Description:
Mother and daughter: for both members, it's a long and complicated relationship. With today's increased longevity has come the growth of the "sandwich generation": baby boomers who are caring for both their aging parents and their own young children. What does this mean for the mother-daughter relationship? In Good Daughters: Loving Our Mothers As They Age, journalist Patricia Beard explores the emotional impact of aging and asks the essential questions, "How can we make peace with our mothers?" and "Why is it so hard?" Based on dozens of interviews, Beard attempts to understand what works--and does not work--in women's relationships with their aging mothers. Good Daughters is structured into three sections: "Reality Check," a discussion of the changing mother-daughter relationship as women age as well as changes in the culture; "Profiles," an in-depth description of mother-daughter pairs; and "Loss," an exploration of the grieving process--for both mother and daughter--as death becomes imminent. Good Daughters is sensitively and thoughtfully written and brings a great deal of insight to this difficult topic. Readers struggling with the issue of what it means to be a daughter of an aging mother might want to augment this fine book with Alix Kates Shulman's brilliant memoir, A Good Enough Daughter. --Ericka Lutz
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