Paper short abstract:

Care arrangements between grandparents and grandchildren in northwest Tanzania alter over time as grandchildren come of age and grandparents slowly age into advanced old age. The difficulty of reconciling the needs of young adults with care for frail grandparents, contributes to the precarity of old age care.

Paper long abstract:

In Northwest Tanzania grandparents have been raising orphaned grandchildren for the past three decades. Whereas growing up with grandchildren is normal in Kagera region, the relations between grandparents and grandchildren have been subtly reshaped by the AIDS epidemic. As yet unexplored is how practices of (grand)parenting alter over time, in different life phases of the grandchild and of the ageing grandparent. What is expected in terms of relational care of both grandparents and grandchildren changes as young children age into adolescents and young adults).In this paper I focus on the generation of orphaned grandchildren that came to live with their grandparents before the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2004 and came of age in recent years. Now in their late teens and early twenties they are confronted with their elderly grandparents needing physical care and attendance. In advanced old age, grandparents expect their young adult grandchildren to provide old age care, replacing their lost children. Although intimacy and affection are very strong between grandparents and grandchildren it is difficult to reconcile young adult's need to start a life with care for frail grandparents. Using cases of grandparents and grandchildren that I have been following since 2002, I show how both elderly grandparents and their young adult grandchildren navigate the rapidly changing landscape of care in northwest Tanzania, a landscape that not only changed due to HIV/AIDS and ART but also due to the introduction of a social pension system in 2004.