BEAVER, Pa.

The trappings of a little boy are everywhere.

Parked in the hallway is a big, cardboard firetruck. A village sprawls on a long coffee table in the living room. Beneath it are children’s books. Police cars, ambulances and more firetrucks are piled in a corner.

“I can’t decorate like I used to,” Doris Thunberg said.

But that’s OK. She knows her great-grandson will grow up all too fast. He’s “only a little boy once.”

That little boy — 10-year-old Gavin Thunberg — is what energizes her, keeps her going.

“I just live for him,” said the 86-year-old Beaver woman.

Having already raised a family — three sons and a daughter — and cared for her aged mother for 3 1/2 years, Doris once again has primary responsibility for raising a child.

But she’s not complaining.

“I just know that little guy — he walks all over my heart,” she said.

While grandparents have always played supportive roles in the lives of grandchildren, for an increasing number today that role has become the primary support.

In many families, it’s not so much “to grandmother’s house we go,” but “at grandmother’s house we stay,” according to the Pew Research Center.

In 2011, 7.7 million children — 1 in 10 — lived with a grandparent and approximately 3 million of them were being cared for primarily by that grandparent, the center found.

Grandparents lead 37 percent of all U.S. households — 44 million nationwide, according to the American Grandparents Association.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey, more than 3,100 Beaver County grandparents live with their minor grandchildren — and more than a third are solely responsible for the children. The number of grandparents who live with their grandchildren in Beaver County has jumped by nearly 30 percent since 2005, the survey shows. However, the number of grandparents who solely care for the next generation has remained about the same.

The reasons vary, but the Great Recession had the biggest impact, said the Pew Research Center.

Grandparents step forward because their sons and daughters lose jobs or are too young and immature to accept responsibility for parenting. Other families are broken by divorce or separation; sickness or death; substance abuse; incarceration; or military deployment, according to Generations United, a nonprofit, inter-generational advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The grandparents, for the most part, are financially stable. In 2014, no grandparents age 60 and older taking care of their grandchildren lived in poverty. Overall, three-fourths of primary-caregiver grandparents earn more than the poverty level. That’s down from nine years earlier, when 94 percent of grandparents, regardless of age, earned more than the poverty level for their family size.

Multi-generational families are also on the increase. Generations United calls them “grandfamilies.”

The American family today is quite different from the idealized Ward Cleaver family depicted in “Leave It to Beaver,” a television situation comedy of the late ’50s to early ’60s.

In 1960, the height of the baby boom, “73 percent of all children were living in a family with two married parents in their first marriage,” cited the Pew Research Center in its report, “The American Family Today,” published last December.

By 1980, 61 percent of children were living in this type of family, and today less than half (46 percent) are, the report said.

“A record 49 million children and adults, or 16.1 percent of the total U.S. population, now lives in a family household that contains at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation,” according to Pew Research.

Population statistics from suburbanstats.org, based on Census data, show 2,095 households in Beaver County with three or more generations.

Again, financial hardships, weak job and housing markets or parental relationship breakdowns often drive such living arrangements.

And longer life spans, illness and rising health care costs force more aging parents to move in with their children, according to bankrate.com.

‘I don’t regret it’

Arthritis gnarls her fingers; causes pain and stiffness in her neck.

Both knees have been surgically replaced.

For octogenarian Doris Thunberg, well into her so-called golden years, her great-grandson is her silver lining.

Yes, she said, “he keeps me stepping,” but he’s also “keeping me alive.”

Doris, a widow for 42 years, helped raise Gavin off and on since he was a baby, but has had primary responsibility since he was about 3 or 4.

Gavin’s father — Doris’ grandson — and Gavin’s mother were living with Doris, but soon parted and both moved out.

Simply put, “my grandson had problems,” Doris said.

Had she not accepted parental responsibility for Gavin, she surmises he might have ended up in foster care, an untenable thought.

“I don’t regret it,” she said of caring for Gavin, even though at times it can be exhausting and financially difficult.

“My boys are helping,” Doris said, referring to Gavin’s great-uncles, both of whom are single. One lives with her; the other lives in Vanport Township. Another son and Gavin’s grandmother live in Florida.

The sons living locally take Gavin places — most of them historical, since he likes history — and help him with his studies.

“He is so intelligent,” Doris said. “He makes good grades.

“I’m very proud of him. I really am. I just live for him. We have our ins and outs like people do, but we get along very well. He teaches me things. Oh, there are so many things that grandparents miss if they don’t have a grandchild around.”

Doris said deep down she knows Gavin loves his parents, “but sometimes when he gets boisterous he is feeling this neglect from them.”

It’s a shame, she said, that he can’t be with his parents.

“I feel bad for him, but he seems to be happy.”

If she didn’t have Gavin, “I’d probably be cleaning things, sitting around,” she said, adding that her great-grandson keeps her young.

She was never one to be involved in clubs, but said, “I’ve lost a couple friends maybe because I didn’t go somewhere or go to lunch.”

But that’s not what’s important, she said.

“He’s (Gavin) more important and so is my family. It’s a joy and a privilege to have him living with me.”

Grandparents who don’t have grandchildren with them, even for a brief time, she said, “are missing the world’s greatest thing.”

Though longevity runs in her family — her mother lived to 91 — she knows that time now is not on her side.

“I might make it,” Doris said, but if not, “my boys would make sure he’s (Gavin) taken care of.”

‘It’s worked out’

They tease. They laugh. Their love for each other is obvious.

