When Our Parents Need Us Most
Loving Care in the Aging Years

© 1994  David L. McKenna

Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois

Subjects: 1. Aging parents — Care — Religious aspects — Christianity. 2. Aging parents — Care — United States. 3. Aging parents — Family relationships — United States. 4. Spiritual life — Christianity.
HQ1064.U5 M46 ~ 306.874 20 ~ OCLC: 29478015 ~ LC: 93042150 ~ 125p.

When Our Parents Need Us Most is presently held by 117 libraries including University of Vermont and the Los Angeles Public Library.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . vii

CHAPTER 1 . . . . . . . . . 1

   Living with the Inevitable: Aging

CHAPTER 2 . . . . . . . . . 11

   Honoring Old Age: Self-Worth

CHAPTER 3 . . . . . . . . . 19

   Knowing When to Step Down: Retirement

CHAPTER 4 . . . . . . . . . 29

   Severing the Symbols: Independence

CHAPTER 5 . . . . . . . . . 43

   Choosing between Parents: Alienation

CHAPTER 6 . . . . . . . . . 49

   Recycling the Generations: Heredity

CHAPTER 7 . . . . . . . . . 57          

   Parenting Our Parents: Roles

CHAPTER 8 . . . . . . . . . 65

   Borrowing on Trust: Finances

CHAPTER 9 . . . . . . . . . 73

   Handling Our Emotions: Guilt

CHAPTER 10 . . . . . . . . . 81

   Meeting Our Mortality: Sickness

CHAPTER 11 . . . . . . . . . 89

   Dealing with Doubt: Salvation

CHAPTER 12 . . . . . . . . . 99

   Sightings of Heaven: Death

CHAPTER 13 . . . . . . . . . 111

   Learning from Jesus: Caregiving

Rights and Responsibilities of the Christian Caregiver . . . . . . . . . 123

ENDNOTES . . . . . . . . . 125

Your parents are entering their senior years. How can you, as a caregiver:

• help them face retirement?
• assist them in financial decision making?
• handle your own emotions while "parenting" your parent?
• cope with sickness and physical changes?
• encourage them to reflect on their spiritual lives?

Dr. McKenna speaks powerfully from his own experiences with four aging parents, two of whom lived in his home. He offers comfort and guidelines for times of transition, and explores in everyday terms the biblical meaning of caregiving.

With candor, insight, tenderness, and pathos, Dr. McKenna tells us what took place as he and his wife became parental caretakers. In the light of their loving efforts, which were by no means invariably successful or painless, he offers counsel that is specific and helpful. Indeed, in all my reading of the literature, I have not come across anything comparable to this wise, compassionate geriatric guidebook.

— Vernon Grounds, founding president of Denver Seminary

David McKenna touches one of the most urgent needs of our day. As our parents age and we are called to be caregivers, this biblically sound and spiritually sensitive book will be an invaluable resource.

— Lloyd J. Ogilvie, senior pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood

David McKenna's personal story, interwoven with up-to-date professional opinion on this critical issue, is helpful, fascinating, and deeply moving.

— Robert McQuilkin, former president of Columbia Bible College

Dr. McKenna's honest and highly transparent journey as a son of aging parents will encourage others who are seeking to restore the honor of time, love, and meaning to their mothers and fathers as they grow old.

— Kenneth Ogden, senior director of Counseling and Educational Services, Focus on the Family

All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author. No portion of this online edition of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for brief quotations for the purpose of review, comment, or scholarship, without written permission of the copyright holder.

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