{"id":426,"date":"2010-11-12T13:15:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T13:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html"},"modified":"2010-11-12T13:15:22","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T13:15:22","slug":"what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html","title":{"rendered":"What I&#8217;m Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As some readers know, I had the privilege of spending time with my mother-in-law as she came to the end of her life (you can read lots more about this time&#8211;which I see as a time of great hope&#8211;in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Penelope-Ayers-Amy-Julia-Becker\/dp\/143636311X\/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1226356562&amp;sr=8-1\">Penelope Ayers: A Memoir<\/a>). Our daughter Penny is named for her grandmother, whom we now call Grand Penny, and Grand Penny knew how she wanted to die: at home, with minimal medical intervention, surrounded by the people she loved. It was a great gift to be with her in the months and then days leading up to her death, and it was a great gift to be able to say goodbye in her home rather than in a hospital room. It&#8217;s worth thinking about well in advance of the time when death becomes immanent. So I recommend &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/11\/11\/garden\/11dying.html\">A Final Cocoon: Dying at Home<\/a>&#8221; as one preliminary way to think about what it means to die well.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I was intrigued by Erica Jong&#8217;s article for the Wall Street Journal this week:&nbsp;&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article_email\/SB10001424052748704462704575590603553674296-lMyQjAxMTAwMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html\">Mother Madness<\/a>,&#8221; in which she discusses the need for working moms (and really all moms) to make choices that juggle the needs of home and work.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Finally, I found&nbsp;&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/politics\/article\/0,8599,2029356,00.html\">The Republican Revolution: Real This Time<\/a>,&#8221; from <i>Time<\/i>, a helpful look at how to combat the deficit rather than simply keep politicians in power.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As some readers know, I had the privilege of spending time with my mother-in-law as she came to the end of her life (you can read lots more about this time&#8211;which I see as a time of great hope&#8211;in Penelope Ayers: A Memoir). Our daughter Penny is named for her grandmother, whom we now call&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What I&#039;m Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I&#039;m Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As some readers know, I had the privilege of spending time with my mother-in-law as she came to the end of her life (you can read lots more about this time&#8211;which I see as a time of great hope&#8211;in Penelope Ayers: A Memoir). Our daughter Penny is named for her grandmother, whom we now call&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-12T13:15:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What I'm Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What I'm Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics - Thin Places","og_description":"As some readers know, I had the privilege of spending time with my mother-in-law as she came to the end of her life (you can read lots more about this time&#8211;which I see as a time of great hope&#8211;in Penelope Ayers: A Memoir). Our daughter Penny is named for her grandmother, whom we now call&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-11-12T13:15:22+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html","name":"What I'm Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-12T13:15:22+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-12T13:15:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/what-im-reading-articles-on-dying-at-home-working-moms-miscarriage-and-economics.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What I&#8217;m Reading: Articles on Dying at Home, Working Moms, and Economics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}