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: emerging adulthood

  • Observation: Philip Galanes on our role as parents.

    When our children were young we were on the frontlines: Hyper-vigilant when it came to keeping them safe and confrontational when we feared others posed a threat. Even as our children grow into young adults, we have our super-protective swords at the ready. But it's time to back off. At least that's what Philip Galanes…

  • Empty Nest: Letting Go of our college kids.

    Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and for some parents, that means more than turkey: The freshman they dropped off at college just a few months ago will be returning home for a few days. Probably for the first time since they left in September.  My experience with this happened years ago and yet I still…

  • Parenting Memories: Stolen moments with our grown children, and they with theirs.

    My daughter is aglow. We are on a FaceTime call but I can see the happiness radiating from her face. Her daughter, who started college this year, came home for a day. They took a drive into the country, went on a short hike, stopped to book shop, had lunch out. They talked about everything…

  • Rebalancing Acts: Following our kids’ cultural and health leads

    During the pandemic lockdown many of us experienced a strange shift in the balance between us and our grown kids: Instead of our previous parental controls, they were "ordering" us around–telling us we had to stay home, stop going out to buy groceries and order take-out food delivered. It came, of course, from an overabundance…

  • Observation: A dad realizes his daughter is all grown up. So does his mom.

    "And then suddenly you turn around and they are all grown up…" This is the lament I found on Facebook by a dad who posted a photo of his daughter dressed up for her high school's Senior Ball, looking sophisticated and ready to take on the world. The posting seemed to capture the moment the…

  • Anger Provocateurs: When relatives play favorites with our adult children.

    Hell hath no fury like a parent whose child has been treated unfairly by others. Or whose close relative favors one of their children over another. A wave of inchoate anger rises even when the children are adults and making their way in the world. A Social Qs column churned up this barrel of hurt.…

  • Daddy Indulgence: If we’re guilty of over-helping our young-adult children, is that bad?

    Scratch someone who doesn't have children and they'll probably tell you: Too much. That would be in answer to the question: Do parents do more than they should for their adult children. I had a single co-worker who dubbed my husband "Daddy Indulgence" for such "crimes" as paying for our children's college tuition. (We had…

  • Refilled Nests: Coronavirus, adult children and our no-longer-empty guest bedrooms

                                             painting: Edward Hopper (at National Gallery) Some of our grown kids have come home to ride out the Covid-19 crisis. We may be happy to have them under our roofs again and to provide safe shelter in the corona storm. But the impact on us is not negligible: Keeping the refrigerator stocked. Cooking bigger…

  • Helicopter Parenting: Does it end when our kids are adults?

    Does helicopter parenting end when our kids graduate from high school or enter the work force? Don't bet on it. But don't indulge in it either. Barnard College's  Natalie Friedman can bear eyewitness account of the dangers to our children's welfare of over-parenting or having a bulldozer or snowplow parent–or even a lawnmower. So many…

  • Emerging Adults: Big adjustments ahead as teenage kids morph into independent adults.

    He's a psychologist who specializes in adolescence but Carl Pickhardt also has a lot to say about the next stage: young adults (roughly twenty-somethings)  and their natural and inevitable  independence from us, their loving and occasionally controlling parents. In a recent newsletter, he laid out the basic changes in our relationship with our grown-up young…