PenPenWrites
parenting blog, memoir notes, family punchlines & more
recent posts
- Sharing Family History: What one generation owes another.
- Gifting and Getting: A wish list for gifts from grandkids
- Blast from the Past: Our youthful slang is no longer passé.
- Money Matters: Data on how the Bank of Mom and Dad is doing?
- After the Minneapolis Killings: Nora Ephron on parenting grown children
© 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
- Sharing Family History: What one generation owes another.
- Gifting and Getting: A wish list for gifts from grandkids
- Blast from the Past: Our youthful slang is no longer passé.
- Money Matters: Data on how the Bank of Mom and Dad is doing?
- After the Minneapolis Killings: Nora Ephron on parenting grown children
© 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: grandparenting
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When our Grands reach school age, their parents–our grown children–may be willing to let them take a trip with us. One friend took her 11-year-old granddaughter to Paris. She made a deal with her: She would make sure the granddaughter could get the comfort food of her choice at dinner every night [plain pasta with…
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The Holidays may still seem far away, but that isn't the frantic take you get from the Halls of Commerce. Not only is Black Friday starting earlier, the holiday decorations are already up in many malls and along city streets. But I digress: If you're looking for a gift for one of your little Grands–for…
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I haven't added to my Notes to Self in well over three years. But I came across this suggestion from Susan Adcox at About.com.Grandparents: "Overlook it. If you can't overlook it, forgive it." I take it to mean we shouldn't get hung up on our grown children's indiscretions, forgetfulness (in, say, calling us) or outright…
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When my daughter asked if I would come up and "babysit" her daughter–my Grand–for three days, she had her reasons. She had to travel for her job. Ordinarily, if she had to be away, she and my son-in-law would patch together a series of babysitters and play dates to cover the time away. But it…
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When Lola's daughter had Lola's first set of grandchildren, Lola was just a tiny bit jealous of the other set of grandparents. They had sold their condo in Florida and moved to Nashville to be close to their only son and his children. They were there to do the burping and diaper changing; they were…
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When my granddaughter was 8, she and her parents lived in Berlin for a year. It wasn't easy having meaningful or even fun conversations with her when we were limited to a time certain and to a not-in-the-same-room factor. One couldn't just wait for an entry point to make its way known. I did discover…
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When we were young parents with small children, paterfamilias and I suffered from a strange paradox. We would pay good money to hire a babysitter so we could go out to dinner without our children. But then we would spend the better part of that dinner hour talking about our children–their amazing strengths, the anathema…
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This is a story Pat, who babysits her four grandchildren two days a week, tells me: She is careful–very careful–about housekeeping on the days she spends in her son's and daughter-in-law's house. If she sees dirty dishes in the sink, she'll clear them. If she sees a floor that's particularly dirty–and with four kids aged…
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An English study looks at grandparent attitudes toward interfering in the discipline of their grandchildren. Hint: they are much like ours.
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