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Life & Times Transcript

01/30/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It should be a time to spoil the grandkids. Instead, these women are raising them.

Frances Crawford>> For them, it's a loss of freedom, it's a loss of their children, it's a loss of their social lives. They lots of times lose friends, lose their support, because they're now raising grandchildren.

Val Zavala>> And then, it has incomparable views, an unparalleled art collection and a quarter of a million dollar facelift. We take you inside the newly-reopened Getty Villa.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Just when you thought your own kids were grown with kids of their own, you find yourself raising kids again. It's happening to thousands of grandparents who, for various reasons, are raising their children's children. Now parenting is hard enough. Imagine doing it for a second time in your fifties or sixties. Is there anywhere they can go for help? Toni Guinyard found a place.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> Wanda Keith is a proud grandmother, but never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd ever be in the situation she's in. After raising three daughters, she is now raising two of her grandchildren, Mariana and her brother Malique. What was the situation that led to your raising your grandchildren?

Wanda Keith>> It was a breakup between the parents and my daughter not being able to do it by herself because she had to work. So she asked me to help her so she could go to work and I've had them ever since.

Toni Guinyard>> When she took the children into her home in 1996, Keith was struggling with her own medical problems.

Wanda Keith>> I was ill and I was not in a position really to take care of anyone else. I was trying to take care of myself and keep myself going.

Toni Guinyard>> But the following year, she became their legal guardian, following a pattern that an increasing number of grandparents have followed before, raising the children of their children.

Wanda Keith>> The time has gone by so swiftly that it has, you know, really come to that. I didn't realize it was that long, you know, because I keep knowing that their mom is going to get them, but it seems like the years have passed and it's turned out that I've really raised them.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> Every day is a challenge. The children maintain a relationship with their mother and father while being raised by their grandmother.

Wanda Keith>> My life has been relegated to, you know, doing the same thing year after year after year and I've raised my children.

[Film Clip]

Wanda Keith>> And now I'm doing it again (laughter). So it seems like I don't really have an opportunity to venture out.

[Film Clip]

Wanda Keith>> You know, sometimes you just feel like what am I going to do? How am I going to win this? How can the children win? How can I win? You get filled up with it. You know, you work so hard and you give them so much and there's still this element that is working against us all.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> It's a situation, a frustration, only those who experience it can fully understand. These women understand all too well. Each cares for a family member, a grandchild, a cousin, nieces, nephews, sisters and brothers. The California Department of Children and Family Services label them "relative caregivers". It's a role they've tumbled into by choice or by chance.

>> "We need a vacation from the children and the children need a vacation from us."

Toni Guinyard>> And they've found a home away from home here at Grandma's House. It's a small room in a big building that's home to Children's Institute, Inc., a private nonprofit organization devoted to serving at-risk children and families in Los Angeles County.

Frances Crawford>> Grandma's House is a support program for grandmas and relatives who are raising their kin.

Toni Guinyard>> Frances Crawford has served as Program Director for Grandma's House since it opened its doors in 1997. She says most caregivers who find refuge here are women.

Frances Crawford>> We have had them as young as thirty up to seventy. They represent every class, every culture.

Toni Guinyard>> On this day, the room is filled with African-American women, but caregivers from all backgrounds find solace here. They are connected by a common thread.

Frances Crawford>> For them, it's a loss of freedom. It's a loss of their children. It's a loss of their social lives. They lots of times lose friends, lose their support, because they're now raising grandchildren.

Toni Guinyard>> And that's why Wanda Keith feels at home here.

Wanda Keith>> It's a support system. It lets me know that there is somewhere where I can go.

Frances Crawford>> They lose the feeling of, oh, my goodness, I'm in this by myself. You know, I'm the only person that has to deal with these issues. They become a part of another group that understands the issues that they have.

Wanda Keith>> I come here and I dump. I literally just let it all hang out because I get overwhelmed. You know, I feel like my cup runneth over.

