Mother Millett

Baby boomers especially will find much stimulation in these ponderings on learning to manage ageing, infirmity, family strife, duty, and forgiveness. Kate Millett faced a lot in living through and then writing about the lessons of this book. While not everyone will agree with her choices (or her politics!?) she still presents a coherent story that moved and involved me and I was gratified at her success in liberating her mother from the nursing home, as well as liberating HERSELF from many of her own personal demons. Everyone feels SOME ambivalence towards their parents, and if we assume responsibility for their care, there are bound to be unpredictable issues arising. Kate constantly reminds us (and herself!) of her mother's humanity and winds up handling most of her issues with grace, eventually coming to peace with ALL of them - both she and her mother are heroines here!

This book is really gripping. I started it late at night and couldn't put it down until I finished. Millett's description of her mother and the differences in perception (what the hospital thinks about her mother, what her sister thinks, what she thinks) are fascinating, as is the way that she details how nursing homes aggregate power to themselves. If you are thinking of nursing home care for aged parents, this would be a good book for you to read; it is well written and baldly presents some of the real dangers involved in powers of attorney for the elderly. I have to say, though, that as the book went on I liked the author less and less. She is so uncompromisingly extreme--and I disagree that she earned our respect by what she did for her mother. What she basically did was, come home for a month and pre-empt her mother's care, after her elder sister had been doing it for years. Classic case of the child who is completely not involved in the ongoing narrative of care rushing in at the end to disrupt all of the arrangements. Frankly, if I were her sister or cousin who had been doing the care of their mother I would have wanted to run her out of town. NOthing is ever half way with Kate: the Reagan gov't is evil, the Golf War was an imperialistic measure by the oil interests, etc., etc. Unfortunately she contradicts herself at the end of the book; she spends the first 100 pages bemoaning how little money she earned in her life and then begrudges the fulltime care taker for her mother the measly $1100 she wants to babysit 40 hours a week; in other words, she complains about her financial situation and is hesitant to pay her mother's caretaker the very lowest living wage--and it's not like Kate is stopping her life to take of her mother, oh no. She criticizes anyone and everyone in the book who is concerned about individual success, arguing for a socialist collective, but in the end, it's Kate Millett's individual wants and needs, no matter how carefully they are formulated as an argument for her mother's independence, that take precedence.

This book is a powerful testament to the pain and difficulty of doing the right thing instead of the easy thing. I read Millett's Loony-bin Trip many years ago, and found it terrifying and devastating in its look at the powerlessness of those who fall outside our cultural boundary of "sanity." Here she's looking at the powerlessness of that growing American fringe culture--the old and unwanted. It's easy to imagine the dark pleasure of revenge available in this situation. Millett's mother was less than supportive or helpful when she needed support and help. I found myself incredibly moved by Millett's generosity and strength in wanting to save her mother from the very fate that was once inflicted on her. If she takes the moral high ground, it's because she's earned it. How many of us would do what she has done for her aging mother? Look at the population of elderly in nursing homes and the answer seems to be very few. Expect to be humbled by Millett's dedication to her principles.

Kate Millett returns home in the early 1990s to care for her ailing mother and finds herself mired in the delicious and maddening familiarity of one's mother's love. Kate struggles to help her mother achieve better health, in order to avoid the imprisonment that nursing homes provide. The book is an obsessive blend of the personal and the political (which is Millett's exceptional forte), and the beauty of her writing, of her imagery, of her universality of experience all make this a remarkable memoir. Not only for the conveyance of why nursing homes are such dumping grounds of people, but also because of the beauty of reestablishing a relationship with one's own mother in the time before the mother's final days. It is this graceful, simple love between a mother and a daughter which makes this book shine, and which makes its universality so potent. This is a biography to hold close to the heart, long after the final pages.

Kate Millett has an easy to read style. Her family whom she loves fight back and forth over how to care for their Mother.....when her health declines....... The book also covers Kates political thoughts which always seem to blame Republicans....Since I am a Republican....I disagree with her but I think the book is important because it shows the fear that her mother and any older person must have when they think their family is ignoring what they want and treat them like children.I hope Kate Millett gets some press on this book......it deserves it......and everyone should read it....