Explore Another Country: Navigating The Emotional Terrain Of Our Elders Authored By Mary Pipher Presented In Paper Edition

perspective on aging I read this book because of my new circumstance as caretaker to an elderly parent, and thought it might be helpful.

There was some interesting information, but what I liked best, I think, is just the feeling I got while reading that I wasn't alone.
So many of the stories felt like they came right out of my personal experience,
To an isolated, overwhelmed, stressedout caretaker, that feeling of connection felt great,
This is a thoughtful, sensitive, practical book designed for those who are trying to improve relationships with the elderly in their families, Basically Pipher says that we need to consider the background and attitudes of elders, They had experiences, perhaps of war or struggles, that we today have not shared, Pipher calls these”timezone” problems, They learned to cope, not complain, but also were not expected to share their feeings easily, and it takes time and patience to understand them.


From a societal perspective, Pipher explains that these elders grew up in a more “communal” atmosphere in which families and neighbors helped each other, while independence is valued today.
As Pipher discusses, recent research is acknowledging the importance of social ties and close connections to mental and physical health, However, todays realities dont foster this,

Pipher recommends several ways to enhance these valuable intergenerational relationships, such as having children visit nursing homes, and neighborhoods that provide places for elders to meet.
However, at the start she states that her subjects are mostly rural and middleclass, and I feel this limits her viewpoint, Her recommendations at the personal level are excellent, but its going to be hard to translate some of her ideas into a model for an urban, mobile society.
I wonder if technologies such as email or Skype help maintain closeness, But again, many older people find these methods too difficult to use,

Leave it to gifted writer, therapist and life muse, Dr, Mary Pipher, to point us knowingly to some unfinished family work in her novel, ANOTHER COUNTRY, Despite the unique and diverse qualities of American families, she points out the fact that some adult challenges that we will face in midlife with our aging parents may be somewhat universal and this tapestry may need some new patchwork.
As life expectencies lengthen we may need to consider and adapt to the differences between the time of being "youngold" when our parents may be vibrant and slowly accepting some losses, to the challenges of the "oldold" stage when physical decline and death are the major life cycle realities.
I recommend reading and savoring this guidbook slowly, because the stories are so poignant and the messages so powerful, Her storytelling intertwining family narratives and psychological issues is unmatched, Her messages about life are timeless, balanced and broadly sweeping, I highly recommend this nonfictional masterpiece, This nonfiction book writes of the emotional lives of the elderly, Pipher writes of the newold, and the oldold, and counsels them in her practice, Lots of insights into the way life was led when they were younger and they way we all live today, As a caregiver to ayo and going onyo parents, this book gave lots of food for thought, Pipher also writes nonfiction beautifully, This book was published inso a lot of the references between generations dont line up to today, However at this point in my life, it really made me think about my life, my parents amp whats to come in the nextyears or so.
Read aroundbefore I was an elder, My review then: By a very human psychologist, about cultural issues involved in aging, She is very much interested in the importance of community, She has a tendency, annoying to me, to make generalizations from observations that may not be as widely applicable as she thinks, And it could be better organized, But a good read, with some excellent points,

A reviewer here gave it just one star because the author quoted Robert E, Lee. I might do the same if I read it now, She lost me when she decided to quote Robert E, Lee. When trying to demonstrate how the views of parenting have changed between recent generations, you pull a quote from a Confederate General No thanks, Mary Pipher inadvertantly proved the challenges we face with maintaining good relationships with aging parents, really a.a very good book with a lot of great insight to how the psychological and emotional life of elders differs from our life, But at times, it just seemed to be a series of vignettes that were not sure of the central theme it was trying to further.
Interesting vignettes, yes, but I found I was not sure exactly what certain parts of the book were trying to establish or get across, That said, there were times where the insights were outstanding times I wanted to get the pen out and underline things reflections on what it is like to live in a culture that is geared to the young and fit, what it is like to live in a landscape where all of you familiar markers are gone buildings, dead friends, cultural bedrocks like a respected church what it is like to find out that the simple things like the ability of a good night sleep and taste for food might leave for good.
This book is full of difficult subject matter, dealing with the culture we build around our elders, aging, death, and dying, Mary Pipher is an excellent writer, so it still manages to be a very engaging read, Highly recommended for all generations, This was an easy read in some ways it was well organized, with relevant anecdotes, and Pipher has a way with words, On another level, it was a really hard, emotional read, I got a lot of insight about aging and the generation gap, though, this book definitely opened my eyes to the experiences and feelings of older people in our country, it was at times extremely depressing and also extremely comforting, pipher says we struggle to understand our elders because we have never been their position, instead of trying to bridge that divide, we often ignore them and distance ourselves from them, since reading this i find myself looking at older people in an entirely different light, i sympathize with them and wonder about what their experiences have been, although this book is likely more beneficial to people a generation or two above me, whose parents are a bit older than my own, i thought it was really insightful and think most people would learn something worthwhile from it.


quotes, poems amp stories that

stuck out to me:
“the death of an old person is like the burning of a library” p.
alex haley

“many old people live in segregated communities, Some choose to live separately from the young, but most just become slowly more isolated” p,

“lois never remarried, She told randy that when a man wants a wife her age, its for a nurse or a purse, and she wasnt willing to offer either.
” P.

“in our culture, adult means selfsufficient, Autonomy is our highest virtue, We want relationships that have no strings attached instead of understanding, as one lady told me, honey, life aint nothing but strings, ” P.

