When Jane Gross found herself suddenly thrust into a caretaker role for her eighty-five year-old mother, she was forced to face challenges that she had never imagined. As she and her younger brother struggled to move her mother into an assisted living facility, deal with seemingly never-ending costs, and adapt to the demands on her time and psyche, she learned valuable and important lessons. Here, the longtime New York Times expert on the subject of elderly care and the founder of the New Old Age blog shares her frustrating, heartbreaking, enlightening, and ultimately redemptive journey, providing us along the way with valuable information that she wishes she had known earlier. We learn why finding a general practitioner with a specialty in geriatrics should be your first move when relocating a parent; how to deal with Medicaid and Medicare; how to understand and provide for your own needs as a caretaker; and much more. Wise, smart, and ever-helpful, A Bittersweet Season is an essential guide to caring for aging parents.

Includes chapters on the following subjects:

• Finding Our Better Selves
• The Myth of Assisted Living
• The Vestiges of Family Medicine
• The Best Doctors Money Can Buy
• The Biology, Sociology, and Psychology of Aging
• Therapeutic Fibs

About Jane Gross

Jane Gross was a reporter for Sports Illustrated and Newsday before joining The New York Times in 1978. Her twenty-nine-year tenure there included national assignments as well as coverage of aging. In 2008, she launched a blog for the Times called The New Old Age, to which she still contributes. She has taught journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Columbia University, and was the recipient of a John S. Knight Fellowship. She lives in Westchester County, New York.

Editorial Review

Americans are living longer than ever before, and most senior citizens will eventually become dependent on others for care. Gross offers advice for those already caring for their aging and dying parents and issues a wake-up call to those who think they are prepared should the time come. Her tone is straightforward, but not cold or clinical, when she shares the heartbreaking story of her aging mother, who died in a nursing home. With well-written and researched prose, Gross debunks misconceptions about assisted-living facilities and offers eye-opening anecdotes about Medicare and Medicaid, including how her own upper-middle-class mother ended up on Medicaid and virtually penniless due to health-care costs. The author also gives gentle guidance for understanding the biology and psychology of aging and ways the adult child can best help the parent. For some readers, the most uncomfortable part of the book will be Gross’ mother’s choice to die by refusing to eat or drink. This may be controversial, but the subject is not treated lightly, and many conversations occurred beforehand. With a poignant, honest voice, the author recalls her mother’s suffering. This book will remind readers that quality-of-life issues are important, and will hopefully prompt those types of discussions. There are no easy answers here, because there are none. – Kirkus Reviews

A Bittersweet Season: Caring For Our Aging Parents — And Ourselves

NPR Book Rveiew – June 25, 2012 (Excerpt)

For decades, five-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Jane Gross reported on a wide range of issues for The New York Times. Recently, she has turned her attention to America’s aging population. In A Bittersweet Season, Gross relates how she and her brother moved their elderly mother from Florida to an assisted living facility in New York as she began to decline. Together, the three navigated Medicare and Medicaid after health care costs whittled away the elderly, upper middle class mother’s nest egg. Gross tells NPR’s Michel Martin, “I thought [that time in my life] was wrenchingly difficult. I also thought in many ways it was redemptive, because I was closer to my mother when it was over and I was closer to my brother [when] it was over, so at least at the back end it was an enormous reward.” [Read the full interview...]

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