“At the peak of our lives, we should be enjoying our lives and settling down,” she said. “It’s really sad.”

She blames, in part, the flood of drugs in the 1970s and ‘80s, and a generation of parents who never learned the skills to raise and teach their children.

“Myself, for instance,” she said. “When my baby was born, I was going through a divorce, and that fell on my child.”

When Ms. Caldwell sees grandparents raising grandchildren, she looks on it as an attempt to break a chain of destruction and violence.

“A lot of grandparents are trying to correct the mistakes they made with their children,” she said.

Ms. Caldwell said there were resources out there for struggling parents. One goal of the Parent Resource Center is to get them in touch with those resources.

“I, too, didn’t know where to go,” she said. Despite working to support her grandchildren, she said it never seemed to be enough, and it was a neighbor who first told her how to apply for food stamps.

Other difficulties plagued her when raising her grandchildren. Because she initially lacked custody, there would always be runaround on paperwork or doctors unable to treat her grandchildren.

Eventually, one of her daughters had to sign custody of the grandchildren over to her because of the red tape, though she said it didn’t feel right.

Ms. Caldwell remembered her experiences with her grandchildren affectionately. “The things that they say sometimes, it comes at the right time.”

The educational opportunities that she opened for her children led them to careers in child development, mental health counseling, nursing and the electrical trade.