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© Penelope Lemov and Parenting Grown Children, 2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given.

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    The Gift Gaffe: Tips on giving presents to our loved ones (and others).

    When she was browsing around her local bookstore, my friend Kathy found herself staring at adorable baby books and plush baby toys. She wanted to scoop them up and send them to her year-old grandniece whose birthday was in a few days.
    She resisted the scoop. Instead, she took photos of one or two books and two or three plush toys, texted them to her niece (the baby’s mother) and asked: Would the baby like these?
    Her niece’s reply surprised her. Not the part where she said the baby would love the books and toys. It was the thank you that was included in the note. Her niece appreciated her aunt asking about whether the proposed gift would be something the baby would enjoy, that the family could use.

    Kathy got the backstory from her sister. The grandfather–Kathy’s sister’s ex-husband–had been showering his granddaughter with gifts: a tricycle, a play kitchen, an indoor slide. The baby was at least a year or two away from using these gifts and the family was tight on storage space. What little extra room there was in the back of their garage was now taken up with the bulky play things. Would the family even remember the make-believe stove and sink was in the back of the garage two years from now?

    Kathy’s approach isn’t limited to baby gifts. Most of us are occasionally guilty of sending a present to a loved one that we think they’ll like. Maybe we’re at a street fair or traveling and see a set of hand-crafted wooden bowls that we’re sure our son and his wife would love. Or a Turkish rug with just the right colors for their living room. Or a painting that’s in the style of their other artwork. It could be that if you do offer these treasures up as gifts, the bowls will be used, the rug unfurled, and the painting hung. But maybe they miss the mark. Instead of pleasure, they’re a pain.

    Borrowing a page from Kathy, it seems better to forego the joy of spontaneity and, given the tech wonders readily available on our phones, let the potential giftee preview what you have in mind. That way, the sweater you want to give your teenage grandson for Christmas will actually be worn and even loved.

    painting: Berthe Morisot

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Empty Nest: Sighs, thoughts and fears on the college drop off

    In a NYT Opinion piece, Jennifer Weiner shared the joys and fears of dropping her younger daughter at college to start her freshman year.

    Parents of incoming freshmen at every school get versions of the same emails: about scheduling your kid’s move-in time and filling out forms for the health center and making sure to buy the extra-long sheets.

    Parents of daughters get an extra assignment. It isn’t written down, but we all know what it is. In between buying shower caddies and LED lights, we have to give our girls a refresher course on Rape Prevention 101. Don’t leave your drink unattended at a party. Don’t walk home late at night by yourself. Make sure someone knows where you are. Watch out for your friends.

    When it came time to say goodbye and leave her daughter in her dorm room (bed made, clothes unpacked), Weiner reflected on the milestone of the moment:

    “Make good choices!” I called. I drove home, a little sad, mostly proud, thinking: My work here is done. I knew it wasn’t really true — she’ll still come home on breaks, and she’ll still need me — but it was a milestone. My kind, smart, big-hearted daughter was ready to spread her wings, ready to meet all the people and do all the things.

    Weiner’s topic in the opinion piece wasn’t just another sharing of the emotions many of us feel when we drop a child off at college. Her bigger concern–and the point of her column–was the anger she felt about the Cornell rape accusation, the botching of the investigation into it and how far we have not come in protecting young women since Weiner was a college student.

    For women who’d gone to college decades ago, the ones who’d spent their undergraduate years marching and protesting and signing petitions and occupying buildings — the ones, that is, like me — the fury was laced with a kind of bewildered exhaustion. How is this still happening? Shouldn’t things be better by now? How could all of our activism have brought about so little change?

    Painting: Paul Gauguin

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Bank of Mom and Dad: When is a loan a gift or vice versa

    Housing’s a bear for our kids who aren’t homeowners yet. If we offered a little help with the down payment, that might make a mortgage possible. It’s not just housing that’s causing angst. If we helped to pay off a car loan or covered their health insurance, that might ease their anxiety levels.

    When we are fortunate enough to afford to help, many of us derive satisfaction from tapping our savings to offer our kids a financial boost. What it comes down to is giving them a sliver of our savings now rather than later when we won’t be around to see them enjoy it.

    If we are going to be financial boosters, should that help come in the form of a loan or gift? If we go the loan route, we have to put our banker hats on: Write a contract, set repayment dates, spell out the harms if they default. Unappetizing at best.

