ARAPAHOE - The kitchen table is strewn with party favors. Spider-Man noisemakers and candy-filled plastic watches lay ready to be packed into shiny plastic bags and handed out to children. Women sit around the table, stuffing treats into a pink, princess pinata.

"I'm going to start catering birthday parties," jokes Billy Hanway, an Arapaho woman who is hosting the fete for the eighth birthday of her oldest grandchild, MacKenzie.

By the end of the evening, nearly 15 children will swarm Billy's home, jumping on a trampoline and climbing on a swing set in the backyard. They'll scramble for loot that spills from the pinata, stuff themselves on cake and marvel at MacKenzie's booty of Bratz and Barbie dolls.

Meanwhile, eight adults will sit by watching the kids and chatting in Billy's living room. Two are the parents of the party-going children. The rest are the kids' grandparents, charged with caring for the youngsters for the evening, or longer.

Billy is the mother of seven children, ages 18 to 32, but it's her grandchildren who fill her house these days.

"Here we are, in what we thought would be our free time, but it's never been like that," Billy confesses. "When your kids are growing up, there are all these years when your house is filled with stuff for kids. It mellows out when they're in middle school, high school, and then they have kids, and they're supposed to be in their own house, but they're not.

"It's like having kids all over again."

In fact, Billy and her husband, Darrell, both 49, are raising kids all over again. They have full custody of their 3-year-old granddaughter, Jordan, whose father - Billy and Darrell's son, Junior - was killed at 21 in a drunken driving accident.

Over the years, they've also had custody of Kayli, now 4, whose father, Joshua, is in prison in Torrington, awaiting sentencing on a weapons charge.

And while they don't technically raise their other seven grandchildren, most of the kids, from newborns to MacKenzie, are almost always around the house.

"Most of our life is centered around our grandkids. Everything we do is with them or for them," Billy said. "Their parents are involved as much as they want to be."

'That's just the way it is'

The Hanways are not unique. Across the country, there's a growing trend of grandparents raising their grandchildren, and it's a tendency especially prevalent among some minority groups, including American Indians.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, which was the first to study the role of grandparents in American families, about 5.7 million grandparents live in the same households with their grandchildren, and about 42 percent of them are solely responsible for raising those children.

American Indian and Alaska Native grandparents are more likely than any other demographic group to be responsible for raising second families. Nationwide, about 56 percent of coresident American Indian grandparents have responsibility for their grandchildren, compared with 51 percent among black families, 41 percent among white families and 20 percent in Asian families.

Wyoming has the highest percentage of grandparents raising second families, and Fremont County, which is home to the Wind River Indian Reservation where Billy and Darrell live, has the most multigenerational households in the state.

"Our neighbors all raise grandkids, too. My sisters do," Billy said. "That's just the way it is on the reservation."

"Maybe it's just the way Indian people do things," Darrell agreed.

'A lot of noise in this house'

A week after the birthday party, Billy and Darrell share a relatively calmer evening at their home. Three young girls - Jordan, Kayli and 2-year-old Tenisha - run around the house screeching in their diapers and underwear. Taylor, 5, hides in a back room as he searches for a new pair of pants. Ten-month-old Tony lies on the floor, staring up at the scene above him.

"They were dressed," sighs a tired Billy, home from work for less than an hour. "They went outside for five minutes and got into the water."

Now indoors, the kids run from room to room, as Billy tries to corral them in the dining room. Bright red Kool-Aid drips from the girls' lips, staining their chins and chests, and chocolate ice cream creates a sticky film on their lips, hands and bellies.

"They're rug rats, all evening long," Billy says with a laugh, jumping up at the sound of a rustling in the other room. "Who's in the kitchen?"

A little later, Tenisha and Tony head home to Riverton with their mother, but their brother, Taylor, stays behind with Kayli and Jordan.

"Taylor might as well live here. He goes home for vacation," Billy says.

"That's because he's my buddy," smiles Darrell, adding that the boy has never known his father and once tried to walk from Riverton to his grandparents' home outside Arapahoe to see his grandpa.

