cover image How Did I Become My Parent's Parent?

How Did I Become My Parent's Parent?

Harriet Sarnoff Schiff, Schiff. Viking Books, $22.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-670-85543-8

Schiff (The Bereaved Parent; Living Through Mourning) explores the complex relationship of aging parents and their adult children, to whom she gives the clumsy label ""Chadults."" Her reports, however, drawn from experiences of working with nursing home residents and their families, are graceful, eloquent and full of warmth, wisdom and practical good sense. Among the issues considered are planning for the future before a crisis precipitates hasty decisions; long-distance care; nursing home choices; finances; and intimate, including homosexual, relationships. Sarnoff shines when she addresses such intangibles as forgiveness, without which the adult child remains a victim, and the usefulness of psychotherapy as a tool for understanding unresolved issues in order to better get along with one's parent. While Sarnoff's copious use of anecdotal information can sometimes be distracting, this is a helpful, hopeful approach to a subject of interest to baby boomer sons and daughters whose parents are now senior citizens. (May)