Toni Guinyard>> She's not alone. At the weekly Grandma's House group support meeting, the women talk nonstop, bouncing from subject --

>> "We went bowling, what --"

>> "Last week."

>> "Last week, we went bowling and we had so much fun striking (laughter)."

Toni Guinyard>> -- to subject.

Wanda Keith>> "Mariana has been asking me for a pottery class and I haven't been able to find one."

Frances Crawford>> "What I want you to do is think about how you problem-solve."

>> "I just put myself on a time out and go in my room."

Frances Crawford>> "And what do you do when you go in that room?"

>> "I can meditate because we've been having a lot of classes in meditation and I find that that works for me."

>> "Time out. That's what I'm going to try. I haven't been, but I'm going to try that."

Toni Guinyard>> After sitting and listening to the conversation, you quickly come to realize the little things take on great importance. Most of all, these caregivers say they simply need a break.

>> "I need respite when I'm going through a lot of things. I need time away from the kids."

Toni Guinyard>> They get a little time away from the kids when they come to Grandma's House. The doors are open five days a week. Here, child care is provided. The program is free based on need, not income.

Frances Crawford>> It's an awful struggle. They are faced with changes that have to be made.

Toni Guinyard>> Complicated things like heath care, education, transportation and housing, issues caregivers are often forced to deal with when children are taken from their parents' home.

Frances Crawford>> They are given the opportunity to take their grandchildren if they so desire. Lots of times, this is totally out of the blue, unexpected, and they have a choice to make right then and there on the spot.

Toni Guinyard>> The situation is even more daunting for grandparents like Keith who've taken grandchildren without involvement of the courts. There is little to no financial help.

Wanda Keith>> My mother lives with us. She's eighty-eight. I have them and we live in a three-bedroom apartment. I would love to have a house where their mom could be on the scene because they want their mother and they make that very clear to me.

Toni Guinyard>> Keith admits her life is not exactly how she imagined it would be, but in many ways, Malique and Mariana have made it better.

Wanda Keith>> When they did come to me, it gave me a zap of energy that I didn't have before. It gave me a reason to stay alive. It gave me a future, something to do besides just be sick.

Toni Guinyard>> So she focuses on her grandchildren, determined to make life better for them while getting a break from time to time at Grandma's House. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> If you'd like more information on Grandma's House, you can go to their website at childrensinstitute.org.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> We all know that one of the best ways to stave off the ravages of age is to keep our minds active and healthy and no one does that better than members of The Plato Society of UCLA. It's a learning in retirement program, but this one is unique because every student is a teacher and every teacher is a student.

On the second floor above El Pollo Loco in Westwood is a group whose intellectual vitality rivals that of nearby UCLA. It's called The Plato Society and, on any given day in a half a dozen classrooms, you'll find retired seniors exercising their minds.

>> "There were many, many small inventions."

>> "I don't understand how important Kabala was to Spain."

>> "You go into a classroom in Watts and you find. . ."

Val Zavala>> This class is on the conservative movement in American history. The topic today? School vouchers.

>> "Americans like private enterprise and choice. Now is it in fact foreign to the American tradition as far as schools are concerned?"

>> "Yes, and will you explain the American tradition?"

>> "I've got a counter-argument to this man. It seems to me that the truth --

>> -- "I'm shocked incidentally (laughter)."

>> "(Laughter). It seems to me that the real truth of education, that is people teaching and children learning, lies in the community. What our people in Sacramento have to do is to sit down with the best brains among us and figure out what the best approach is for each of the local areas."

Val Zavala>> And this one supports Islam in medieval Spain, which leads to a lively discussion about God.

>> "Man has always wanted knowledge of the creator."

>> "Why? Why does man want to know everything about his creator?"

>> "Because in every single culture from the most primitive people, there are things that they cannot explain --

>> -- "that's right."

>> -- "and they absolutely must get an explanation."

