I'm 73 and raising 3 great-grandchildren. Money is tight, and I don't know if I'll live to see them grow up.

• Ira Brown, 73, raised her children and granddaughter, and is now raising three great-grandchildren.
• She and her husband live close to paycheck to paycheck, and are exhausted from caretaking.
• More older adults like Brown are caring for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren nowadays.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ira Brown, a 73-year-old great-grandmother in Texas who raised her children, her granddaughter, and her great-grandson. She recently took in two other great-grandchildren as a temporary guardian. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

After I retired in 2016, my husband and I had planned to travel all over.

Then, my granddaughter became pregnant at 20. When her baby was about a month old, I got a call from her, saying that CPS was going to take her baby and put him in foster care. My husband and I went to get him. It was either us or the system.

I cried and cried. It felt like for all my life, all I ever did was parent.

I had raised my children alone, I had just finished raising my granddaughter, and now I suddenly had a baby at 64. I wanted to just be a grandmother without raising any more children.

I raised my children after separating from my husband

I started working at 16. I got married and had three kids. I worked as a deli manager for 20 years, which was a hard job with long hours that kept me away from home a lot.

My husband and I separated when my kids were still young, so I raised them by myself. I'd plan special days for my children and me to do things together so they wouldn't feel neglected because of my long hours at work.

I was pretty strict on my children; I'd hold them accountable for things, and they never missed school — they were good kids. After the deli, I worked for a brokerage firm for about 17 years.

My oldest daughter, who had a two-year-old daughter, died at 23 from an enlarged heart. I'd gotten remarried, and she'd told me before she died that she wanted my husband and me to take care of her baby, so we raised her. I was in my mid-40s at that time, so it wasn't too far-fetched to have a baby at that age.

I wasn't as strict on my granddaughter as I had been on my own children. She had some behavioral issues after losing her mom and then her dad when she was five.

Then, when she was 20, she came home pregnant with our great-grandson.

Our life revolves around our great-grandson

I had to go back to work a year after we got him, working at the YMCA. The extra money helped with school clothes and supplies, as we were responsible for his schooling.

He's 10 now, and we can't imagine life without him. People always say that he's keeping us young, and it's true because we get around pretty well for old people.

However, we're also more lenient and let him get away with more because we're tired. We've gotten to a certain point where we just don't have the energy to chastise much.

We're up at 6 a.m. every morning, and my husband drops him off. Most days after school, he has tutoring or baseball practice, and he also has training on weekends.

We're the only grandparents sitting in the stands to support a child whom they're taking care of. Still, he is proud when we come to the school. We go to church together on Sundays.

Now we're also raising his siblings

Six weeks ago, we started taking care of our granddaughter's two other children, who are 5 and 4, as well. Before, we just helped watch them on the weekends. They've been so happy being with us because it's stable.

My husband and I pick them up from three different schools. My daughter and my niece sometimes step in and help take them. It's a village right now. The past six weeks have made me completely exhausted.

We get Social Security, and my husband gets a pension. We didn't get any financial support when we first got our great-grandson, but I receive about $1,591 a month from my Social Security now, after deductions. Our house is paid for, and we don't have a car note. I tried to put aside a little for a 529 plan, but I had to stop due to medical costs.

It's OK for us financially right now, though everything is out of pocket. We now have two more mouths to feed. Between my husband and me, if one of us goes, then so does one of our incomes. We've tried to work things into our budget. We live week to week and close to paycheck to paycheck.

I've come across so many other grandparents who are doing the same thing. It is much more difficult being a parent at my age. You don't get nearly as much, if any, assistance if it's not your biological child. So much falls on you.

I'm 73 now, and my husband is 80. We don't know if we'll live to see these babies grown. We have people who can step in, but for our great-grandson to have been raised by us and then lose us would leave a gap. I know time is against me now, but I ask God to leave me here as long as possible so I can see them all have a good life.