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?
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
2 Comments
Larry Burklow
Hi Lori, Thank you for your thoughtful review of Downsize with Dignity! I’m glad the book resonated with you both as a parent and a child. That’s exactly what I hoped: to make these tough conversations and transitions more manageable, respectful, and even meaningful. I love that it helped you think ahead and catch details you might have overlooked. For anyone reading along, Downsize with Dignity is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local library or bookstore as a paperback or ebook, and it also includes a 39-page downloadable companion workbook to help organize the process.
Lori Alden Holuta
Happy to help get the word out about your book. As part of Generation Jones (formerly mis-categorized as Boomers), I see many friends and family members struggling with the downsizing challenge. I believe that if approached with care, love, and education like your book gives, these experiences can be turned on their ear and become a loving progression of a family’s life. It’s the flip side of helping one’s child move out on their own for the first time, and making sure they are supplied with everything they’ll need.