My Father's Keeper

The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents

Jonathan G. Silin

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English

Beacon Press
01 September 2018

True stories; Coping with old age; Intergenerational relationships

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.

By: Jonathan G. Silin
Imprint: Beacon Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 207mm, Width: 136mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 249g
ISBN: 9780807079652
ISBN 10: 0807079650
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 01 September 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jonathan G. Silin, a member of the graduate faculty at Bank Street College of Education in New York, has published articles in Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, and Educational Theory, as well as in more popular periodicals such as Newsday, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Education Week. He is the author of Sex, Death, and the Education of Children, coeditor of Putting the Children First, and coproducer of Children Talk About AIDS. From the Hardcover edition.

Reviews for My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents

Silin achieves a rare balance between clarity and immediacy, universality and specificity, and this is a supreme work, a searingly precise investigation into the times when ambivalence must coexist with love. --Philip Huang, East Bay Express <br> Jonathan Silin's story is uniquely his own but it could be yours and mine. Precious human documents like this prepare us for what lies ahead. They teach and they heal. --Terrence McNally, author of Master Class <br> Jonathan Silin offers a series of valuable reports from what might be called the country of farewells, using his raw experience to explore important questions about childhood, education, parenting, privacy, control, mental health, old age, death, and forgiveness. This is a rich, careful, honest book, both nakedly personal and coolly philosophical. --Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters <br> Primarily a search for the eth