Sybil Lockhart

Mother in the Middle is a poignant memoir of a woman taking care of her young daughters and her mother, who has early-onset Alzheimer’s. Sybil has a background in neurobiology, so her observations of her daughters’ mental growth and her mothers’ regression are particularly insightful.

This book does a fine job of weaving in the scientific background to the story. At times it does get a little too scientific, but for the most part it is very well done.

I am really impressed by the show more honesty Sybil Lockhart displays in this book. On the whole, Sybil is a saint in her caring for her mother, but she explains all her emotions and reactions – even the ones that you’d hesitate to confide to a close friend. It’s wonderful validation to those of us that struggle with not-quite-sainthood in caring for aging relatives.

I was a bit disappointed that the memoir was unbalanced, telling us far more about the mother’s regression than the daughters’ development. I would have been even more intrigued if the girls’ growth was highlighted a little more. show less

It's too bad she had to quit her neurobiology job, because she ruined a perfectly good memoir with irritating insertions about what was going on biologically with her mother, who developed Alzheimers, her child, and her to-be-born child. If you're interested in the biology behind those things, you'd read a scientific book, not a memoir; and if you're expecting a memoir, you have to skip all those pretentious passages. All of that aside, the memoir was quite good and well-done. So I'd rate it show more a 1 and a 4, ending up as a 3 1/2 on the strength of the memoir writing. show less

a good book for a selective audience. Sybil is a biologist, has a new child and her mom Ruth starts forgetting whole conversations. It takes a while to get through the denial and have her tested and she has alzheimers. Sybil takes us through the paces of how life becomes when she is needed by both ends of the spectrum.

Als bij haar moeder Alzheimer wordt geconstateerd, besluit een neurologe en jonge moeder een groot deel van de zorg op zich te nemen