I'm OK, You're My Parents: How to Overcome Guilt, Let Go of Anger, and Create a Relationship That Works - Hardcover

Dale Atkins

4.08

36 ratings by Goodreads

9780805073539: I'm OK, You're My Parents: How to Overcome Guilt, Let Go of Anger, and Create a Relationship That Works

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805073531 ISBN 13: 9780805073539

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2004

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A guilt-free guide for adults seeking more satisfying relationships with their parents

In a recent study, half of all Americans rated their relationship with at least one parent as either “poor” or “terrible,” and more than a third felt this way about both parents. As life expectancy continues to rise and the parent-child relationship extends further into adulthood, this problem is becoming more prevalent than ever. Now, psychologist Dale Atkins presents a step-by-step plan for adults trying to come to terms with parents who are only human—before it is too late.

In I’m OK, You’re My Parents, Atkins applies the same intelligent, no-nonsense approach that’s made her a frequent guest on top-rated TV shows. She urges a restructuring of the relationships between adults and their aging parents and gives practical, specific advice on how to exorcise the demons of anger and resentment, untangle financial arrangements that cause stress and feelings of powerlessness, set limits on your parents’ demands for time and attention, turn a spouse or friends into a powerful resource, overcome your own resistance to change, and discover the redemptive power of humor.

This book draws on Atkins’s twenty-five years of experience as a relationship expert to present a comprehensive guide to repairing difficult relationships, gaining control, and building a life that you and your parents can live with for years to come.

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About the Author:

Dale Atkins, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and media commentator who appears regularly on the Today Show. The author of five books, she has contributed to such national magazines as Ladies’ Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, and Parents. She lives in Westport, Connecticut.

From I’m OK, You’re My Parents:
“I’d kill him,” said Luanne, “but that would nullify the will, right?” I told her it was a good sign that she was still able to joke about the situation. At least that meant she hadn’t given up entirely. Her husband, Kurt, though, sat stone-faced.

Luanne was talking about her father, a well-known lawyer. The problem was that he was using his money to manipulate them, and he was doing his usual crackerjack job. Kurt was
struggling in his advertising career and Luanne’s father seemed to be making the most of that.

“He’s fantastically rich and he dangles her inheritance in front of us all the time,” Kurt
sputtered. “Whenever he thinks we aren’t seeing him enough or giving him enough time with the grandchildren or when he feels we haven’t been sufficiently reverential, he drops little hints about adjusting his will. I try not to react, but I feel so humiliated I can’t sleep.”

What they didn’t say until I coaxed it out of them was that they already regularly took money from her father, always let him pick up the tabs at their frequent dinners together (he always chose the place, naturally), and allowed him weekly toy-shopping sprees with the twins. Strange, isn’t it, how money, which is supposed to buy freedom, so often winds up purchasing little more than slavery?

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