Book Review: Downsize with Dignity

Downsize with Dignity: Helping Your Parents Transition by Larry Burklow Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the little book that anyone with parents should read. Eventually everyone ages and will need to make changes to their lives… and usually that means living arrangements, too. When parents and children work together on this, it can bring them closer together. When it’s not handled well (or not at all), it can cause damage to a family’s structure.

The advice isn’t overbearing or impossible. You’ll learn how to ask your parents the questions you have to, in ways that will engage, not alienate, your parents. If you aren’t yet ready for these conversations, read the book anyway. Let the advice soak in. When the day comes (and it will sneak up on you) you’ll be equipped to deal with it from a more enlightened viewpoint.

The parents my husband and I helped transition into new living situations are now gone, and it’s just the two of us. We never had children to have these talks with. I read the book as both the parent AND the child, taking the advice to heart as we make our own preparations for the future. It’s good advice from this angle, too! I was reminded of details I shouldn’t overlook as we progress. And I’m thinking about passing a few items down to nieces and nephews, down the road.

It’s a book everyone should read, as it applies kindness and logic to tasks we cannot avoid. Why not make them pleasant and productive, as long as we must do them anyway?