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
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Once they've graduated from college and gone off to seek their fortune, it can be disheartening to see them return home to live with mom and dad again. Psychologist Carl Pickhardt who writes about issues revolving around adolescents and post-adolescents–emerging adults is the latest term–has come up with eleven common challenges or reasons young adults…
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Once we've survived having adolescents in the house, we've got it made: we like to think parenting will be easier from here on out. And it will be. Sort of. But there is a continuum of adolescent rebellion that moves and morphs as our almost-grown kids move into the emerging adult years. As psychologist Carl…
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An east coast friend with a 23-year-old son who graduated from college this past spring writes: "Last spring after graduation, my son got a job offer with an accounting firm in Dallas. He had to study for his CPA, so he was home for the summer. One evening, a group of his friends came over.…
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The economy has wreaked havoc on those of us with recent college grads. One friend, whose son was fortuante enough to get a job in his professional field (accounting), reports that he is the only one among his set of four best friends to do so. And that's not untypical of the job situation for…
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Grown children in their 20s are a parenting challenge–not as challenging as adolescents. But still, they can be prickly and difficult. We think they're adults and they are, but they are stil going through stages of emotional growth and change. It may be hard for us to remember what was running around in our heads…
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I hear the complaints from friends with college-age kids and recent college grads in the house. They don't have the drive their father or mother had at their age, they aren't taking life seriously, they're lazy, willful, don't help around the house. Why it's just like having a teenager living in the house again. Only…
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Whether they are emerging adults in their 20s, settling down in their 30s or marching into middle age of their 40s and 50s, they are still our children, and that makes them a source of great joy and of dreadful anxiety. In a 2009 study of the relationships between adult children and their parents, Kira…
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My next door neighbor has three grown children, all of them in their 20s: a recent college grad, a part-time grad student/part time legal aide and one who is starting his own business. They all live at home with their parents. These neighbors are from Uruguay, and they see nothing unusual in having their grown…
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My friend Carol and I are starting out on a walk-and-talk when she blurts out this admission: "I'm a nervous wreck." Carol is normally a no-nonsense, assertive person; her remark is out of keeping with her hard-driving persona. The reason for the agita? Her 23-year-old son–he who graduated from a top college and has just…
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A friend, whose 23-year-old son has been looking for a job for six months now, has been through several stages of search anguish. He's a graduate of a top college where he got good grades. Last year, a long search brought forth a one-year, low-paying internship with a nonprofit group. That ended in August. He…
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