Good days. Bad days. Muddling through days. The Daughter Trap helps women decide if they can care for an aging parent, and presents new ideas for doing so on their own terms. Read the brutally honest stories of more than 200 daughters providing elder care in the recently released book The Daughter Trap from St. Martin’s Press. The good news—help is at hand for those generous daughters lending a helping hand.  The Daughter Trap explores tons of new ideas in technology, health care, housing, business, personal services and social networks that will lighten the caregiving load, allow elders to age safely at home, and enable women to reclaim their lives.

Reviews

"Silver Anvil and National Telly Award winner Kennedy presents a razor-sharp tome on the impending national crisis in elder care. If you think her argument that "elder care is perceived to be a daughter’s obligation" is just an assumption, consider the statistic that "women lose an average of 11.5 working years because of caregiving responsibilities; men just 1.3 years." There is no doubt that her cries for a revolution are justified and that the timeframe is urgent (the over-65 population is growing nearly four times faster than the under-65 group). Covering everything from statistics regarding the state of care now to the gender gap in caregiving, this book is intended to scare most of us with aging parents into action. Recommended for absolutely anyone with a mom or a dad."

"Practical and passionate, “The Daughter Trap” is a compendium of all things related to caring for aging parents. The passion comes from Laurel Kennedy’s conviction that both daughters and daughters-in-law, even with full-time jobs and children still at home, are expected to take on an undue amount of the hands-on work connected with caring for elderly parents, while sons are most often expected just to help with financial and planning matters. Her rallying call to baby boomers is that we need a revolution now in elder care, similar to what was accomplished for childcare in the 1960s."

I’ll say this: Ms. Kennedy knows how to write and keep you reading, is quite adept at coordinating intriguing stories that roll like waves and eventually engulf you, is wonderful at interweaving anecdotal and statistical evidence while making her points forcefully:

Researcher Kennedy conducted 60 minute depth phone interviews across the U.S. with a nationally-representative sample of 216 working women born between 1946-1964, who reported having primary caregiving responsibility for one or more aging parents or in-laws.

Praise for The Daughter Trap
Silver Anvil and National Telly Award winner Kennedy presents a razor-sharp tome on the impending national crisis in elder care.

The chapter getting the most press is about sibling rivalry (Laurel really hit a nerve with that one):

Mom's favoritism can affect kids, sibling rivalry as adults
Kennedy … found that even though none of her questions asked directly about a parent favoring one child over another, about two-thirds of the women said there was a favored child, and most said it was "mother-focused."

Ms. Kennedy covers all relevant topics in her book and website.  I’ll toss in my 2¢ on one – corporate sponsorship …

This will sound a bit jaded and opportunistic - but as we know, companies do not like to associate themselves with depressing subjects – in this case, old and helpless people.  However, what an appreciated relief it would be for a couple of major outfits to acknowledge and support caregivers. It’s perfect PR. You don’t have to focus on the ‘caregiving’ – but on the difficult issues facing caregivers – a strong, resilient bunch (because they have to be).  Grab your PR folks, get in touch with Laurel, and there are limitless possibilities.

-- Chuck Nyren, AdvertisingtoBabyBoomers.blogspot.com

"As our parents age, we are forced to make some tough choices regarding their living arrangements.  Not all options fit our requirements, our lifestyle, our parent’s need, or our financial ability to pay for the arrangements.  If you decide, for now, that the best arrangement is for your mother or father to come live in your home, then you’ve got another thing to think about – making your house a safe place for him or her." Read the full Review

"If you are a woman over the age of 40, you need to read the new book, The Daughter Trap!  No matter how informed and proactive we believe ourselves to be, there is one certainty.  None of us are prepared for the nitty-gritty realities of our parents aging.

