Jane Adams has narrated 2 audiobooks on Listento.it by 2 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us.
When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us
Summary
How do today's parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our 20- and even 30-somethings who can't seem to grow up? Who can we turn to when the kids aren't all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed? In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a generation that "did everything right" and expected its children to grow into happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven't, at least not yet - and meanwhile, we're letting their problems threaten our health, marriages, security, freedom, careers, retirement, and other family relationships. With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to "fix" their adult children - Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own.
©2003 Jane Adams (P)2016 Tantor
The Mistress's Daughter
Summary
Before A.M. Homes was born, she was put up for adoption. Her birth mother was a 22-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with children of his own. The Mistress's Daughter is the story of what happened when, 30 years later, her birth parents came looking for her. Homes, renowned for the psychological accuracy and emotional intensity of her storytelling, tells how her birth parents initially made contact with her and what happened afterward (her mother stalked her and appeared unannounced at a reading) and what she was able to reconstruct about the story of their lives and families. Her birth mother, a complex and lonely woman, never married or had another child, and she died of kidney failure in 1998. Her birth father, who initially made overtures about inviting her into his family, never did. The story then jumps forward several years, to when Homes opens the boxes of her mother's memorabilia. She had hoped to find her mother in those boxes, to know her secrets, but no relief came. She became increasingly obsessed with finding out as much as she could about all four parents and their families, even hiring researchers and spending hours poring through newspaper morgues, municipal archives, and genealogical Web sites. This brave, daring, and funny book is a story about what it means to be adopted, but it is also about identity and how all of us define our sense of self and family.
©2007 A.M. Homes (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Books on Tape. All rights reserved.