PenPenWrites
parenting blog, memoir notes, family punchlines & more
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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.
recent posts
© 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.
Category: aging parents
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As we age into our more mature years, many of us find our kids “parenting” us on the little things: telling us what to do about a checking account, giving us advice on how to dress for the weather or sharing the latest on what we should be eating for breakfast. Some of it’s helpful,…
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We've all heard of the sandwich generation–the one where we're on the hook for caring for our aged parents and our young children. What with many of us living longer and the needs of our adult children changing, there are two variations on the sandwich motif. One is the club sandwich: We're taking…
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Friends of ours just returned from four weeks in Italy. Days of sunshine. Mornings with una tazza di caffè. So delightful. They stayed at a four-story house their son and his family have rented: Their daughter-in-law was appointed to a prestigious job at an international agency headquartered in Rome and so the family relocated. What…
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A funny thing has happened on our way to becoming older parents: We may find that our grown kids have acquired wisdom and good sense. And now, as we age into our more senior adult years, they share their gravitas with us (though some of their over-protective counsel during Covid was a bit overbearing as…
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The two most boring words in a parent's vocabulary: Estate Planning. Within that world, the most volatile words are Unequal Shares. Whether we have a gargantuan billion-dollar estate to divvy up among our children or just a small savings account to apportion (or somewhere between those two extremes), we may have reasons to deviate from…
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During the pandemic, actor and screenwriter Emma Thompson hosted both her 22-year-old daughter and her 89-year-old mother. In The Guardian she wrote about the links between generations, on what we mean to and do for each other and of what she found to be "the miraculous luxury of three generations together." Here are some of…
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We are on the cusp of setting a totally new tradition for our family's Thanksgiving. It's time. We are no longer young parents. Our kids are middle-aged adults; they have children who are young adults. Extended family members are growing frail and need special attention. I, who usually embrace change, don't like the changes that…
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