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My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents
My Father's Keeper is the moving story of Jonathan Silin, a gay man in midlife who learned to care for his elderly parents as a series of life-threatening illnesses forced them to make the difficult transition from being independent to being reliant on their son. Their new needs and unrelenting demands brought them into intimate daily contact and radically transformed what had been a difficult and emotionally fraught relationship.
My Father's Keeper chronicles the unexpected ways in which the ideas and skills Silin acquired as an early childhood educator, a specialist in life span development, and a compassionate witness to the devastation of the HIV/AIDS crisis came together with his interest in human psychology to deeply inform his thinking about the dramatic changes in his family's life and increasingly influence his role as his father's (and mother's) keeper.
Through the months and years of his parents' decline, Silin reflects on their history as a family, recalling the pain of his father's psychological struggles through midlife and the uneasy, imperfect process of accepting his son as a gay man and accepting his son's partner into the family.
My Father's Keeper is a book about beginnings and endings, loss and redemption, the ethics of intervention, and the pressing needs of two extremely vulnerable populations.
My Father's Keeper chronicles the unexpected ways in which the ideas and skills Silin acquired as an early childhood educator, a specialist in life span development, and a compassionate witness to the devastation of the HIV/AIDS crisis came together with his interest in human psychology to deeply inform his thinking about the dramatic changes in his family's life and increasingly influence his role as his father's (and mother's) keeper.
Through the months and years of his parents' decline, Silin reflects on their history as a family, recalling the pain of his father's psychological struggles through midlife and the uneasy, imperfect process of accepting his son as a gay man and accepting his son's partner into the family.
My Father's Keeper is a book about beginnings and endings, loss and redemption, the ethics of intervention, and the pressing needs of two extremely vulnerable populations.
- GenresLGBT
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 5, 2017
There seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about what My Father's Keeper was written to accomplish - it is in no way intended to be a guide or general advice on how to contend with the difficulties of one's aging parents. Rather, it is a deeply personal story of personal discovery set against the critical emotional zeitgeist of having to contend with one's parents' decline; it is more memoir than manual, and if approached from this perspective, My Father's Keeper is a masterpiece of the genre.
Jonathan Silin bares all as he bears all in his efforts to balance the needs of his own life with the needs of his aging parents, who, as the narrative progresses, must necessarily come to rely on him more and more for even the most basic functions. Grounded in his training in childhood education and psychology, Silin is able to model and examine himself as a sort of case study in how "growing up" and "growing old" compare with each other, as father and son switch the roles of care giver and care receiver. The results are as intellectually fascinating as they are emotional moving. Silin is not afraid, however, to spend a full time establishing his own profile, as well as that of his parents, commenting on his fledgling career, his familial development, and his acceptance of his homosexuality as (rightfully) components of his relationship with his parents.
This tight perspective, however, obscures some components of the story. By structuring the work from his psychology perspective of coming to terms with his parents aging, Silin often loses sight of his parents' stories. While he makes it clear that this account is from his own perspective, one feels that Silin could have taken some steps during editing to focus a bit more deeply on the narrative components of his parents' lives. Missing, also, is a fuller understanding of the occasionally referenced live-in aide who was quietly present for all of these major emotional events - some effort to more fully integrate her into the story would have been appreciated.
This quibbles are minor, however, and do little to detract from the overall effect of My Father's Keeper, which provides deep and meaningful insight into the daily and psychological struggles of caring for an aging relation. I would recommend Silin's work to anyone struggling with age-related illnesses in the family, as his unabashedly personal approach may help to inspire the great personal introspection necessary to really make sense of this particular sort of crisis.
Jonathan Silin bares all as he bears all in his efforts to balance the needs of his own life with the needs of his aging parents, who, as the narrative progresses, must necessarily come to rely on him more and more for even the most basic functions. Grounded in his training in childhood education and psychology, Silin is able to model and examine himself as a sort of case study in how "growing up" and "growing old" compare with each other, as father and son switch the roles of care giver and care receiver. The results are as intellectually fascinating as they are emotional moving. Silin is not afraid, however, to spend a full time establishing his own profile, as well as that of his parents, commenting on his fledgling career, his familial development, and his acceptance of his homosexuality as (rightfully) components of his relationship with his parents.
This tight perspective, however, obscures some components of the story. By structuring the work from his psychology perspective of coming to terms with his parents aging, Silin often loses sight of his parents' stories. While he makes it clear that this account is from his own perspective, one feels that Silin could have taken some steps during editing to focus a bit more deeply on the narrative components of his parents' lives. Missing, also, is a fuller understanding of the occasionally referenced live-in aide who was quietly present for all of these major emotional events - some effort to more fully integrate her into the story would have been appreciated.
This quibbles are minor, however, and do little to detract from the overall effect of My Father's Keeper, which provides deep and meaningful insight into the daily and psychological struggles of caring for an aging relation. I would recommend Silin's work to anyone struggling with age-related illnesses in the family, as his unabashedly personal approach may help to inspire the great personal introspection necessary to really make sense of this particular sort of crisis.
January 5, 2021
Great book when thinking about the differences we all have especially within our families and makes us realize the complexity but also the beauty of those relationships in how they are bond together.
February 21, 2012
I read this for a class and it wasn't quite what I needed. Still a decent memoir, but you won't be missing out if you don't read it.
August 10, 2008
title says it all...talk about painfully depressing...but a serious reality check.
October 23, 2012
I wasn't able to finish this book. Not what I was expecting at all.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews