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: buying a house

  • Money Matters: Staying on the job to help the kids out

    One friend is paying for her daughter's attempt to start a family through a surrogate pregnancy. The tab is high–$100,000 when all is said and done. Her husband is semi-retired and her daughter and son-in-law could never afford the tab. So she's continuing to work–"to pay the bill." At least, that what she says–that if…

  • Lending Money: What to do when your adult child needs financial help

     These are hard times. The Great Recession is taking its toll–not only on our 401ks but, for some of us, on our jobs and worse, our children's jobs and financial well-being. Just to put things in perspective, a recent survey by Fidelity Investments found that 41 percent of U.S. households did not have emergency funds…

  • Money Matters: How we view the recession’s impact depends on how old we are

    As readers of this blog may know, I've got quite a collection here of studies done in Great Britain, Australia and other countries on how "the bank of mum and dad"  is faring in this economic downturn. Short answer: not well. To complement those reports, here's one from Pew on how our perspectives of the…

  • Money Matters: An Aussie take on what we can afford to give our adult kids

    The economic retrenchment is, as we know, global. We aren't the only families having to pull back financially, and that includes support for our grown children–be it paying off a college debt or helping with the down payment on a house. A report out of Australia mirrors what many here are experiencing.Evidently, the hard times…

  • Money Matters: How to talk about money

    They've got tips–100 of them–for discussing money, an always touchy topic when it comes to talking to your adult kids without making them feel like you are muddling in their financial life. They are Kathryn and Captain Frugal who write a Money Saving Blog. Here are some of the tips aimed at the adult children…

  • Money Matters: Hard Hit and Hating It

    Many of us who have grown children have been hit hard financially by the economic crisis. Money we thought we'd have to live comfortably on and still help out our adult children is gone. Is that changing our relationship with our adult children? Some of us may be worried about becoming dependent on them, or…

  • Money Matters: Having less for the Little Ones (who are now big)

    I don't mean to be repetitious. It's just that the reality is all around us and everyone is feeling it: $3 trillion has seeped out and disappeared fromour 401ks and other savings or retirement accounts. For many of us, that loss wipes out money we had hoped would cover a downpayment for our kids' first house,…

  • Money Matters: Helping the kids till it hurts

    For many of us, gone are the days when we could open our wallets with ease and help our grown children when they were in need–paying off a college loan, helping with the down payment on a house or even defraying everyday living expenses. Now our 401ks are half of what they were, the value…

  • Re-Nesting: Moving home–to help us out

    Here's a twist on refilling the empty nest. In these tough economic times, families are piling in together to cut costs, but it isn't always kids moving back to have mom and dad help them out. The kids may move back in to help out with the parent's rent. Here's the recent story: "Last year,…

  • De-Nested: When adult kids move back home, politeness is strained.

    I'm a sucker for a new phrase, especially when it captures the definition of the moment. Here's my most recent find: Economy of gratitude. It refers to the breakdown in the way we treat each other–we being the parents and ourr adult children who have moved back into the family nest. It's when family members…