“If we view life as a timeline, we realize that all of us are sometimes more and sometimes less dependent on others, At certain stages we are caretakers, and at other stages we are cared for, Neither stage is superior to the other, Neither implies pathology or weakness, Both are just the results of life having seasons and circumstances, In fact, good mental health is not a matter of being dependent or independent, but of being able to accept the stage one is in with grace and dignity.
Its an awareness of being, over the course of ones lifetime, continually interdependent” P,

People born early in the century are the last Americans to grow up in a world in which all behavior mattered, Today, autonomy is king. As long as we dont bother anybody, it doesnt matter if we drink too much, spend money foolishly, or are dying of cancer, Most of the people we meet dont know or care about what we do, They may want our money or our services, but not the details of our lives, Their main hope is that we not make trouble or interrupt their work, Without community there is no morality, ” p.

One summer when my mother was a girl, her familys entire wheat crop was wiped out by hail, After the damage was assessed, her father said, There is nothing we can do here, Lets take a trip. The family drove across the country to Niagara Falls, camping and visiting relatives and friends along the way, Except for visits to her grandparents, this was the only vacation of my mothers childhood,
My daughterinlaws grandfather also had his crop hailed out one summer, He stood quietly on the porch looking at the icefilled fields and the stripped plants, Then he said to his family, “Gather up those hailstones and lets make some ice cream, ”
The people who survived this century have much to teach us about resiliency, They know how to laugh, to dance, and to share meals with one another, ” P.

“If you cant change your life, change your attitude, ” P.

“What I learned from my mother” by Julia kasdorf
I learned from my mother how to love
The living, to have plenty of vases on hand
In case you have to rush to the hospital
With peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
Still stuck to the buds.
I learned to save jars
Large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
Grieving household, to cube homemade pears
And peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
And flick out the sexual seeds with a knifepoint.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didnt know
The deceased, to press the moist hands,
Of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
Sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
What anyone will remember is that we came,
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
Awful pains materially like an angel,
Like a doctor I learned to create
From anothers suffering my own usefulness, and once
You know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer
Healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
The blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
” P.

“We were going to leave a mark on the world
but instead the world left marks on us” p,Wallace stegner

In American culture we find it acceptable to give children feedback, We say, “dont chew with your mouth open,” or, “its not polite to burp in public, ” Children may not always like this feedback, but they learn form it, However, we consider it rude to give feedback to any adults except our mates or our employees, This custom can be harmful, We all have bad habits and nasty traits, and at the age we stop hearing about them, they are likely to get worse, Without feedback, people are likely to become rude, selfcentered, eccentric, and out of touch, p.

“to Fred” by mirage

To walk alone, where there is none
but memories, To be the one
remaining when you are gone,

The day you left me, dear,
My life was rent in two,
Now walking wounded I go along
through life as half,

One leg is not enough
To keep my balance and to move
Along my destined way
With strength and dignity

So many things I cannot do
With only one small hand.

Unfinished tasks reproach me
And mock my helplessness,

I cannot hear the music clear,
Not see the sunsets glow,
My senses dimmed, my mind grew dull
When I lost sight of you,

But, most of all I lost my heart,
Not half for you owned all of it,
The shell remains, it walks and talks,
But joy there is none,
How could there be
When Love is gone
p,

“Losing physical beauty is hard fro some older women, If a woman has always been stunning, liver spots, extra pounds, and wrinkles can affect core identity issues, Ordinary looking women are likely to fare better, They have less to mournthey have identities built on relationships, not complexions, Ann Menebroker wrote, “The way to stay beautiful is to avoid mirrors and look only at those who truly love you back, ” P.something to be thankful for as an averagelooking woman

“The Japanese have a word that captures the intensity of feeling two strong emotions at the same time.
Wabisabi means experiencing beauty and sadness, We need such a word in the English language, The word would describe that mixture of happiness and sadness when we drive away from a wonderful reunion, loved and loving and empty an alone all at the same moment” p.


“Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops strength of mind” p,Marcel Proust

“Behind every beautiful thing, theres been some kind of pain” p,bob Dylan

“Weve got it all wrong in our culture, The young should identify birds, Theyve got the eyes for it, The old should go to rock concerts, We can hear that music and see the light shows just fine, ” P.

“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people, Now I admire kind people” p,rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel

“Three things in human life are important, The first is to be kind, The second is to be kind, And the third is to be kind, ” P.Henry James

“The prayers of all good people are good” p,willla cather Definitely not her best book,

If you want insight in to SOME elders, but not most of the people I know unfortunately, then give this a try, Some parts are extremely good and helpful, It definitely does make you empathic, especially towards the "Silent Generation" but overall I walked away with not learning that much and definitely how to help my family.
Many questions, few answers. This book doesnt pretend to be a howto selfhelp manual, It does inspire understanding. Although the author did include a lot of scattered information about how to better relate to the elderly, I found her overall production less than satisfactory.


This was because she has created a strange mix of psychology with occasional psychobabble, Eastern philosophy, partial personal stories and emotive poetry to make her points.
She included a generous portion of sweeping generalizations as well,

Apparently she also felt that the hardscrabble life of farmers in the MidWest was pretty superior to today's more unconnected and hurried existence.
She described it in a very romanticized way often,

She also prescribed strong families as a solution to the woes of the elderly, but that doesn't help those without strong families in today's unconnected world.
She declared that certain changes needed to be made in modern healthcare, social systems, etc, but there wasn't really anything there about HOW such changes would ever be actually accomplished,

Finally, she acknowledged that some people grew old 'badly' usually due to past bitterness or current physical and mental disabilities, but she spent most of her time praising those who ballroom danced their way to their inevitable final fall off the dance floor.
It's my own fault, but each time she praised these admirable folks, I was reminded of those who could not manage such positive steps, A wellbalanced book would probably depress people further, since many stories of aging and death do not end well at all, .