Changing Places: A Journey with My Parents into Their Old Age [Hardcover]

Judy Kramer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 2000

A warm, powerfully honest, and unique chronicle of one family's journey--a book for all the baby boomers who are now becoming parents to their parents.

When Judy Kramer's parents moved into an assisted-living facility, she suddenly had to worry over their bills, learn the ins and outs of Medicare, and take over power of attorney. Becoming more tired and stressed with each new task, she began to feel torn between her parents, her husband, and her kids. Being a journalist, Kramer turned to her computer. And when an article she wrote for a local newspaper occasioned more mail than the paper had ever received, she began writing a column. This account of her day-to-day anger, fear, love, and frustration grew into Changing Places.

In Another Country, Mary Pipher showed us what old age looks like today in our society. Now Judy Kramer shares with us what old age looks like in her family, and how it feels. Here, in the everyday experiences of three ordinary people, a family facing the end of life together, readers will find the comfort of companionship, the relief of confession, the warmth of empathy, and the validation of common experience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beginning as a series of newspaper columns recording how she cared for her parents, Kramer's work blossomed into a poignant book that plumbs the depths of love, loss and the ties that bind. "At times, traveling with my parents into their old age has felt like a forced march," she observes. "Often I have not wanted to go. But it gives me great satisfaction that we have dealt with the roadblocks, followed the detours, found the route, and made the trip together." The core of Kramer's book charts the course of their intertwined lives, from the point she began taking over the caregiver roleAmanaging her parents' finances, driving them to doctors' appointments, helping them move to a nursing home and so on, all while working full-time and caring for her own familyAthrough their deaths within two months of each other and the unexpected difficulties she had navigating the shoals of grief. Along the way, Kramer had to learn everything from what a durable power of attorney is to how to deal with bureaucratic complications, negotiate the vagaries of medicaid, step back when her parents made choices she felt weren't the wisest and find innovative ways to make their lives more comfortable (such as using a music stand to stabilize books that shaky hands could no longer hold). Kramer shares her frustrations and triumphs with candor; her memoir should resonate with anyone facing similar experiences. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Kramer's aim is not to advise readers on how to care for aging parents but to describe how it feels to do so. She writes from the two-year experience of caring for her parents as they moved from their private home to a nursing home and through the slow deterioration into death. Kramer, a journalist, chronicles how she balanced marriage, career, and caring for children and aging parents in a process she describes as "one continuous exercise in triage." She describes feelings of anger, resentment, and helplessness at dealing with the needs of her parents and the demands of insurance companies and Medicaid. By recounting such mundane occurrences and minor victories as her father learning to navigate the length of the hall in the nursing home on his walker or her mother regaining the ability to read with the help of new glasses and a music stand, the author raises the reader's interest level. When her parents die eight weeks apart, Kramer begins the process of "caregiver withdrawal" and grieving. This is an eloquent and touching look at a common experience. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1ST edition (August 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573221635
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221634
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,164,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CHANGING PLACES, September 3, 2000

By 

HERBERT LIEBERMAN (Boynton Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Changing Places: A Journey with My Parents into Their Old Age (Hardcover)

This book is beautifully written with a tender and sensitive record of how a loving daughter eases the transition for her parents from housekeeping to their life in a nursing home and all that follows. This should be read by every family with elderly parents that may soon have to make decisons for their future care. Two thumbs up. I couldn't put the book down.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharing Places, October 23, 2000

By 

Jan House (Boise, ID USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Changing Places: A Journey with My Parents into Their Old Age (Hardcover)

When I saw Judy Kramer on the Today Show discussing this book, I knew I had to read it. I have just gone through an experience remarkably similar to the one she writes about. We lost my mother in May and have gradually "lost" my father to dementia though he is still living. Ms. Kramer's description of her experiences parenting her parents and finally letting them go struck emotionally close to home. To know that others share the huge continuum of emotions that accompanies this type of journey is reassuringly helpful. While the book was at times difficult to read (or to put down), it gave me insight and understanding into myself and my relationship with my parents and siblings.

I encourage anyone facing a journey into old age, whether themselves or with their parents, to read this book. Prepare yourself -- it's deep, emotional and sometimes disturbing to discover the universality of feelings about the life and death of one's parents. We sometimes feel we are going through things like this alone but "Changing Places : A Journey With My Parents into Their Old Age" shows us that we are not.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart work, November 28, 2000

By 

S. Howlett "Reading Goddess" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Changing Places: A Journey with My Parents into Their Old Age (Hardcover)

After seeing Judy Kramer on the Today Show, I immediately bought her book. Her experience touched my heart and opened the flood gates of tears as I remembered walking a similar path with my own mother less than 2 years ago. She paints an accurate picture of the shift from child role to caretaker role, of the balance between wanting someone you love deeply to live on, and courageously acknowledging that it is time to die. Her sharing of the months after her parents death is especially poignant as the shock waves of realization continue on for the one who has experienced loss long after the rest of the world resumes their routines.

I highly recommend this for someone who has experienced a parental or significant loss as well as those who are anticipating and facing difficult end of life decisions.