Mom & Me Five Archive

...and no vague desire to do anything else, including reading. It's not easy for me to read caregiver books, the genre of which Mothering Mother is a prime, and good, example. Perhaps it was simply a bad introduction to The Literature, perhaps it's me, but I hate being told how to do what I'm doing if I haven't been observed doing it. I continue to contend, as well, that I am much better off having not been motherized previous to joining my mother.
    However poorly read I am in the genre of caregiving books, I have to admit it's a burgeoning industry. At latest count, Amazon delivers 557 listings alone for the "books" category when you search "caregiving"+"elderly". I arranged the list in order of best reviewed. I then searched out item number 278 as the beginning of the second half...just to see how many of the listings were more than pamphlets, readily available, etc. Item number 278, at the time of this posting, is Engaging Theories in Family Communication: Multiple Perspectives, an erudite, well reviewed book about family communication dynamics. Looks very interesting and scholarly.
    Over the last three months I've stumbled across two online journalizing caregivers who are actively seeking publication of their caregiving material and continuing to actively give care to the recipients about which they have written. One is an excellent writer. Another is technically rough but has some very interesting perspectives to offer. Both expect to be published soon; describe their intended books in much the same way, although they are offering strikingly different experiences and voices; feel they have something to offer to the genre (and, they may be right, I'm not that familiar with the genre); each considers that she has a noteworthy bead on the truth and a polished but no-holds-barred way of telling it.
    Over the last couple of years I've known several online caregiver journalists who have mentioned the possibility of their caregiver material being published. Because I'm picky about the journals I regularly visit, they are all excellent writers with well developed senses of style and, in many cases, previous publishing experience; they often, as well, say interesting things in unique ways.
    I've lightly considered the possibilities of publishing, always when someone suggests it to me, although I did not begin thinking I wasn't being published. Online, free publication was, for a long time, enough for me. Truth is, though, I see the market is already well covered, more are elbowing into it every day and, although I like to think I have something unique to say, I'm not sure I have enough, anymore, considering the material that's out there.
    That having been said, I'm very much enjoying Carol D. O'Dell's book. I'm on page 74. The vignettes are well organized, thoughtful, provocative, sometimes inspired, always easy to read...and I couldn't help but come to the conclusion, after beginning this particular caregiver book, each and every journey is so incredibly different. Do you remember the lesson I enclosed in a previous post discussing that the older we become, the more diverse our peer group becomes, thus the aged live in the most diverse peer group of all? There are commonalities of experience, some of which are being addressed in books in which caregivers talk about caring for someone afflicted with Alzheimer's and/or Parkinson's and or one of many other neurological illnesses. There is also a lot of frank writing about care recipients who are either sociopathic or socially neurotic, at least. Not much frank writing about caring for the easy going, like my mother, probably because the easy going experiences are directly the result, I think, of two things: An easy going environment with low conflict and an easy going relationship between caregiver and care recipient...well, there's frank talk out there, but it's not as dramatic.
    I can't say, at this point, and may not ever be able to say whether this book extends the genre, helps redefine it, or anything about it's possible place in the genre, since I don't read much of the genre. What I can say is that I'm highlighting a word here, a phrase here, a heading here, that have turned my head and often evoked recollections of something I've written in my journals. I am, as usual, astonished at the volatility of the relationship between the mother and daughter and, as well, the volatility of the mother's command of the household. I can say immediately, too, that the control issue O'Dell dealt with in regard to caring for her mother is exactly the opposite of the control issue I dealt with; although our solutions were not opposing solutions. She went in assuming full control and found herself having to inch backward. I went in refusing to want to control anything and found myself having to inch forward to almost full control. I have to agree with her that the way I approached it was much less stressful than the way she approached it, even though my strategy was a thoughtless accident (as was O'Dell's). It has certainly been easy on my mother's and my relationship. It's easy to see that the same is not true of O'Dell's strategy.
    Anyway, I'll be writing more about the book as I go. I'm in a bit of a panic to read it and go on to finishing another library book due on the 25th. I may end up renewing that one, and I've got three others in the wings, all of which are reading-out-loud books...and another making its way to the wings, for research purposes only, though...just a section of that one will be accessed...
    ...I'm finally settling down.
    Later.