>> "Now we know why there is lightning, we know why there's thunder, we know why there's earthquakes in California, so why do we have to have another outside source to give us answers?"

Val Zavala>> Plato, the fourth century B.C. Athenian philosopher, would be proud to be associated with this group.

Robert Lapiner>> Originally, I thought this was a perpetual learning and teaching organization. Then it became partners in learning and actively teaching ourselves.

Val Zavala>> The Plato Society is part of UCLA Extension. Robert Lapiner is Dean.

Robert Lapiner>> There's no question that keeping active intellectually is a guarantor against some form -- I'm not a physician -- but against some form of mental decline. What I know from many families of Plato members of the past, they would say that the experience of Plato kept their beloved parents going.

>> "Oh, Sufism. Now we're going to have to touch on North Africa. I don't know if we're going to have problems with that."

Val Zavala>> The Plato Society is run by the students. They choose and vote on which classes will be offered. There are fourteen class sessions and fourteen students per class, so each student researches and presents one session of the course.

Naidu Permaul>> "I want to say something about Gelernter. Many of us have seen his articles in the Los Angeles Times."

Val Zavala>> This is Naidu Permaul. For thirty-five years, he worked in insurance for Los Angeles County. Today he's leading the discussion on school vouchers. Now is this something that you knew about or have studied before?

Naidu Permaul>> No, it is not something I knew about or studied before. It's something that I had to prepare myself for. I've had about a month to prepare myself.

Val Zavala>> How many hours?

Naidu Permaul>> Oh, I would say I put in over forty hours of study to prepare myself.

Naidu Permaul>> "I wonder if you know much about Gelernter as I have been able to find out. He is a Professor of Information Technology at Yale where he received his Bachelors degree and he received his PhD at the State University of New York at Stonybrook. What's fascinating about him is that he was one of the victims of the Unabomber. He has a damaged right hand and has lost the sight in one of his eyes."

Val Zavala>> This is a celebratory twenty-fifth year for The Plato Society. It's gotten national attention from the Wall Street Journal.

Maria Kornet>> We have been selected among the top three learning in retirement programs in this country.

Val Zavala>> Maria Kornet is the President of this four hundred member organization. It's a rigorous program and she says you have to apply to get in.

Maria Kornet>> And you have to be interviewed. You're interviewed by three Plato members in the office, since this still occurs, and approved and you are then invited, you know, to join the Society.

>> "Because remember you have these explosions inside the engine. They're noisy."

Val Zavala>> Classes range from the Twelve Caesars to astrobiology, from the nature of love to Los Angeles architecture, and students are encouraged to take courses out of their area of expertise.

Henry Minami>> "I think you've got to say that it's probably not working. On the other hand, . . ."

Val Zavala>> Henry Minami was an aerospace engineer.

Henry Minami>> I finally had a chance to learn a little bit about some of the Humanities that I really didn't get in my engineering and technical education. So since I've retired, I've had courses in architecture, in the orchestra, in the modern art movement.

Sybil Jaffy>> It's an opportunity to, number one, not forget what I already know.

Sybil Jaffy>> "We had wealthy people who reproduced themselves and gave all the advantages of their offspring."

Sybil Jaffy>> And the great thing about Plato is that nobody is teaching us.

Val Zavala>> And although it's a lifelong learning program for retirees, there are some exceptions.

Maria Kornet>> We have honor students from UCLA, one per class. It's wonderful for us because we have a youthful point of view on any particular subject and it's wonderful for them too because they get a different perspective.

Val Zavala>> Lauren Borella is a political science honor student at UCLA. What's it like to be taking a class that looks like an AARP meeting?

Lauren Borella>> It's very fast-paced. You know, the people obviously know what they're talking about, so it's very quick. Sometimes it's a little hard for me to follow because obviously I don't know nearly as much as they do about what we're talking about, so they just have so many experiences to draw on and so many things to talk about.

