Losing Your Parents, Finding Yourself: The Defining Turning Point of Adult Life

by Victoria Secunda

Overview

An eloquent book that explores the impact on one's life of losing a parent as an adult, and the effect it has on families, careers, and friendships—now in paperback.

Losing a parent is an event that happens, sooner or later, to nearly everyone. Yet seldom has the impact of parental death on the identities of adult offspring been examined. This book fills that gap. Backed by her original study and filled with compelling case histories, Secunda's book explores what happens to men and women when they are on their own in ways they have never been before. She addresses myriad issues, including:

• What does it mean to be living without parents to please or rebel against?
• How does adult "orphanhood" alter relationships with one's siblings, partner, friends, children, or one's career choices?
• How does it reshape one's sense of self?

Losing Your Parents, Finding Your Self offers the assurance that out of loss can come unforeseen gain—that on the other side of sorrow, we can discover new hope, wisdom, and strength.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786886517
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	04/25/2001
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	330
Sales rank:	1,027,745
Product dimensions:	5.19(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Victoria Secunda is an award-winning author, journalist, and lecturer whose previous books include When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends, Women and Their Fathers, and When Madness Comes Home. Her work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Woman's Day, and Glamour. A frequent guest on network television and radio programs, she lives with her husband, photographer Shel Secunda, in Connecticut. Both her parents are deceased.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Foreword: "I've Lost My Reference Point"	xv
	Introduction: Childhood's End	xxix
Part 1	The Changing of the Guard
1	Point of Departure: When One Parent Dies	3
2	The Relationship to the Remaining Parent	26
3	Voices from the Grave: Legacies and Loyalties	56
Part 2	Ripple Effects: The Consequences of Parental Loss
4	Realigned Family Ties: Siblings and Only Children	87
5	Changes of Heart: Effect on Romantic Partnerships	120
6	Parenthood Reconsidered: On Having, and Not Having, Children	146
7	Achievement: Reappraised Careers	178
8	Friendships Reassessed	206
Part 3	The Reconfigured Self
9	Unfinished Business: Coming to Terms with the Past	233
10	A New Sense of Family	257
11	After We've Gone: Creating a Legacy for the Future	276
Appendix	The Parental Loss Questionnaire and Survey Results	283
	Notes	291
	Bibliography	311
	Index	323