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Title: Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders by Mary Bray Pipher ISBN: 1-57322-784-6 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 06 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Another country: the tourist perspective
Comment: Not being "old-old" myself, with both parents dead, I picked up this book out of curiosity. Piper does not mince words. She says at the outset, "Old age is not for sissies," and she goes on to describe life as an old person in a country designed for the young. It's an apt metaphor: the old learn a new language and a new terrain.
Pipher offers creative solutions that are not always easy, as she herself is the first to admit. Not everyone is equipped to be a caretaker. And as a society we do not have the infrastructure to deal with the challenges that increase daily.
Ironically, she notes that having a purpose in life will keep us young longer: the 85-year-old woman with an overaged dependent son may seem indulgent to outsiders, but she has a reason to get up every day. Yet at the same time, challenging work and respect from the community -- the source of purpose for most of us -- will be denied by a society that worships youth.
Pipher seems to be selling us on the importance of caring for the elderly. It's a way our own children will learn respect for the family and for us, she says. Yet many of us will not have children of our own. Today something like one-third of households have only one member. Being single or childless is no longer "odd." And sometimes a parent disappears from a child's life, only to re-appear in a time of need. There's no basis for a relationship -- it's not about healing but about building a relationship with a stranger .
Pipher does not address these topics, but the thousands of midlife adults who face aging parents will say she's offered more than enough to benefit her readers.
Rating: 5
Summary: Baby Boomers' Guide to Aging Parents
Comment: They raised us on Dr. Spock. Not the pointy-eared Nimoyian character on Star Trek! Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Baby Doc! And Mary Pipher has done for the children what Spock did for our parents - answered perplexing questions like "Why do they do that?" and "What can I do?"
Pipher's thesis is that "Knowing when people were born allows us to predict attitudes and behaviors. A person from a specific era will have a certain `collective consciousness.'" She explains that we dwell in "different cultural time zones." This explains, for instance, why Mom and Aunt Em save all those few tiny bites of leftover food that they then leave in the refridgerator to turn green - the hoarding tendencies wrought by the Great Depression and rationing on the Homefront during World War II.
I am currently moving my parents to an Assisted Living Facility and this book is an important resource. I highly recommend it. Reviewed by TundraVision.
Rating: 5
Summary: Don't Wait Until Later....Read it Now!
Comment: I cried, I laughed and I sighed at the grim truths and revelations in Mary Pipher's book on aging and the place held in our society by our elderly citizens. I folded so many page corners over for review that the book looks like a favorite old cook book. I wish I had read this book before my parents entered old-old age. I was not raised with any grandparents nearby, so had no examples for what to expect and how to deal with and care for aging parents. Growing old with dignity and dealing with declining health and eventually death is the hardest passage of our lives. None of the other passages as individuals, parents or spouses can compare to these challenges. Adolescence, puberty, child-birth, child-rearing, divorce...all seem like a walk through the park in comparison.
Having said that, we all need to read the book before our parents reach the old-old phase (although who knows exactly when that might happen). If you're in your 40's or 50's, chances are you should be reading this book. Although the book doesn't provide any recipes or procedures for dealing with the issues of the aging, it does provide valuable insights and suggestions into attitudes, fears, and concerns of both the aged and their care-givers.
We just assumed that mother would ask for help when she needed it, but her pride, reluctance to communicate and fierce need to be independent would not allow her to admit how needy and frail she had become. We finally discovered how badly she had deteriorated (although she still wouldn't admit it), and are still regretting that we didn't intervene sooner. She's now in a convalescent hospital, sometimes stoically accepting her condition, but sometimes angry, depressed and resentful. I'm sure I'll pick up the book and read it again as we find our way through this passage. And then when I become a young-old and finally an old-old, hopefully I'll be able to remember the valuable life lessons I'm acquiring now.
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Title: Shelter of Each Other by Ph.d. Mary Pipher ISBN: 0345406036 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Letters to a Young Therapist by Mary Bray Pipher, Mary Pipher ISBN: 0465057667 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community by Mary Pipher ISBN: 0156027372 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent : A Guide for Stressed-Out Children by Grace Lebow, Barbara Kane ISBN: 038079750X Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Aging With Grace : What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and MoreMeaningful Lives by David Snowdon ISBN: 0553380923 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 30 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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