Initially, though, it wasn’t always easy, they said.

“Challenging” is how 17- year-old Teresa Dupree described the scenario when she first came to live with her grandfather, Richard Dupree of Center Township, six years ago.

“She’s worked out a lot of kinks, I think, over the years,” 72-year-old Richard said, who with the aid of his wife, Sharon (she died in March), helped her mature into a confident teen who is in her senior year at Central Valley High School with aspirations to become an architect.

Richard and Sharon had already raised four children when Teresa moved in. Brother Andrew Dupree followed a year later. Now 23, he will complete a degree in business next spring at Penn State-Beaver.

“I hadn’t really thought I’d have grandchildren living here,” Richard said. The prospect initially “was a little scary. My wife talked me into this. … They were part of our family, and I guess we owe them a good start.”

The Duprees gave their grandchildren stability, something Richard said was missing when they lived with their parents, who never owned a home and moved frequently from rental to rental.

“For the past four years, I had been moving from one school to the next in the middle of the school year,” Teresa said, making it hard to establish roots and friends.

Ultimately, her parents divorced. Teresa’s father began a new relationship; one that caused tension between Teresa and his father’s new friend, Richard said.

One Fourth of July weekend, Teresa visited her grandparents “for a cooling off period for a few weeks,” Richard said, but by the end of August was “still here.”

When it was apparent that “neither parent wanted to accommodate them,” Richard said, he and Sharon sought and won custody of Teresa. That wasn’t necessary for Andrew, he said, since he was 18.

Typically, grandparents tend to spoil grandchildren. They let bedtimes slide, for instance; cave in to requests for toys, clothes or electronic gadgets.

It’s different when a grandparent becomes parent.

“You can’t really be a grandparent,” Richard said. “You have to really be the parent. You have to make the tough decisions. You can’t do what’s popular. We don’t always see eye to eye,” Richard said.

Like the time Teresa wanted to get her ears pierced.

“We postponed ear piercing,” Richard said. Consequently, he surmised, his granddaughter was “one of the last kids in school” to have the cosmetic procedure done.

“I was 16,” Teresa said.

“You can imagine the scars,” Richard said, on her psyche. “My generation, even 16 was too young.”

“My little cousin had her ears pierced when she was like 6. Disappointment,” Teresa continued.

“But it didn’t ruin your life, did it?” Richard asked.

“Not too much,” Teresa said.

Early on “there were some cultural differences and expectations that had to be reset,” Richard said.

Andrew, for instance, “had kind of a problem with cursing when he first came here,” said Richard, who called the behavior a “rite of passage.” But not in his house, which he described as “fairly conservative.”

And time management was an issue — “spending too much time on computer games.”

The Dupree household has rules to uphold.

“We have a pretty strict bedtime. We try to always have meals together. I think that’s important for family. And we talk about what’s of interest to them, what’s going on. We talk about doctors’ appointments coming up or school starting. We have to get backpacks, we have to get books.”

“Clothes and shoes,” interjected Teresa.

“You can’t be too authoritarian,” Richard said, “but you have to be firm sometimes.”

Even though he calls himself the “drill sergeant,” sometimes Richard’s softer, grandparent side emerges.

One day, Teresa brought home a cat without asking permission.

“They let me keep it. But it died in June, sadly. But grandpa got me another cat. That made me happy.”

And the rosebush, he added.

Teresa lived with her grandparents about a year or two when she planted a yellow rosebush.

“She said she never really lived one place long enough to plant something, so that was kind of nice,” Richard said.

The generational divide hasn’t caused too many problems.

“Grandpa’s always easier to deal with because he’s really technological. He knows all about computers and stuff so it’s easier to communicate with him about that kind of thing. The school gives us an iPad to do homework on and I didn’t have to explain it to him — how we use it or anything. He knows.”

Richard has an engineering and business background. Though semiretired, he still manages Dupree Solutions, a business, engineering and IT consulting firm. And he also does a lot of volunteer work.

“There’s nothing I’m not doing because they’re here,” he said.

“I’m not really into golf or fishing or hunting,” he said. And having traveled extensively during his career, he said “getting on yet another plane or another hotel” is not that attractive now.

And having grandchildren under roof keeps him young, active and engaged.

“I don’t know,” teased Teresa. “It looks like you have a little bit more white around the temples today.”

“Wonder whose fault that is?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” she said laughing.

However, late-stage parenting, as Richard calls it, does cause concerns.

If he were parenting at 40, he said, “I may be around another 30, 40 years. In my case, I probably don’t have 40 more years.”

That’s why he’s health conscious.

“I try to take care of myself maybe a little more than otherwise because I’m trying to be here for them. But I’m also trying to prepare them that this is not forever.”

That’s why he said he wants to get his grandchildren “launched within the next few years” — Andrew into a job and his own apartment; Teresa in college.

Should something happen to him, Richard said he’s confident a daughter “would step in and carry on.”

Richard sees raising his grandchildren as a “privileged opportunity,” not a burden.

“A chance to help somebody. Do some good and make a difference.

“So far, it’s worked out. It’s gotten better. We’ve come a long way, I guess,” he said, but added: “These have been pretty good kids.”

The numbers

• IN 2011, 7.7 million children — 1 in 10 — lived with a grandparent and approximately 3 million of them were being cared for primarily by that grandparent, the Pew Research Center found.

• GRANDPARENTS lead 37 percent of all U.S. households — 44 million nationwide, according to the American Grandparents Association.