Parent Adult Children Relationships

Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.

Living with Momma offers personal narratives and sacred stories for caregivers searching for measurable peace as they navigate unexpected paths within 21st-century families. Sixty-three million Americans are caring for aging parents and grown children at the same time, and they often find themselves wondering, “How is it possible to care for our families and ourselves at the same time?” In Living with Momma, Elizabeth Adams, an author and pastor, uses her life experiences, along with the wisdom found in open-ended questions, to show caregivers how they can.

Whether you're sleep deprived with a colicky newborn or navigating the emotional roller coaster of a teenager, parenting has its ups and downs, its confusion and clarity, its big blowups and small victories. And no matter our family makeup or our children's personalities, many of us experience anxiety over our children's futures and often fear making a mistake.

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol.

Today’s college-bound kids are stressed, anxious, and navigating demands in their lives unimaginable to a previous generation. They’re performance machines, hitting the benchmarks they’re “supposed” to in order to reach the next tier of a relentless ladder. Then, their mental and physical exhaustion carries over right into first jobs. What have traditionally been considered the best years of life have become the beaten-down years of life.

The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple best-selling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence - a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life.

Whether you've been looking forward to it or dreading it, the experience of coming home to an empty nest brings with it a well of emotions, realizations, and one gigantic, all-consuming thought: Now what? In Finding Joy in the Empty Nest, Jim Burns combines his personal experiences with his expertise as a family educator to help you navigate your new life as an empty nester and find joy in this new season of life.

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished American in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.

Overlooked in the issues that affect couples divorcing later in in life are the adult children of divorcing parents. Their voices open this book, and they are the voices of men and women, 18 to 50 years old. Some of them are single; some are married. All of them are in different stages of shock, fear, and sudden, dramatic change. In Home Will Never Be the Same: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce, Carol Hughes and Bruce Fredenburg share their deep understanding gained during the innumerable hours they have spent with these women and men in their clinical practices.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

You know it's going to be a rough summer when you spend Father's Day visiting your dad in the local lockup. Noah's dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harbor, which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah's dad is stuck in the clink.

When her children left for college, Melissa Shultz was certain that she had prepared them well for their new lives - but her own life was a different matter entirely. Her house was empty, her purpose unclear. If her life was no longer dominated by the day-to-day demands of being "Mom", then who exactly was she? And how would she ever move forward?

How do today's parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our 20- and even 30-somethings who can't seem to grow up? Who can we turn to when the kids aren't all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed? In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns when our grown kids have failed to thrive.

From within the hopelessness and terror of China's Cultural Revolution, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening, and the magical power of storytelling. "An unexpected miracle," raves the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "a delicate, and often hilarious, tale."

In a coming-of-age memoir about a woman who loved being a girl and what made her finally grow up, Kelly Corrigan brilliantly explores the "middle place" between childhood and adulthood and how one woman made the leap to the other side.

Empty-nesting can be a disorienting time, but it can also become the best season of your life if you'll let it. Jill Savage is an empty-nest mom who will guide you through this unpredictable time of life. You'll learn to let go of mixed emotions and grab hold of your full life here and now.

Bestselling author Leslie Glass and her daughter, award-winning documentarian Lindsey Glass, offer a brand-new kind of interactive self-help book that combines actionable information, compelling storytelling, and writing prompts that are guaranteed to bring awareness, understanding, and compassion to mothers and daughters everywhere.

Estrangement from one or both parents-even by choice—can take a huge emotional and psychological toll. If you have cut ties with a parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, guilt, and shame. You may question or second-guess your decision. And you may have trouble setting or keeping boundaries with your parent, as well as others in your life. This workbook offers evidence-based skills to help you heal the emotional wounds of your past, so you can finally move forward.

Michelle Rohlf's unwanted estrangement from her daughter Naomi strips her of everything: her grandchildren, her peace of mind, and most of all, herself. In spite of her broken heart and broken spirit, she embarks on a three-year journey of healing and forgiveness, discovering the impact her own upbringing had on her attachment to her daughter. Just as Michelle learns that her life isn't over because her daughter walked away, Naomi shows up, without apology or explanation. This is the story of a woman who had to lose her daughter in order to find the identity she'd never really had.