On giving advice:
They Don’t Want It.
They Don’t Hear It.
They Resent It.
Don’t Give It.
We raise our children to be independent and lead fulfilling lives, but when they finally do, staying close becomes more complicated than ever. And for every bewildered mother who wonders why her children don’t call, there is a frustrated son or daughter who just wants to be treated like a grownup. Now, renowned editor Jane Isay delivers the perfect gift to both parents and their adult children—real-life wisdom and advice on how to stay together without falling apart.
Using extensive interviews with people from ages twenty-five to seventy, Isay shows that we’re far from alone in our struggles to make this new, adult relationship work. She offers up groundbreaking insights and deeply moving stories that will inspire those in even the toughest situations. Isay’s warmth and wit shine through on every page as she charts an invaluable course through the confusing, and often painful, interactions parents and children can face. Walking on Eggshells is the much-needed road map that will keep you connected to the people you love most.
Amazon autobiography
I was a book editor long before I started writing books. I was especially interested in psychology, since I was raised by a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and so I worked with some of the most interesting and important experts in the world. We used to pay an annual visit to Anna Freud, for instance, in her London home--she had a yappy little dog that once tried to bite my husband's pants leg. She once let us explore her father's study, which was left exactly as it had been when Sigmund Freud was alive. I enjoyed working with experts and helping them write books for a general audience.
Imagine my surprise when, nearly six years ago I found myself writing my own book, Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Parents and Adult Children. I loved interviewing people and drawing out their stories, and I found the process of writing a delight because it was easy for me to shift back and forth from writer to editor. Once I got something reasonably interesting down on paper, I could edit, rewrite, and rework it until it made sense. Being a former editor also help me to be grateful for the comments of my kind readers. Criticism always improves a book. The most amazing lesson I learned--and this I shared with all my authors--is what courage it takes to put yourself on the page, knowing that strangers will be reading your words. Not your friends, not your family, but people who have no reason in the world to take what you have to say seriously, much less agree with it.
It came as a happy surprise to read the kind words reviewers had for the book, and to receive lots of mail at my website, janeisay.com, from readers. Many readers felt relieved to know that they weren't the only parents whose kids didn't return their phone calls, who bristled at their advice, and who blew up on holiday weekends. The grown children were happy to know that they weren't alone in walking a fine line with their parents-in-law or suffering from differences in child rearing practices across the decades.
During the course of my research for Walking on Eggshells, the subject of siblings kept coming up. "Do I have a story for you," people would often say, and then I would steer them back to the subject at hand. But brothers and sisters seemed to raise strong feelings in both generations, and so I decided to see if I could understand the dynamic that makes so many people uneasy around their brothers and sisters. I discovered that, while there are many siblings who are as close as can be, the rest of us struggle with mixed feelings, some coming from our childhoods together, others arising from the different ways our parents treated us, and yet others stemming from the different choices we have made in life.
My new book, Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business Between Siblings, describes a range of relationships, from best friends to Wedding and Wake siblings. I think it will relieve people to learn that almost every sibling relationship has had its rough times, and that unconditional love and acceptance between siblings is rare--and often the product of hard work and determination.
The lesson I have learned from these two books and the hundreds of interviews I have conducted is that life can be hard, but (if we're lucky) it's also long. What hurt yesterday can heal tomorrow, and if we want it, we can find a way to rediscover the good in our siblings and come to laugh at, or even love their annoying behavior--and hope they will do the same for us.