    Michelle Singletary, the personal financial columnist for the Washington Post, put it this way in a column:

    • Give gifts, not loans:
    • When generosity comes with strings attached, the situation can get ugly.
    • That’s why we need ground rules.

    Here’s a paraphrased version of her gift-giving ground rules. She designed them for friends as well as family. I’ve adapted them for those of us who are offering financial aid to our kids.

    • Never a lender be. Only give what you can afford to never receive back. Expecting repayment can ruin your relationship or leave you monitoring (and resenting) the way your kids spend their money–especially if there’s a splurge involved.
    • Ditch the control gear: Before you give a gift, it’s reasonable to ask standard, up-front questions about how your funds will be used. You should do your due diligence to make sure you aren’t enabling bad financial behavior. However, once you hand over a gift, don’t micromanage it.
    • Cut out the middleman: If you want to control the way your kids use your gift–say, it’s money to pay off a car loan and that’s the only way you want your gift used–pay the creditor directly. It’s better than attaching a string–“this is for your car loan”–and then policing whether the middleman (your kid) pays down the loan.
    • Go thank-less. “Are you overly concerned about getting credit for your generosity?” is a question Singletary raises. She suggests we veer away from needing regular acknowledgements of our largesse.

    On this latter point, Singletary notes that Proverbs reminds us: “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth.” And that Matthew cautions: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”

    To that I would add this: Blessed are those of us who are able to give the gift and trust our children to use it as they see best.

    Sculpture: Auguste Rodin, “Le Penseur”

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Right-sizing Tips: DIY decluttering so your kids won’t have to do it.


    Towels with grease stains; jam jars in amusing shapes; books started but never finished. There’s stuff hanging around our closets, basements, and bookshelves that is of questionable use and doesn’t, as Marie Kondo’s KonMari method famously espouses, “spark joy.” And yet there the clutter sits, ready for a new home–be it a gift to our kids, a donation to a charity or a toss into a trash bag.

    My personal path through this involuntary collection of stuff came when I moved from a suburban house to a city apartment. I didn’t have time to thank discarded items for their service. My mantra was simpler: A bag a day, even if the bag on some days was lunch size. I recently recommended a variation of my mantra to a friend who had to move herself and her huge book collection across the country. She was almost paralyzed by the enormity of her task but says by cutting the task down to one box a day she got a handle on it. Which is, I guess, the secret to “bag a day.” It cuts the task down into do-able bites.

    There are other tips for downsizing, rightsizing or decluttering–which is the ultimate gift to our kids who won’t have to deal with overstuffed cupboards and closets when we’re unable to. Here are some ideas from a Washington Post article with a promising title, “How to let go of things you don’t use and declutter your life.” The article has a lot to say about the psychology behind holding onto stuff that’s no longer useful. But I’ll cut through that clutter and just list some of the tips for tackling the job.

    The One In/One Out Rule: If you’re faced with, say, a box of empty jam jars, prune down the number by choosing one to save, one to recycle till the number of jars is more manageable.

    Donation Station. It can be a box, a bag or any kind of container that can hold items that can be reused–bring joy–to someone else. Books in good condition can go from donation station to a public library (many accept donations and resell the books for cash) or to a Little Free Library where neighborhood readers share books. Keeping a donation station year-round can help keep clutter from accruing.

    Textile Recycle. Not all no-longer-worn clothes are appropriate for resale or for donation to a used clothes shop. Several stores accept stained or ripped clothing for their textile recycle programs. Eileen Fisher, Madewell and H&M are three outlets that have such programs and there are more online.. such as Blue Jeans Go Green or TerraCycle.”

    Throw It Away. Not everything can be reused, recycled or regifted. If a favorite glass pitcher has a broken handle, it’s okay to put it in a trash bag. No judgment. No guilt. And a less cluttered closet.

    Painting: Robert Rauschenberg, “Fulcrum”


  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Passport Collectors: Our Gen Z kids are traveling to the future.

    A 20-something in my family texted to check on his great grandparents’ emigration paths: Had my mother come here from Poland and when? How about my dad? Poland or Russia?
    The flurry of interest had little to do with the tracing of roots. He’s doing what a growing number of Gen Zers are busying themselves with: Collecting passports.
    He’s already got a good shot at a Canadian passport: His grandmother on his mother’s side was born there. But the Polish connection, though a lot less likely, would be especially valuable. It would translate into an EU passport.

