The Wall Street Journal reported that grandparents are helping their adult children out with child care, despite getting some bad media coverage in recent weeks saying that they were too busy to watch their grandkids. The Journal’s Sue Shellenbarger wrote:

“The proportion of preschoolers cared for primarily by their grandparents while their mothers work rose to 19.4 percent in 2005, the latest data available, from 15.9 percent in 1995, the Census Bureau says. A wave of closings and cutbacks in child care facilities suggest the trend is continuing. Some 40 percent of grandparents who live within an hour’s drive of young grandchildren provide regular child care while their mothers work, says a 2008 survey of 800 grandparents by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.” (June 2009)