The Daughter Trap explores the impact of eldercare falling on the daughter.  I like the way the book is broken into 2 sections, “The Problem” and “The Solution”, offering examples and scenarios, but also resources, insight and a call to action." Read the Full Review

"On this Friday before Mothers Day I am reminded that a boy’s first love is his mother. She certainly was mine. Mothering Sunday is a poignant day for me as I fondly recall my mother who passed away two years ago on Valentines Day. She survived my father by 10 years and was fortunate enough to spend those last years of her life in her own home, her mind intact.

My mother lived in South Wales, I live in Canada. Following my fathers death it was clear that any caregiving support would fall on the shoulders of my sisters, both of whom lived in close proximity to my mother. When one of my sisters sadly succumbed to cancer, my oldest sister became my mothers’ main caregiver." Read the Full Review

"Laurel Kennedy has written an incredibly timely book called The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom and Dad…and You, which details how women inevitably are trapped in the caregiver role, even when other siblings (males) are capable of carrying out the same responsibilities. Kennedy, an authority on multigenerational issues, says that adult daughters become the caregiver for aging relatives — whether they are prepared to or not, whether they have demanding careers or not, whether they have kids or not, whether they are geographically nearby or not. “As if it were the natural order of things, the extended family assumes that a daughter will step in and step up to the plate to handle matters — for no other reason than the fact that she’s a woman.” Read the Full Review

"I am amongst our many members who are indulging themselves in VN's first book club selection, Marrying George Clooney, authored by our own Amy Ferris. But I admit that my affections are torn, with four other books I can't seem to put down, all vying for my attention.

Happily, I don't have to choose, having mastered the talent of reading five books simultaneously. George is, appropriately, on my bedside table. The others are scattered around the house and office, good friends waiting faithfully for me to return." Read the Full Review

"If you are a caring for an aging parent you will find a lot of answers to why you often feel ‘trapped’, as well as inadequate, invisible and frustrated.  Laurel Kennedy offers high-quality insights into why this is, in her newly released book The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom, Dad…and You. These insights are invaluable to today’s family caregiver and reason alone to pick up this intelligible and easy to read book.  It will be especially attractive to those who are puzzled as to why this ‘labour of love’ feels so burdensome.

Since caregivers typically have little time to spare because of their own life commitments and those brought on by their caregiving role, The Daughter Trap is made to order. The Daughter Trap is not a cumbersome read. You can pick it up and put it down and still learn from this book a few pages at a time."

“We are family! America is waking up to the fact that being a family gets complicated when old age enters the picture. Fortunately, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons have a new place to turn for the answers they need. Laurel Kennedy’s book offers clear-eyed answers to what can seem like unsolvable problems. It’s so good, I’d even dance to it!”

--Dr. William Thomas, Geriatrician; Founder, The Eden Alternative; Founder The Green House Project; Professor of Aging Studies, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

"The Daughter Trap says something new and important about aging, family and caregiving in America today. Laurel Kennedy does for caregiving what Betty Friedan did for marriage and motherhood: She demystifies caregiving, and explains why there is a shift from "Daughter Track," to "Daughter Trap”. Kennedy locates caregiving in a larger context of social roles, sibling rivalries, and the increasing cost of health-care. The Daughter Trap explains when and why it is daughters who end-up caring for their aging parents; and how changes in marriage and family structure -- the decline in number of siblings, the increased divorce rate, and the coming of step-families -- is actually intensifying pressures on married women to be caregivers. I came away from Kennedy's book appreciating that the same society which gives us "Mother's Day" also pushes many women into "The Daughter Trap".

--Jeffrey P. Rosenfeld, Ph.D., Director, Hofstra University Gerontology Program

"Exceptionally well-researched and extraordinarily well-written, Laurel Kennedy’s The Daughter Trap opens and defines the discussion on one of the most important issues of the decade. Every person on the planet should read this book! Every one of us was born of parents who need help as they age. What we discover, is the shocking lack of infrastructure to support caregiving. Unless we do something about it now, we too will find ourselves inhabiting decades of disability, dependent on the kindness of our adult kids. Businesses should read this book to learn about the many opportunities to create and profit from products that address the financial, emotional and backbreakingly physical demands of caregiving."