    He’s not alone in his passport mania. Another 20-something in my family is also deep into research on alternative passports. That means half of my grandchildren are ranging around seeking alternatives or additions to their US. passports.

    To put my family’s activities into a broader perspective, Newsweek carried an article that came right to the point: “Why Dual Citizenship Is The New American Dream.” Its findings:

    • A growing number of Americans are looking at dual citizenship as a fallback plan in times of widespread uncertainty and deepening political divisions
    • A Harris Poll survey found that four in ten U.S. adults (42 percent) have considered or plan to relocate outside the country to improve their quality of life or financial position.
    • Among Gen Zers, this number went up to 63 percent, while 52 percent of millennials were considering moving abroad.

    My first thought was that my grandkids may become part of a brain drain from the U.S. They’re looking for options in case things here deteriorate even more than they have. But that was me talking to myself about my world view.

    When I asked them why they were doing this, I got somewhat different answers.

    • He wants the passports in order to say he has them. It turns out, passport collecting is a thing for Gen Z,
    • Also, an EU passport would let him live and work in Europe relatively easily, if he wanted to
    • She wants to be free to study and live abroad.
    • They both say alternative passports would make travel abroad easier and less visa-filled.
    • Neither of my grandkids is a stranger to traveling and living abroad. So they are comfortable with the idea of being citizens of the world, with passports that let them be just that.

    For most of modern history, the American Dream was rooted in one place: America. But that’s shifting,” a director at The Harris Poll, noted in an interview with Newsweek.

    • “While dual citizenship used to be reserved for retirees, the wealthy, or those with strong family ties abroad, it’s now a growing goal for middle-class Americans who want more control over their future.
    • It marks a real mindset shift—less about pledging allegiance to one nation, more about staying agile in a world that feels increasingly unstable.

    “Dr. Kristin Surak, at the London School of Economics, turns her eye on recent history to share a perspective on what’s happening with younger adult generations.

    • “What were once seen as stable democracies no longer look so stable to many people. Brexit led a number of UK citizens to search for an Irish grandparent and take up Irish citizenship to retain the benefits of EU membership.
    • The extreme politicalisation of US politics over the past several years has had a similar effect of driving people to look for exit options.”
    • “They may not be planning to move immediately–or at all–but many applicants want the peace of mind of knowing there’s a way.”

    painting: Eugène Boudin, Jetty and Wharf at Trouville, 1863,

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Good Counsel: What do we do with our Free Advice?

    A hundred Free Advice buttons arrived in a plastic bag as part of a donation to the thrift store — New4You — where I volunteer. I couldn’t resist adorning myself with a few of them.

    Surely this was the button message meant for my blog readers. After all, most of us have stored up plenty of advice in the form of wisdom and experience to share with our adult children. But the question I raise time and again in posts is, should we offer it? As our children have blown past their toddler years and teen times, we have been morphing too. We’ve had to go from advisors–don’t put that dirty stick in your mouth; those shorts are too short to wear in public–to a counseling role. That is, to oversimplify, if they come to us today and ask us if they should dye their hair purple, we can feel free to say, “I’m a little slow on today’s styles, but purple’s never been your color.”

    I have passed the buttons around with much glee to friends and fellow volunteers with adult children. (Lemme know if you want one.) Some of us doubled over in laughter at the thought of wearing the button the next time we saw one of our children.

    But beyond the fun of it, these buttons hit home. I wish I could rejigger them to add just below the big green letters a note in smaller black type: But only when asked.

    photo:selfie

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    The Housing Squeeze: It’s top of mind for our kids

    Can I afford the rent? Will I ever be able to buy a house? These questions are top of mind for our Gen Z and Millennial kids who feel priced out of the housing market–and who may be part of the army of young adults flocking back to our previously empty nests. They may need to save on rent in order to come up with the cash for home ownership.

    The housing crunch is also leading to a generational divide. WSJ and several West Coast outlets see a fight over housing in San Francisco’s Marina district as not only pitting an older generation (long-time homeowners bent on protecting their neighborhoods from new multifamily housing) against a younger one (tired of NIMBY arguments about high-rise developments marring views). It may also be a sign of political fights to come.

