PEABODY, MA—A new book by professional mediators helps families navigate the challenges associated with aging parents, overcome past hurts and resentment, and talk openly with one another in love and understanding.
In their mediation practice, Carolyn Miller Parr and Sig Cohen discovered that families in distress more often than not experience pain from two main sources: broken family relationships, and a parent’s failure to plan for the future. Love’s Way is their answer to this problem.
Parr and Cohen found that many older adults resist engaging in “The Conversation” about their wills, plans, and wishes as they age because they fear losing their independence and the freedom to change their minds. Adult children hesitate to push the issue because they’re afraid they’ll upset their parents or seem greedy. And both parents and children hate to think about their parents’ death. But according to the authors, it is necessary to have these conversations and plan for the future to avoid hurt, anger, and rifts in the family unit.
“We want to prevent families from making mistakes that can fracture relations among siblings and between them and their parents,” says Cohen. “One of our goals is to encourage and demonstrate how families can plan ahead before a crisis strikes and chaos ensues, whether it involves driving, asset distribution, or caregiving a loved one with a fatal illness.”
Ten practical chapters including “Transforming Fear and Anger,” “Siblings in War and Peace,” “Scaling the Twin Peaks of Paperwork and Planning,” and “Dying and Death” guide family members through the ups and downs of growing old together. Both aging parents and adult children will learn “10 Tips to Diffuse Anger,” how to have difficult conversations with empathy and understanding, and the proper legal documents that all aging adults need.
Carolyn Miller Parr is a retired judge, mediator, writer, and public speaker. She graduated from Stetson University (BA), Vanderbilt (MA English), and Georgetown Law (JD). Since 2002, Judge Parr has practiced peacemaking through her mediation practice Beyond Dispute and Tough Conversations with Sig Cohen.
Sig Cohen is a retired Foreign Service officer, fundraiser, and community organizer, and now serves as a mediator. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (BS) and the University of Chicago (MA in International Relations).
Both authors reside in the Washington D.C. area.
Hendrickson Publishers has a strong history of producing outstanding academic, trade, reference books, and Bibles at a reasonable price. Their products include books on Christian living, biblical studies and reference works for pastors, thoughtful laypeople, and the academy.
Media Contact: Meg Rusick, Marketing & Communications Manager, mrusick@hendrickson.com 978-573-2147
Endorsements for Love’s Way
January 1, 2019 • Paperback • 182 pages • Retail $14.95 • ISBN: 978-1-68307-195-2
“Above all, these two experienced mediators offer their practical and personal experience to help us through the most difficult transition—from midlife autonomy to increasing interdependence. Aimed at helpers, the book also invites us to be the ones walking the path of diminishment with dignity and grace. We all need to know this terrain!”
—Marjory Bankson, author of Creative Aging: Rethinking Retirement in a Changing World
“Our elders ‘have gone before us on a road . . . we too will travel.’ The authors quote Socrates, and then they present a plainspoken, insightful guidebook that illuminates a road many of us regard with dread, uncertainty, and the natural desire to put off to another day. This is a practical book, both honest and nonthreatening. It is full of wisdom that family members of several generations can use together, as they seek loving and respectful compromises to the dilemmas of old age.”
—Ann Barnet, MD, founder of The Family Place, Washington, DC, and coauthor (with husband Richard Barnet) of The Youngest Minds
“Judge Carolyn Miller Parr and Sig Cohen have authored a comprehensive guide for families preparing to care for an older adult member or planning their own future as elders. Their stories and suggestions about how to navigate the legal, emotional, and financial challenges ahead offer invaluable advice and evocative reading.”
—William Fralin, JD, Elder Law Attorney, and founder of The Estate Planning and Elder Law Firm, PC, Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, DC
“Carolyn Parr and Sig Cohen’s book, particularly the chapter on siblings, gives practical and time-honored advice on the frustrating family dynamics that sometimes impacts even well-adjusted families. Love’s Way: Living Peacefully with Your Family as Your Parents Age is a great tool to add to your family emotional toolkit.”
—Marti Bailey, BS, CSA, CDP, Director, Sibley Senior Association and Community Health
“Anxious about talking with a parent or an aging relative about their living arrangements? This is your book! The authors’ rich background in law and mediation come together to challenge our incorrect assumptions, while providing clear and respectful ways to discuss and approach the questions around caring for aging people and their families. Members of all ages in my church participated in a highly popular study around this book, with immediately positive results as they had the courage and the tools to directly address this issue in their families. This book not only helps people think through everything about caring for their parents, but it also helps them plan ahead for themselves!”
—The Rev. Ryan P. Sirmons, Pastor, The United Church of Christ of Annapolis, Maryland