--Marti Barletta, Author, Prime Time Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds and Business of Boomer Big Spenders; and Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market

“The Daughter Trap will prove invaluable as we accept our responsibility to create a high quality of life for our later years. First: learn about the traps of today’s mainstream approaches that so rarely meet our real needs. Second: consider the hopeful, positive alternatives introduced by this book. Third: take action—help create new options for you and your family. We need to age in community. We need choices like senior and multi-generational cohousing, places where we can truly grow and age well.”

--Craig Ragland, Executive Director, Cohousing Association of the United States

“The health care dialogue in America has shortchanged the single biggest challenge on the horizon—elder care. Keeping our elders healthy and active requires a holistic approach to wellness that addresses the physical, psychological and social aspects of aging and the impact on the entire family unit. Cari ng for aging bodies requires specialized training and diagnostic skills that sit outside the standard medical curriculum. The Daughter Trap takes on the medical establishment and calls for a revamping of medical education to incentivize physicians to pursue geriatrics as a specialty and to ensure that all physicians are exposed to the fundamentals as part of a required course of study.”

--Robert N. Butler, M.D., President and CEO of the International Longevity Center, Founding Director of the National Institute on Aging and the Department of Geriatrics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine

“Laurel Kennedy has the guts to tell us the straight story – that women are tasked with the often-overwhelming responsibility of elder care. The Daughter Trap shows why and how this has happened, and the economic and emotional toll this takes on our society.”

--Joan Toth, Executive Director, Network of Executive Wome

“Laurel Kennedy sounds the gong about the ‘caregiving squeeze’ we face today—as the need for eldercare rises, the ability of family members and government to provide it diminishes. Urging caregivers of adults to stop suffering in silence, Kennedy calls for consciousness-raising, a movement, a spokesperson to carry the flag.  There are many of us; we must band together! We need men in on the act too, as they face caregiving responsibilities today due to increased numbers of employed wives and sisters.”

--Dr. Jacquelyn James, Research Director, Sloan Center on Aging and Work, Boston College

“Helpful and hopeful. Whether it’s a virtual community, an intergenerational housing development or a retrofitted family home, The Daughter Trap offers new ideas that are reshaping where and how we live in community as we age. Laurel Kennedy understands that we are ultimately stronger together.  The Daughter Trap covers the complexity and compassion of caregiving.”

--Donna Butts, Executive Director, Generations United

“This is a wise and important book. As a daughter who was once thrown off track, getting caught in the caregiver ‘trap’, I urge daughters and other family members to read Laurel Kennedy’s new book. We’re in a time of middle-aged children with aging parents who need to re-evaluate available services and re-assess family roles.”

--Connie Goldman, Author, The Gifts of Caregiving—Stories of Hardship, Hope and Healing

"If you are a caring for an aging parent you will find a lot of answers to why you often feel ‘trapped’, as well as inadequate, invisible and frustrated.  Laurel Kennedy offers high-quality insights into why this is, in her newly released book The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom, Dad…and You. These insights are invaluable to today’s family caregiver and reason alone to pick up this intelligible and easy to read book.  It will be especially attractive to those who are puzzled as to why this ‘labour of love’ feels so burdensome."

Read the rest of the review at Wellsphere.com

Author
Author Laurel Kennedy lived The Daughter Trap for years, dealing with a mother who had dementia and a father with congestive heart failure.  Like you, she’s negotiated with siblings, argued with caregivers, lobbied with doctors and tried to make her parents’ last years joyful and fulfilling. Kennedy holds the MBA with honors from the University of Chicago and is founder of Age Lessons, a Boomer consulting firm. She is a recognized authority on all things Boomer, a sought-after speaker before industry and employer groups, and an expert witness in the Superior Courts.

Purchase
Order a copy of The Daughter Trap today. It will help you get through the bad days, laugh through the weird days, and look forward to the good days to come. Also a great gift idea! The Daughter Trap offers pointers for friends whose parents are starting to require a little extra help.