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This study compared three groups of grandparents, attempting to disentangle grandparental role demands from child-specific problems as sources of role-specific and grandchild-relationship distress. Those grandparents raising grandchildren reported to demonstrate neurological, physical, emotional, or behavioral problems exhibited the most personal distress, the least role satisfaction and role meaning, and the most deteriorated grandparent-grandchild relationships. Custodial grandparents raising grandchildren reported to have few difficulties also differed in the ways listed above from those grandparents not raising their grandchildren and from those raising grandchildren displaying problems. For men, but not women, more positive grandparent meaning was associated with raising a grandchild. Significantly, custodial grandparents were more likely to be raising boys, suggesting that boys may be either …