Unconditional Love: A Guide to Navigating the Joys and Challenges of Being a Grandparent Today

by Jane Isay Narrated by Joyce Bean

Overview

A beautiful meditation on the joys of being a grandparent and a practical guide to help you and your adult children make the most of your relationship with a grandchild.

For many grandparents, a grandchild offers a second chance to become the parent they didn't have the time or the energy to be when raising their own children. Being a grandparent, family relationships expert Jane Isay argues, is the opportunity to turn missed opportunities into delight.

Drawing on her personal experience, dozens of interviews, and the latest findings in psychology, Isay shows how a grandparent can use his or her unique perspective and experience to create a deep and lasting bond that will echo throughout a grandchild's life. She explores the realities of today's multigenerational families, identifying problems and offering solutions to enhance love, trust, and understanding between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. She also offers a wealth of practical advice, from when to get involved, when to stay away, and how to foster a strong relationship when you're separated by long distance.

Unconditional Love advocates for honest conversation, thinking in the long run and healing breaches in order to be together, understanding that most of us try to do our best and need to be forgiven if we fail. Isay argues that secrets and surprises may tilt the boat but won't necessarily sink it and that grandparents and their grown children are happier when they give each other the benefit of the doubt. Most importantly, she writes, the advent of grandchildren offers families the opportunity for healing and redemption-if we seize the moment. In lovely prose and through delightful stories, Isay shows us how we can.

A great gift for grandparents-to-be and a wonderful resource for all, Unconditional Love is a beautiful and psychologically astute look at what it means to be an engaged grandparent.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2018 - AudioFile

The mature and fluid performance of narrator Joyce Bean is an excellent conduit for the author’s personal stories, insights, and gently crafted advice about being a grandparent. The audiobook covers all aspects of a healthy relationship—playing with your grandchildren with more freedom than you had with your own children, moderating your advice-giving and healing breaches with the parents, and creating rituals with grandkids that sustain closeness and help them grow. Practical issues like childcare and babysitting, living far away, and money matters are covered, but the heart of this book lies in Isay’s perspectives on how to balance the time and resources you give grandchildren with those you preserve for your adult relationships, your financial security, your passions, and your overall enjoyment of life. T.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

11/20/2017
Isay (Secrets and Lies), a former book editor, shares what it is to be a grandparent and how to keep family conflicts to a minimum and joy at the maximum in this lovely treatment of a widely shared experience. She identifies three age groups for grandparents—young ones still at work and busy, retired ones with enough energy to care for active youngsters, and elder matriarchs and patriarchs—and follows the life cycle of the contemporary three-generation family, with sage advice and family stories throughout. The book is written to help the two generations of adults in a three-generation family deal with the conflicts, problems, and politics of family life, without striving for perfection. Part one teaches “grandparent prep” and adapting to change. Part two considers “the intangibles,” such as nurturing a child’s “moral imagination” and how grandparenting can function as a second chance, as with the illustrative story of a tough paternal taskmaster who metamorphosed into an indulgent “Paw-Paw” with his daughters’ kids. Parts three and four respectively cover difficult issues, such as dealing with distance and remaining involved despite advancing age. More thoughtful and inspiring than Lesley Stahl’s 2016 Becoming Grandma, this volume would make an ideal present from parents-to-be to their own folks. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

Unconditional Love is the new bible for any grandparent looking for ways to support and connect with their children and grandchildren. In clear, compassionate prose, Isay is a wise guide through intergenerational ups and downs. Need to know what to say and when to zip it? How to help? Isay has the answers. I can’t wait to give it to my mother!” — Rachel Simmons, New York Times bestselling author

“Unconditional Love is an up-to-date guide to grandparenting in the 21st century that also offers readers the deepest and most universal wisdom. Isay excels at writing about the complexity and meaning of relationships. She unspools her stories of grandparenting in a way that increases our moral imaginations and our capacities for joyous and profound family experiences. Her writing is clear, cogent and filled with psychological insights.” — Mary Pipher, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Letters to a Young Therapist, Reviving Ophelia and The Green Boat

“For anyone soon to become a grandparent, this practical book will answer many questions about what to do when the baby arrives; for current grandparents, it confirms what they know: being a grandparent is, for the most part, awesome. Research and individual stories explain the special position of grandparents in a child’s life in a book that is unquestionably functional.” — Kirkus

“[A] lovely treatment of a widely shared experience… thoughtful and inspiring... this volume would make an ideal present from parents-to-be to their own folks.” — Publishers Weekly

Mary Pipher

“Unconditional Love is an up-to-date guide to grandparenting in the 21st century that also offers readers the deepest and most universal wisdom. Isay excels at writing about the complexity and meaning of relationships. She unspools her stories of grandparenting in a way that increases our moral imaginations and our capacities for joyous and profound family experiences. Her writing is clear, cogent and filled with psychological insights.

Rachel Simmons

Unconditional Love is the new bible for any grandparent looking for ways to support and connect with their children and grandchildren. In clear, compassionate prose, Isay is a wise guide through intergenerational ups and downs. Need to know what to say and when to zip it? How to help? Isay has the answers. I can’t wait to give it to my mother!

Roger Rosenblatt

In Unconditional Love, Jane Isay focuses on a human bond that is valuable for all it involves. This thoughtful book is not simply a guide to being a grandparent, but also a paean to the generosity of spirit that may reveal itself in later life. The child is father and mother to the grandparent, as much as the grandparent serves the child. In a way, both imagine the best of each other, enhancing a capacity for living well and usefully. An original and indispensable piece of work, written with as much intelligence as love.

MARCH 2018 - AudioFile

The mature and fluid performance of narrator Joyce Bean is an excellent conduit for the author’s personal stories, insights, and gently crafted advice about being a grandparent. The audiobook covers all aspects of a healthy relationship—playing with your grandchildren with more freedom than you had with your own children, moderating your advice-giving and healing breaches with the parents, and creating rituals with grandkids that sustain closeness and help them grow. Practical issues like childcare and babysitting, living far away, and money matters are covered, but the heart of this book lies in Isay’s perspectives on how to balance the time and resources you give grandchildren with those you preserve for your adult relationships, your financial security, your passions, and your overall enjoyment of life. T.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2017-12-07
Studying the roles of 21st-century grandparents in a child's life.As more families become two-income households, grandparents are playing larger roles in the lives of their grandchildren. Instead of shipping the kids off to day care, working parents often ask grandparents to step in and become caretakers. Though this often means putting their own plans for full retirement on hold, as Isay (Secrets and Lies: Surviving the Truths That Change Our Lives, 2014, etc.) discovered, for most grandparents, there is nothing they would rather do with their time. Taking care of grandchildren brings new life and energy into an older person's life, as well as a host of challenges, which the author covers in sufficient detail via personal stories and interviews. There's the dread of treading too far into the parenting realm, allowing the children to do, have, and/or eat things that contradict how the parents want their child to be raised. Being a mother-in-law is a particularly tricky role to play, as these women want to have as much interaction as possible yet are not always welcomed completely into the fold. Isay also delves into the fact that some elders take on the role of parents when the parents are unable to, whether due to jail time, drug use, or other mental and/or physical issues. Despite the obstacles, however, the author is clear in her message that grandparenting is a true joy filled with the innocence of childhood and the unconditional love that only a child can give. For anyone soon to become a grandparent, this practical book will answer many questions about what to do when the baby arrives; for current grandparents, it confirms what they know: being a grandparent is, for the most part, awesome.Research and individual stories explain the special position of grandparents in a child's life in a book that is unquestionably functional but not as inspiring as Lesley Stahl's recent Becoming Grandma.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173671073
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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