Through the evening, Billy and Darrell try to calm the kids, slowly getting them ready for bedtime. The whole family sits on the couch, watching Spider-Man 2, which particularly enthralls Taylor.

There are moments of quiet, when the boy watches his hero simultaneously on the TV and on a hand-held video game and the girls curl up in Billy's lap. Then, Taylor gets a burst of energy and starts mimicking Spider-Man, hanging on the refrigerator and trying to climb up a large bookcase in the living room. Jordan and Kayli, getting tired and grumpy, start to bicker over possession of Grandma's lap, and the screaming starts again.

"There's a lot of noise in this house. When I call her from Rawlins, as soon as she gets on the phone, that's all I hear," says Darrell, who works seven-days-on, seven-days-off shifts on oil rigs.

'They feel they're more safe'

Grandparents have always been central figures in the Arapaho family structure. Elders are revered in the culture as guides, decision-makers, disciplinarians and purveyors of history and tradition.

Some say the trend of grandparents raising grandchildren is a carryover from the days when extended families all lived together, side by side, rearing youth cooperatively.

"It's always been that way," said William "Icky-John" C'Hair, a tribal elder. "Within the tribe, members have extended families, and so, with a child, not only the parents are responsible, it's the whole family, especially the grandparents, the aunts, uncles and older cousins, everyone."

These days, though, there's something else at work, too. In many cases, rather than helping their own children raise the youngest generation, grandparents are stepping in and doing it for them.

"There are cases where there never used to be, where because of the acculturated lifestyle, people want to be like another culture," Icky-John said. "So what happens, a lot of times, there are displaced children, and then, rather than taking children and putting them into an orphanage (or foster home), grandparents, uncles or aunts, it's their responsibility to take them."

Judy Tidzump, who works with the Early Head Start program in Ethete, says teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol use often lead to grandparents taking responsibility for youngsters.

"With young mothers, I tell them, 'If you go drink, bring your kids to us.' They do, and we'll have them all weekend. I'd rather have them with me, knowing they're safe. I think that's why a lot of grandparents take kids; they feel they're more safe," Tidzump said.

"There's a big drug and alcohol problem. There's too much of it. Parents are growing up with their kids. … Kids go back and forth. I think most families are like that - they'll step in and take the kids."

A second home

In the Hanway clan, all the factors are true.

Billy and Darrell host the birthday parties, take the kids fishing and hunting, drive them to the county fair to play at the carnival.

This weekend, they have a mass baptism planned for all the grandchildren.

They believe it is the grandparents' role to give kids a second home, a place filled with safety and fun.

But there also are reasons that the grandkids need that second home.

One of the Hanways' sons died young in a drunken driving accident, leaving behind his daughter. Two others are in jail, also leaving their children behind. A third son just got out of jail and is occasionally working on the oil rigs with his father; his girlfriend is pregnant with his first child. Billy's oldest daughters have had failed relationships and children with different fathers. Only the youngest daughter, 18-year-old Mary, has yet to start a family.

"When their parents are having hard times, and all our kids do, they call us," Billy said. "They know they'll be taken care of, that somebody is always here. I know they all have a sense of security when they're out here. It's OK to be whatever they want to be."

At the same time, though, Darrell sometimes wonders if he and Billy overstep their bounds, making it too easy for their children to pass off the younger kids.

"Sometimes, it's to the point our kids say, 'Can we have our kids back now?'" Billy said.

"I try to have (Billy) pull back from that sometimes, to try to have the girls make things happen for their own kids. They do from time to time, but not fully," Darrell said. "The grandkids eat that up. They bypass the parents. They already know. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but that's how we do it around here."

'We already had our chance'

For Billy and Darrell, grandparenting also can be a sort of second chance.

With their children struggling in young adulthood, the couple sometimes wonders if they can do better raising their grandchildren.

The Hanways have set a number of rules for their home, all efforts to protect the grandchildren from outside dangers.