Robert Lapiner>> We do have so much to learn from these people, not only as an organization, but as individuals. They also embody a form of, if I could say, intellectual generosity.

Sybil Jaffy>> It's a constant intellectual interaction and stimulation. You know, how they say, if you don't use it, you lose it. So we're using it.

>> "We each have our own path, our own destiny. If you choose that path, then that's your path."

Henry Minami>> And we are always looking for new members too because I'm on the membership committee. We're particularly looking for more diverse members. As you can see, we kind of tend to be west side liberals here, so we're looking for some more conservative type people, some people maybe of different ethnicities.

Val Zavala>> So do you think that you will live longer for having this (laughter)?

Naidu Permaul>> Oh, absolutely. There is no question about it. The mental stimulation has to be good for your overall health.

Robert Lapiner>> They represent the design for living well. They really model what it is to be alive.

Sybil Jaffy>> I find great joy in continuing to learn, so that keeps our noses in our books which is probably better than our noses poking into somebody else's business (laughter). So we have a lot of very happy daughters-in-law, as an example (laughter).

Val Zavala>> If you'd like to find out more about The Plato Society of UCLA, you can go to their website at uclaextension.edu and put in the keyword "Plato".

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> Some people remember it fondly. Others have never been there. It's the Getty Villa in Malibu and, for the past nine years, it's been closed for renovation. But now it's open and, as Vicki Curry tells us, the new old Getty is the home for its extensive collection of antiquities.

Vicki Curry>> It's the ancient world remembered as only Los Angeles can. The original Getty Museum near Malibu is a faux Roman Villa filled with real antiquities. Now it's all back in the spotlight after a twenty-first century renovation. The renamed Getty Villa takes on its new mission as an educational center.

Karol Wight>> It's a center for the study of the ancient world. I don't think there's any place else in the world where you can find a collection of this caliber in an architectural setting like this with all of the programs that we have surrounding the museum.

Vicki Curry>> It took nine years and two hundred seventy-five million dollars for the Villa's conversion to a space devoted exclusively to antiquities.

Karol Wight>> They really are displayed best in a setting like this which evokes the ancient world which takes them back to an ancient setting.

Vicki Curry>> The Getty may have one of the country's most extensive collections of classical art, but most southern Californians just want to see the Villa itself.

Karol Wight>> We have so many people that live here, especially in the Palisades, that have a real fondness for this site, so they're anxiously awaiting a chance to get back in.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> The museum has always been popular with the public ever since it opened in 1974 as the vision of oil baron and art collector, J. Paul Getty. Getty bought the sixty-four acres of oceanside land in 1945.

Karol Wight>> The Ranch House was the house that was on the property when Mr. Getty first purchased it.

Vicki Curry>> Getty expanded the house to accommodate his growing art collection and opened it to the public in 1954.

Karol Wight>> Now that building houses the Library. It houses the Curatorial offices and the Scholars' offices, but it also houses two of our Conservation Laboratories for the permanent collection. As Mr. Getty's collections continued to grow, he knew that there was a necessity to build a new museum and the decision that he made was to model it on an ancient Roman villa, the Villa dei Papiri, which was the structure buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

When the museum opened, the architectural critics likened it to Disneyland, among other places. You know, it was sort of in keeping with southern California's fantasy land. But it has turned out to be the perfect place for the collections here.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Long-time visitors will notice changes, including new public spaces designed by Machado and Silvetti Associates.

Karol Wight>> The decision was made early on that it was not going to mimic the old museum. That would be a mistake and it really would look like Disneyland. So they took the concept of this building, the museum building, to treat it as an artifact and, as you enter an ancient site in Herculaneum or Pompeii, you enter it from above and you walk down to the older layers. This is the way an excavation works. The lower you go, the older it is. So they decided to treat the architecture as a series of strata walls as if you were within an excavation. So as the lower levels of the rock is leveled, as earlier architecture would be, and that the higher you go, the more refined the architecture gets.

