This is a new edition of the classic text on the emotional, physical, and financial challenges that elderly parents and their adult children face during the senior years. It combines a sensitive exploration of the dynamics of the aging family relationship with an authoritative, how-to guide to navigating the practical problems of growing old.
You and Your Aging Parent, originally published in 1976, was the first book to focus on the relationship between adult children and their aging parents. By noted gerontologist Barbara Silverstone and writer Helen Kandel Hyman, it turned the spotlight on the challenges faced by many adult children as they attempt to cope when elderly relatives need increasing support.
Since the last edition of the book in 1989, numerous other books on the topic have entered the market, but most of them are superficial in the information and advice they provide to their readers and in the one-note assumptions about the parent-child relationship in the senior years. Moreover, programs and services for older people have changed significantly and become more comlex; a new generation of adult children and their parents are facing the challenges of aging, and recent research findings have deepened our understanding of the aging process and late life. This revised edition, marking its 30th anniversary, will address the changes that have taken place and revive its fundamental insight - that the difficulties and challenges of the aging process are as much a family affair as in any other phase of life and that the nature of the relationship between aging parents and their adult children will directly influence how the process is navigated.
The size of the senior class is growing exponentially, including parents who are living longer than any older generation in history and baby boomers who are reluctantly entering the senior class, as well as countless younger sons and daughters wondering what's coming next. This new and updated edition will answer their need for authoritative, practical information about this major new phase of life. Playwright and New York Times columnist Bob Morris joins the book as commentator, adding his own entertaining insights as a member of the baby boom generation dealing with his own elderly parents' late life.
