On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Timesharing/Visitation on Tuesday, February 5, 2013.
Grandparent child custody is a highly contested issue in Florida. Although research shows that grandparent involvement in grandchildren’s lives has positive outcomes, government support for grandparent custody and visitation rights is lagging in Florida, and has had mixed results around the country.
Things might change. Grandparent visitation has taken center stage as the Obama transition team announced that Marian Robinson – Michelle Obama’s mother – will leave her Chicago home and move into the White House.
Robinson has traditionally watched the Obama granddaughters during the presidential campaign, when she routinely stayed in the Obama home in Chicago. As Grandparents.com reports:
“Mrs. Robinson will be coming with the family to help the girls get acclimated,” Deputy Communications Director for Michelle Obama, Semonti Mustaphi, told Grandparents.com this afternoon.
Robinson will become the first Presidential in-law to live in the executive mansion since Eisenhower’s mother. Multi-generational households is part of a growing trend in our country. The 2010 United States Census reflects:
- 5.7 million grandparents live at home with their grandchildren
- Multiple generation households have increased by 25%
- 70% of grandparents take care of their grandkids regularly
- 13% are primary caretakers
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Robinson said that she enforced an 8:30 bedtime and provided the girls with organic food – as her daughter demanded – when she sat for them in their own home. But when the girls had sleepovers in Robinson’s home, she admitted, “I have candy, they stay up late … they watch TV as long as they want to, we’ll play games until the wee hours. I do everything that grandmothers do that they’re not supposed to.”
As our nation’s commander-in-chief, President Obama admitted that in his home, he picks his battles carefully: “I don’t tell my mother-in-law what to do … I’m not stupid. That’s why I got elected president, man.“