    • In covering the contretemps over the Marina housing proposal, which calls for two high rises each around 20 stories high, the Business Insider took note of the older generation wanting to protect the look and style of its neighborhood, while the younger Gen Z and Millennials, desperate for reasonably priced housing, see the older generation as keeping them out of the housing market.
    • What’s happening in the Marina District is something of a microcosm of the housing crisis across the country.
    • Housing costs are the top political issue among voters aged 18 to 34, according to CNBC’s latest All-America Economic Survey. Some 50 million Gen Zs will be eligible to vote in the upcoming midterms.
    • While most lawmakers are homeowners — 80 percent, by one count — the youngest politicians are often renters, like the vast majority of Americans under 35. Others still live with their parents

    The issue has become urgent enough to push our youngish adults into running for office on a platform of housing affordability.

    This NYT article looked at a new generation of Millennial and Gen Z politicians who are making housing costs and affordability central to their campaigns because they experience the housing squeeze personally.

    • David Morales the youngest member of the Rhode Island Legislature and who is a renter, ran for mayor of Providence, RI, saying he wanted his city to be a place “where you don’t find yourself priced out when it’s time to renew your lease, a city that’s not dominated by luxury housing.”
    • Manny Rutinel, who is a Democratic state legislator who is running for Congress in Colorado, has been working in the state legislature on housing affordability issues. He told the Times:. “For people like me, this is deeply personal.” I’ve “watched my own rent go up 15 percent year over year. I’ve. seen my mom choose between keeping a roof over our heads and pay for essential medical procedures. I’m running for Congress to lower costs.”
    • Juliana Bennett, a 26-year-old Democrat on the City Council in Madison, Wis., who is running for State Assembly, puts the issue this way: “We can freeze the rent today, but we’ll still need 200,000 new homes tomorrow,”

    All I can say is, good on them and other candidates for doing something about their plight. If they can make some changes and get affordable housing built, they could help ease the housing crisis–and move out of their parents’ formerly empty nests.

    Painting: Rebecca Lemov

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Money Matters: The Big Hitch in passing our wealth to our heirs

    Here we are again: Looking at an issue we’d probably rather not think about. When it comes to our retirement savings and other accumulations of worldly goods, it’s no longer a given that, once we pass on, our kids and grandkids will be awash in newfound wealth or a modicum of cash. Unless we’re fabulously wealthy, there may not be much of our worldly goods left for them. Left, that is, after we age gracefully or not so gracefully out of this world,

    I’ve written a post here on the underlying falsity in headlines that forecast $68 trillion to $84 trillion in money and assets changing hands over the next two decades. That transfer does not account for the high cost of care as we age into less healthy bodies and minds. I feel like the canary in the coal mine–having faced down my share of “caregiving” costs for my spouse (but not yet for me)–and now I’m joined by the Washington Post, which ran this story

    As the cost of aging soars, families’ wealth is evaporating

    • Growing old is eroding the inheritance Americans hoped to leave behind
    • Many will have nothing to pass on.

    The Post findings are based on an analysis of the finances of thousands of seniors in the last decade of their lives. Using data from the federally funded Health and Retirement Study, the analysts found

    • For many families, the cost of care eats away much of what they had hoped to pass on.
    • Within a growing segment, elder care costs are not just diminishing their savings, but obliterating them.
    • The latter is even worse news for our adult kids. They may end up spending their own savings to cover our care.

    The major factors the Post lists for creating the proverbial perfect storm of loss include: .

    • We’re living longer. “Medical advances have made it possible to successfully manage many chronic diseases. But that has people paying for more years of care than in the past.”
    • Care has gotten increasingly expensive. “The costs of senior living facilities have soared. The median assisted-living rate increased 44 percent in five years, according to the CareScout surveys, nearly double the rate of inflation.
    • Demand exceeds supply. “The sheer size of the baby boomer generation is increasing the demand for resources and contributing to rising labor costs and, in turn, the price tag of long-term care.
    • ICE isn’t helping. Neither are low rates of pay. There is “a growing caregiver shortage across health care.

    Not the kind of summer reading we’d like to linger over in our lounge chairs.

    I’d love to end this post with a “Here’s What You Can Do About It” advisory. Yes, upping the savings can help, but there are limits. There is no way of knowing how much we’ll need. Or, as the Post story puts it, there is an inherent uncertainty in how much is enough.

    • Will someone die of a heart attack at age 75? Or will they need 10 years of the most intensive and expensive care?
    • Nearly 1 in 5 people will require high-intensity care for more than three years, according to 2025 research from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research.