Vicki Curry>> Visitors will also notice a major change to the Villa itself.

Karol Wight>> Rather than entering from the Outer Peristyle Gardens, they'll now walk along the pathway looking down on the buildings and then arriving at the new Outdoor Theatre and seeing the museum's new front door. In the past, visitors would go through two gardens before they ever entered a gallery and saw a work of art. People will now be entering the museum through the Atrium which is the proper front door of a Roman house. So this is how they should have always entered the site rather than exiting through it on their way. In antiquity, the Atrium is the front door of the house. It's the reception room, so it was important to respect the fact that the museum's architecture reflects that first century Roman architecture and to use these rooms accordingly.

Vicki Curry>> So tell me about some of the changes that have been made to this space.

Karol Wight>> Well, since we now have the opportunity to display the antiquities on both floors, it was extremely important to bring more natural light up to the upper gallery. Previously, they'd had paintings, they'd had French furniture, all materials that were light-sensitive. So the architects opened up every window they possibly could here in the Atrium as well as in the Inner Peristyle and we added two skylights to the large galleries on the second floor that used to have renaissance and baroque paintings in them.

Another change is the opening up of the ceiling. In an ancient house, rain would have fallen in here. Certainly daylight and sunlight would have come into a room to illuminate it, so we have changed what used to be a permanently closed fixture in the ceiling to an operable skylight.

[Film Clip]

Karol Wight>> The gardens were then replanted again, but still using Mediterranean species, so they're authentic to the ancient world. But the major change on the ground floor here is the addition of this new stairway on the east side. It was a real challenge for our visitors to find their way up to the second floor because the stairways were tucked into the corner of the building. So we asked the architect to design a new stairway and it was very important to maintain the view all the way from the Atrium through to the East Gardens. This is the access to the house and this was a view that needed to be maintained.

So they came up with this incredibly beautiful design with the two rises here on the sides and then this gorgeous central rise which is completely made out of bronze. They consciously didn't try and design the staircase to fit with the ancient architecture. It would have been an intrusion and an obvious one.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> This area looks familiar to me and I'm sure will be recognizable to people who've visited the old villa.

Karol Wight>> Absolutely. This used to be the entrance to the villa and you can see that it's incredibly decorated. Rooms like this, we didn't change at all. We simply protected them during the renovation process. But now, with visitors coming in through the Atrium, the gardens are going to be a pleasant surprise along the way. This is something they'll encounter during the course of their journey.

Vicki Curry>> Visitors used to enter here at the Outer Peristyle and go in that way, but this now seems to be kind of the final stop on the museum.

Karol Wight>> Exactly. This is meant to be a destination. This is meant to be what you discover after you've visited the galleries and, certainly in a Roman house, that was the same thing too. It was something that you discover after you've spent time indoors. This was part of the property that visitors loved the most. They just loved sitting in the gardens here and, as it was in the past, we've replanted the gardens with species from the Mediterranean, plants that we know grew in cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Vicki Curry>> And you were saying that there was a new mural painted back on the wall there by the original artist?

Karol Wight>> That's right. A mural artist named Garth Benton painted the murals out here for the museum when it opened in 1974 and we were very fortunate to be able to ask him to come back because we needed a new mural designed for the end of the Outer Peristyle. Garth very happily came and designed a new wall on the north side for us with a beautiful piece based on an ancient Roman wall painting, so we're happy to add it to the repertoire that we've got out here now.

[Film Clip]

Karol Wight>> This is really another cultural jewel in the crown that we're continuing to build in Los Angeles. It's kind of a small intimate place where you can come, take in one part of the museum's collection in a beautiful setting, spend half a day here, and really have a wonderful time.

Val Zavala>> Admission to the Getty Villa is free, but you do have to make reservations and pay for parking. For more information, you can go to their website at getty.edu. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you later.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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