Customer Reviews

Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...she'd be DG Fulford and Phyllis Greene. This book warmed my heart and filled my soul with hope and love. I got Designated Daughter last night and read it straight through so I'm writing this before I start re-reading it again today! To see a mother and daughter grow so close at a time when so many families grow apart renewed my faith in everything from God to Early Bird Specials. This is a funny, illuminating, heart-breakingly beautiful look at aging from both sides of the spectrum. The Big Issues seem so much smaller and the Little Stuff seems so much more important now that I've read Designated Daughter.

I read and immediately reread this wonderful book.
The trials and the love and the sharing and letting it all "hang out" make it a must read.
The authors talk about sadness that most of us don't articulate...it must have helped them to write it..reading it made me laugh aloud and cry and learn to understand and handle the changes that come to us all as we age.
It's perfect for all generations.

Please please give yourself a great big treat and read this book. Today. I laughed out loud and wiped a few tears from my cheek. Simply put, after reading this book I fell madly in love with life again. The authors became my new best friends. Courage, hope and love are the best feelings in the whole wide world. If you have tucked them away for a while, do yourself a favor and read this book. Playing nice with others in the sandbox, laughing a little harder and hugging a hurt better are just the right things to do. So is reading this book.

Beautifully written by two people who are so wonderfully close and yet beautifully different -- voices that come through loud, clear, and strong. Swells your heart, breaks it, moves you, and makes you laugh. What more do you want from a book?

This book helps me view my life from a different thought process. Instead of a problem it can be a sourch of joy. Very helpful.

My Review of DESIGNATED DAUGHTER by D. G. Fulford with Phyllis Greene
Reviewed by Karen Haney

In Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, D. G. Fulford with her mother, Phyllis Greene, gives everyone who reads this book a bonus! Readers will find a witty, touching, and inspirational story of a mother and daughter and how their relationship grows and changes with age and through life's experiences. After D. G.'s father dies, she decides it is best to move back home to be closer to her mother. She returns expecting to be a care giver for her mother, but D. G. quickly realizes she will be on the receiving end of care in many ways for very much of the time. As this mother-daughter team becomes friends and partners, the reader is led to reevaluate or remember their own relationship with their mother.

Uniquely told, D. G. Fulford writes of the journey she makes but the book is richly enhanced by her mother, Phyllis Greene, adding her take on things at the end of each chapter. Phyllis Greene became an author herself at the age of 82 and their shared careers are a good foundation for the bond that develops. Both are different in many ways, but they soon discover that their mutual needs are met by their sharing this special time together. D. G. relates how their lives changed following her father's death and how they share so much together very much like many mothers and daughters do in the same situation. She realizes there are many mother and daughter partnerships like theirs and thus gives herself, and those like her, the nickname of "designated daughters".

Everyday chores and experiences are dealt with but in a shared manner, with support and love, as well as adversity and sacrifices. The story also includes the role the rest of their family plays in important decisions for their mother as well as normal family celebrations and heartaches that are shared. Laced with stories of D. G.'s and Phyllis's friends' own shared experiences, the story is enriched with the celebration of each of these relationships.

As Mrs. .Green ages and her health takes the normal turn that age will inevitably play on one's life, the bond grows with D. G. and this heartwarming, joyfully honest, and uplifting account gives all of us hope for the future and for the love that is shared with parent and child.

Submitted and originally published with Curledup.com by Karen Haney, August, 2008

Tears of joy and laughter rained down my cheecks, as if by osmosis, I absorbed the love between this mother and daughter. A wonderful and moving read for all adult children and their parents.

I ordered this for our daughter, who is now assuming the role of Delegated
Daugher. and of course I had to read it before it gave it to her. Having fulfilled this role with my own Mother, it was a good story to give me a different perspective of what daughters end up doing, yet how similar is the basic underlying needs of us all. Very readable and fun to read, as well as being supportive for us all.

Book arrived in perfect condition. I have given this book as a gift to several of my friends. It is great book!