A couple of stories in the news about older parents need talking about today.

The first, this one that asks the question, "How old is too old?".

It's grandparents raising a child this time, and they must not have been spring chicken-ish when the son who is dad to the little one was little, as they're now 89 and 86, and have been parenting the child off and on almost since birth a boy now five.

For sure, they wouldn't have passed a home study for a non-relative adoption, but then that was never their plan. They ended up with their grandson because no one else wanted him.

His mother was addicted to crack while she carried him ... and the dad?

"I never had any experience with a baby," said Steven Brasovankin, now 54. "I was going through a rough time."

The child was placed in foster care for two years, but when the family wanted to adopt, the biological father fought to regain custody.

When the dad was ordered into psychological care, social workers gave the child to his grandparents, but while during a hearing in family court set to determine permanent care, the boy was out of control ... he even ran up to the judge's bench and smacked a computer ... it became obvious that the elderly couple had limited physical resources with which to deal with the child, him being young, lithe and fast while they are old, slow and restricted in their movements

The child has now been forcibly removed from the grandparents' home, and the couple has petitioned the judge to reconsider her opinion that decided a foster home with strangers was preferable to their home.

From the opposite direction, here's a story about a daughter abandoning her parents.

Long on emotion, but rather short on facts, the article gives an account of one Lisa Ann Keaton, sentenced to 100 days in the county jail for dumping her parents ... apparently quite old and very feeble ... in a hotel in a strange town and leaving them with no money, no transportation and no medicine.

I have no words of wisdom or comfort today ... not even many opinions, if you can believe it ... just these two stories of real people living real lives.