"We have a standing order, no drugs or alcohol on our property," Billy said. "I can't have that in my house. Drugs and alcohol have made such an impact on our lives, they've taken too much from our family. I want my grandchildren to know when they're older that this is somewhere they can come where they don't have to worry about that."

The older grandkids already sense the protectiveness.

"Do you know about Uncle Junior?" MacKenzie whispers, away from her older relatives.

"He went all the way to heaven," Taylor explains.

Moments later, the children explain some of the other house rules.

"We love riding our bikes. We can't drive over there, though," MacKenzie says, pointing across the gravel road. "Grandma won't let us. She cares a lot about us."

"She doesn't want us to get killed," Taylor adds.

"It's different," Darrell said. "You're more protective of your grandkids than your own kids."

"When you're raising your own family, you go through a lot of trials and errors. It's new," Billy said. "When you're grandparents, it's different, man."

At the birthday party this month, one of Billy and Darrell's sons joked about getting his mother a "World's Best Mom" T-shirt.

She objected.

"I'm not the world's best mom, just grandma," she said.

Billy's sister finished the thought for her: "We moms already had our chance and blew it," she said.

"Now, we'll try being grandparents."

Staff writer Jenni Dillon can be reached at (307) 266-0619 or Jenni.Dillon@casperstartribune.net.

Heritage and Hope

Arapaho families turn to tradition to combat modern problems

* Sunday: Margo and Brian Williams use cultural activities, respect and discipline to protect their seven children from outside temptation.

* Today: Billy and Darrell Hanway help raise their grandchildren, hoping to produce a stronger generation.

* Tuesday: The Northern Arapaho tribe struggles to bring back language and culture to repel poverty and drug and alcohol abuse on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

On the Web at http://www.casperstartribune.net:

* An Arapaho elder tells his history of the tribe.

* A Star-Tribune writer and photographer share their experiences producing "Heritage and Hope."

Families on the Wind River Indian Reservation are fighting a number of social plagues, from poverty to a lack of health care and education. The 2000 U.S. Census provides a glimpse at the conditions facing Northern Arapaho families compared to the population of the Wind River Indian Reservation and off-reservation trust lands, including the city of Riverton, as a whole.

Cohabitating grandparents as caregivers: 66 percent

* Northern Arapaho: 73.2 percent

Unemployment: 11.5 percent

* Northern Arapaho: 28.5 percent

Median household income: $35,238

* Northern Arapaho: $22,959

Families below poverty level: 15.9 percent

* Northern Arapaho: 38.4 percent

Female head-of-household families below poverty level: 38.7 percent

* Northern Arapaho: 51.4 percent

The 2004 Wyoming KIDS COUNT data book also offers insight into economic and health care conditions for Fremont County, where the reservation is located, compared to the rest of the state.

Births to single mothers

* Wyoming: 30.3 percent

* Fremont County: 47.8 percent

Births to teen mothers

* Wyoming: 17.7 percent

* Fremont County: 26.8 percent

Special education population

* Wyoming: 13.7 percent

* Fremont County: 16.6 percent

Juvenile arrests for all crimes

* Wyoming: 6,155

* Fremont County: 619 (10 percent of state total)

Juvenile arrests for violent crimes

* Wyoming: 54

* Fremont County: 4 (7 percent of state total)

Teen death by accident, homicide, suicide

* Wyoming: 163

* Fremont County: 19 (11.6 percent of state total)

Motor vehicle teen deaths

* Wyoming: 86

* Fremont County: 10 (11.6 percent of state total)

For more stories in this series please use these links:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/29/news/wyoming/314f2e6a1c43cd6a8725706b0020fa47.txt

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/29/news/wyoming/6cc282dfaf55d0418725706c005366b7.txt

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/28/news/wyoming/091d300f9d70f2978725706a0020fc12.txt

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/28/news/wyoming/263f922a082439228725706a0020fcc1.txt

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/28/news/wyoming/a4fb8c018de5f6768725706a0020fd18.txt