Unpacking “the pimp case”: Aging black masculinity and grandchild placement in the child welfare system Jennifer A. Reich ⁎ Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Denver, 2000 E. Asbury Avenue, Denver CO 80208, United States Received 8 January 2007; received in revised form 26 April 2007; accepted 25 May 2007 Abstract The child welfare system is responsible for identifying long-term caregivers for children whose biological parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. Although grandparents are increasingly identified as custodians for their grandchildren, little is known about how grandparents are assessed by state actors. Using ethnographic data, this article unpacks the failure of one 63-year-old African American grandfather and his wife to gain custody of his grandson from foster care. This case–known informally as ‘the pimp case’ because of the unverified but widely accepted belief that he had earned income through sexual solicitation–illustrates how men's aging bodies and histories undermine their efforts to be seen as competent caregivers. This article shows how this grandfather's aging body and its perceived limitations became problematic, how his illegitimate social history was at issue, how their family form as grandparents (and thus, non-parents) was deemed illegitimate, and how these came together to mark race, class, and gender in interrelated–but also contradictory–ways. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Gender; Grandfathers; Grandparenthood; Masculinity; Child welfare system; Role 1. Introduction Issues of masculinity and masculine competence in both public and private life arise as men age and lose access to traditional places in the family. These may include loss of their role as providers, active parents, and competent negotiators with public sector entities, including the state (Bernard, 1981; Curran & Abrams, 2000; Gerson, 1997). Although studies of aging have focused on the experience of aging in gender-neutral terms, these changes reflect specific meanings of gender (Spector-Mersel, 2006). These issues become even more pronounced as the number of aging family members assuming responsibility for the care of their grandchildren increases (Berrick, Needell, & Minkler, 1999). Yet the majority of research on grandparent caregiving has focused largely on grandmothers (Barer, 2001; Minkler, Roe, & Price, 1992) who more often serve in such roles. Further, much existing research points to the importance of programmatic support for custodial grandparents (Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005; Jenkins-Dellmann, Blankemeyer, & Olesh, 2002; Lipscomb, 2005), but few examine the process by which grandparents succeed and fail in their bids for Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Aging Studies 21 (2007) 292 – 301 www.elsevier.com/locate/jaging ⁎ Tel.: +1 303 871 2066. E-mail address: jreich@du.edu. 0890-4065/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2007.05.007