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Aging: Grandfamilies

Raising children is hard. Raising a child in your retirement years might be even harder. But that's the reality for more than 70,000 Arizona grandparents. Issues of addiction, incarceration, and mental illness are leaving many Americans unable to care for their kids, so more and more grandparents nationwide are stepping into the role of second-time parent. These "grandfamilies" face emotional, financial, and legal hurdles. But many grandparent caregivers also discover rewarding relationships and say they wouldn't have it any other way.

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KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.
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