could use in a class assignment.
“I’m looking for a word to describe somebody,” Chanel said, settling on the word “audacious.”
Mary Peacock, 49, has helped raise four of her grandchildren and has been a foster mother for 22 years.
In a short essay called “Better Future” she remembered some of the small things that make holidays special.
“We children didn’t have toys because my mom couldn’t afford them,” Peacock wrote. “She didn’t have any money but she had lots of love. Child, we had a lot of apples, oranges, pecans and popcorn.”
The multigenerational family has been a theme of writing for Alexander Pratt, 69, one of two men in the group. He lives with two of his three grandchildren and their parents and wrote a short essay called “Learning Their Heritage.”
“When I was growing up I didn’t know much about my grandparents. No one had much to say about the family,” wrote Pratt, who is now helping with a family history project.
“I have made it a point to let my children and grandchildren know as much about their heritage as possible.”