Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old ©2021 by Steven Petrow is a humorous yet insightful read. It is classified as a self-help book, in the non-fiction genre. The author was 64 years old as of the copyright date for this book. I am 70 years old at the time of this post so many, many, things really hit home. If younger folks would read this it would help fill a generation gap; but, I suspect if the reader is not yet experiencing some of the situations in the book, either personally or in respect to a loved one, the messages will not resonate. I am sharing the Table of Contents to show the situations addressed and my response to them.
For fans of David Sedaris and Nora Ephron, here is a humorous, irreverent, and poignant look at the gifts, stereotypes, and inevitable challenges of aging, based on the wildly popular New York Times essay from award-winning journalist Steven Petrow...
A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong
The Google link actually has some clickable links to chapter excerpts. With the right audience, this book is definitely worth 4 stars. If my son and daughter were to find the time to read it, it would be a great conversation starter.
★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience
With my husband and close friends (my age, of course), I would selectively up its worth to 5 stars.
★★★★★ Great! Read it!
Oh my...many of the chapter titles had me nodding about our parents - double spacing after periods (actually, that just had the writer in me nodding), not passing up a chance to pee (Dan says that Frank always said that), driving when you're a threat to others (my dad!!), not getting hearing aids until you're deaf (my mom!!), repeating stories (although I think all ages do this), playing the age card (although I guess you've earned it), whining about how much things cost (again, something that all adults do, though, I think!), hoarding, and definitely whatever chapter talks about older people talking about and giving way too much personal details about their health. I put this book on my to-read list, but I imagine that much of what it says not to do, we will still end up doing...just like our parents and grandparents before us.
ReplyDeleteSome of the topics really do hit home. Thanks for taking the time to comment so eloquently. Thank you for your detailed comment. Thank you for responding to this post. Oh, did I just repeat myself? I forget. Did you catch my double spaces after periods?
DeleteI just finished this book today. The two chapters that stand out to me after finishing it are the one about parents staying in their houses (with all their stuff) way too long and the chapter on saying goodbye.
DeleteMy dad, for one, has stayed in his house too long and now it's too late. By staying, he's become a burden on his family (mostly his ex-wife, since his kids live far away), which will only get worse with this rapidly declining health and increasing age, and now even if he did move, the huge task of organizing that would fall on others. Both sets of my grandparents downsized into small apartments and gave away most of their things long before they died, so my own parents didn't have the monumental (in many ways) task of spending months going through all of their things and selling their property. I fear that I (and Dan) will not escape that fate, though. However, even though the author spoke about his frustration with his parents advancing into a state of health that did not leave them able to care for themselves and leaving their stuffed properties behind, he also admitted how insanely difficult it was to decide to do something different. Speaking about it is one thing, but doing it would certainly be extremely hard, and so it's easy for me to say, like everyone else, that I refuse to be a burden to my children, when I haven not done anything to stop myself from being a burden and currently don't have any concrete plans to do so.
The chapter on saying goodbye hit me hard, as it's almost the one-year anniversary of my good friend's death from breast cancer. She worked with a company to create a video for her kids before she died, so they have that to watch now. She also posted a final goodbye message on Facebook. It was so hard to talk about her impending death with her. When she brought it up, I became a basket case. I remember sitting with her while she fielded calls from the church about the music she was going to have played at her funeral and speaking with her after she visited the cemetery to pick out an internment spot - of course, she planned most of her own funeral and internment. I never officially said goodbye to her - she went faster than we expected - but I did tell her that I love her. Some days, before she passed away, when my grief was overwhelming at her impending death, I would text my other friends in despair, asking what to do and what to say and how to help and one friend said to tell Nicole that we love her and that her children are going to be okay - that those were two things that she needed to know and believe. So...that chapter on saying goodbye had me in tears.