We Need To Talk About Family

We are the first generation in recent history to not know if our children will have a better life than us. Over the past thirty years, the dream of upward mobility and stable and securely paid employment has dissipated. This collection draws together insights from the disciplines of cultural studies, literary theory, psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, social policy and sociology, in order to explore the complex and contested status of “the family” under neoliberalism. At one end of the spectrum, the intensification of work and the normalisation of long-hours working culture have undermined the time and energy available for private family life. At the other end, the fantasy of the nuclear family as a potential “haven in a heartless world” is rapidly unravelling, supplanted with a hypercompetitive, neo-traditionalist, mobile, neoliberal family seeking to capitalise on the uneven spread of resources in order to maximise the futures of its own children. As neoliberalism has always been split between socio-economic realities and the expectations of where we “should” be, we are always living with the anxiety of being left behind and the hope that the best is yet to come. The chapters in this collection signal the troubles of the neoliberal family: in particular, the gulf between the practical conditions of family life and the formation of new fantasies. The volume addresses the neoliberal family in a range of contexts: from the domestic, reproductive and bio-political regulation of family life, the representations of the neoliberal family on television and across social media, to the negotiation of family dynamics in maternal memoirs. The work provides a much-needed corrective to the critical emphasis on the macrostructures of the neoliberal world.

Learn to start open, productive talks about money with your parents as they age As your parents age, you may find that you want or need to broach the often-difficult subject of finances. In Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents About Their Finances, you’ll learn the best ways to approach this issue, along with a wealth of financial and legal information that will help you help your parents into and through their golden years. Sometimes parents are reluctant to address money matters with their adult children, and topics such as long-term care, retirement savings (or lack thereof), and end-of-life planning can be particularly touchy. In this book, you’ll hear from others in your position who have successfully had “the talk” with their parents, and you’ll read about a variety of conversation strategies that can make talking finances more comfortable and more productive. Learn conversation starters and strategies to open the lines of communication about your parents’ finances Discover the essential financial and legal information you should gather from your parents to be prepared for the future Gain insight from others’ stories of successfully talking money with aging parents Gather the courage, hope, and motivation you need to broach difficult subjects such as care facilities and end-of-life plans For children of Baby Boomers and others looking to assist aging parents with their finances, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk is a welcome and comforting read. Although talking money with your parents can be hard, you aren’t alone, and this book will guide you through the process of having fruitful financial conversations that lead to meaningful action.

A guide for primary and secondary school teachers on interacting and working with parents with a strong focus on developing empathetic professional skills.

Sex. Drugs. Divorce. When it's time for "the talk," many parents panic. They need a simple guide to help them - and now they have it. In this book, parenting expert Dr. Richard Heyman teaches parents how to approach kids with honesty and understanding. He answers questions like "How do I bring it up?", "What should I say?", and "How will he/she/they react?" It features practical and precise advice for specific problem topics and realistic scripts that help dictate what should and should not be said. Complete with realistic sample scripts, this go-to guide helps parents tackle tough topics with conviction and composure.

This is a practical book full of usable communication keys that help couples develop a closer, more vital relationship.

The inspiration for the film starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, this resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them remains terrifyingly prescient. Eva never really wanted to be a mother. And certainly not the mother of a boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much–adored teacher in a school shooting two days before his sixteenth birthday. Neither nature nor nurture exclusively shapes a child's character. But Eva was always uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood. Did her internalized dislike for her own son shape him into the killer he’s become? How much is her fault? Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with Kevin’s horrific rampage, all in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. A piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence and responsibility, a book that the Boston Globe describes as “impossible to put down,” is a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family.

Cancer affects not only the patient, but all their loved ones as well. This book will guide professionals on issues critical to effectively and compassionately counseling caregivers and other family members, from dealing with their feelings of grief and despair and realistically fostering hope, to helping them provide emotional and practical support to the patient during the illness and treatment.

INDIAN EDITION PAPERBACK AVAILABLE ON www.shivranjanarathore.com.In a jugalbandi exchange of verse and prose, Hineni (Hebrew for 'here I am') is an attempt to table a conversation on emotional health, specifically on emotionally abusive parenting-how it affects the child's view of the self, her navigation through the world while questioning her identity (or the lack of it), and the eventual fight to break out of the shackles of the mind of the abused and find herself. The book chronicles the internal and external dialogues of Zee, the only child of emotionally unavailable Mr X and abusive Ms Y, who are tied together in marriage, much to their own wonder. Zee's life flows in an 'inside-outside' format where the 'outside world' is in her voice as she walks through the world, interacting with the it, in silence. The 'inside world' is in the form of a dialogue between two alter egos that Zee possesses, in the form of two choices that she has early on in life - to either succumb to the emotionally defunct system, morphing her identity according to the parent's emotional reality (as represented by Sombre); or to live the same life with a sense of lightness that overcomes everything while maintaining a breezy approach to everything (represented by Levity). Through poetry broken by prose and narration, Zee's story speaks of the fallacies of the system of marriage, identity, emotional health and abuse, loneliness, and the resilience of the human spirit. The book closes with Zee breaking out of patterns of abuse and embarking on the path to find herself.