    I’m going to close this post and get back to reading The Director by Daniel Kehlman. It may be grim but it’s more diverting than checking on my nest egg.

    Painting: Arshile Gorky, “Gorky and His Mother”

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Generational Gap: Is politeness outmoded?

    The older we are — make that the more mature we are — the more likely we are to lean in on the politeness tropes of “please” and “thank you.” Before we travel, some of us even make it a point to learn how to say “por favor” or “takk” or “arigato,” depending on where we’re lucky enough to be going.

    I hear occasional complaints that “thank you” (TY in text talk) has morphed into “no problem” (NP if you’re texting). “No problem,” however, is very much a means of being polite. But there are signs of a generational split in how we express politeness or how we use the terms we associate with being a gracious person.

    Discontent along these lines came in a communique to the NYTimes’ Social Q’s column. The ever-polite and reasonable Philip Galanes was asked by a pair of grandparents to comment on the failure of their adult son and his spouse to teach their son —the grandparent’s 5-year-old grandson —to say “please” and “thank you” at appropriate moments. Have times changed?

    It turns out there is research on the use of politeness terms among Gen Zers.

    • Sociologists at UCLA found that younger people use words like “please” much less frequently in casual conversation than older generations and that they tend to use it strategically.
    • The study, published in Social Psychology Quarterly, explained the more strategic use of “please” this way: “Whether passing the butter or driving someone to the airport, non-strangers say “please” to each other to sweeten a request when they know the other is likely unwilling, either because they have resisted already or because they are busy doing something else.”
    • The findings suggest less effort is put into teaching prescriptive, “one-word-fits-all” principles; there is more focus on how to be sensitive to the particulars of a situation.
    • “Any generic rule – like saying “please” and “thank you” – doesn’t take into account the specific situation,” one of the researchers reported. It “may not always indicate respect or politeness.”

    Galanes’s answer to the offended grandparents mirrored these findings:

    “Many young parents are teaching their children manners…by modeling polite behavior for them and with gentle reminders. There are fewer barking commands….It focuses on the spirit of politeness, rather than its performance.”

    As to correcting the grandson —a point raised by the grandparents who made it their business to do so —the gist of Galanes’s advice was to butt out and just enjoy the company of their grandchild, a lack of “TY” notwithstanding.

    painting: Pierre Bonnard, “One Summer Afternoon”

  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Good Housekeeping: What to do when their’s is lousy

    We walk into our kid’s apartment and, yuck, there’s cat hair covering the sofa, dustballs in the bathroom and greasy fingerprints all over the refrigerator. Are we within our “rights” –are we exercising “good judgment”–so say something. Or, if not say something, do something like ask if we can treat them to a deep clean?

    To judge by reader responses to this point in a Carolyn Hax column, this is another “Keep your mouth shut” area. It’s as charged as comments on an adult child’s weight, hairstyle or the way they dress.

    The mom in Hax’s column was concerned that her daughter’s messy apartment was not just a matter of poor housekeeping but a health threat. Would it be okay, the mom asks, to offer a one-time clean-up service?

    Here’s what Hax and others had to say about the urge to butt in.

    HAX:

    • Yeah, I see no role for you here. Anything can be a “health issue at some point” — including excessive cleanliness — so it’s not a magic portal into her business.

    READERS:

    • The desire to not be judged for petty housekeeping stuff is the No. 1 reason I dread my neat-freak mother-in-law’s visits. If you want your daughter to want you to visit, then keep your yap shut.
    • My mom’s addendum to the “keep your mouth shut” advice is “and your wallet open.” Obviously this is only if you are financially secure enough, but I think a one-time, “You work so hard. I would love to help. If you want to book a cleaning service once a month, I’d be happy to cover it,” would be okay. Best delivered if/when she herself shows some frustration.
    • My daughter was thrilled when I offered to pay for housekeeping. I waited until she brought it up by apologizing for how dirty her apartment was — but once she opened that door, I told her that I understood how busy she was, how hard keeping up must be and offered to pay for a one-time service. She accepted. Twenty years later, she has a busy job and two kids, so I still offer to pay for a housekeeper once in a while. It’s what she requests for Christmas.

    HAX:

    • And no to the cleaning-service offer. There’s only one context in which it’s not judgy, and that’s when there’s a life-event connection. New home (housewarming gift), new child, surgery, huge project, etc. Or, of course, if she complains about having to clean.

    Painting: Frank Auerbach