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: guest privileges
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Summer vacations are on the horizon. If we spent vacation time away with our grown kids and their kids last year or in pre-Covid times, we may have had vacations that were lively and refreshing–or they may have been filled with cooking, cleaning and a lot of babysitting. We may have come home with nothing…
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Pieter de Hooch@National Gallery Is it safe for our grandchildren to visit us or for us to visit them? For the past two and a half months of the coronavirus pandemic, visits have been limited to waves from backyard windows or FaceTime calls. For most of us–those of us who don't live with our grown…
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An email from a friend arrived in my inbox this week. He was soliciting advice. Here's his question. Our older son notified us by text that he and his wife could come over for Easter Sunday dinner. We dutifully dropped $50 on primo lamb chops, wild rice, asparagus, a freshly baked pie, and a six-pack…
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Common sense rules of understanding for the adult child who moves back home.
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All kinds of past grievances can surface when our children come home for a long visit. Is it our job to put out the fire?
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Changing of the guard: When dinner is at a grown kid’s house, we’re no longer in charge of the what we’ll talk about.
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An expert suggests ways to ease the path when grown children stop talking to each other–or to you.
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The first morning of our weekend visit to Uber Son and family, we got up early: Soccer, soccer, soccer was the all-day plan. Paterfamilias was off to the four-game tournament the oldest Grand was playing in. PF was over-the-top excited about watching his grandson on the soccer pitch. All day: Couldn't be a better plan.…
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I didn't mean to eavesdrop. It couldn't be helped. I was sitting at Panera's having a late morning latte when a trio of friends sat down at a table next to me and started chatting. In my defense, they were using their outside voices–or close to it. I started picking up on the conversation when…
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When Pat and Dick's children were toddlers, their home became Christmas Holiday central. Her parents, who lived in the Midwest, came and stayed for three days. Pat's brother and sister-in-law drove down from New England, Dick's brother flew in from California. Everyone made it to the little white clapboard church across the street where Pat…
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