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

  • 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…

  • The Good Guests: What to do when we’re visitors in our child’s home.

    Those of us who have children living in other parts of the world–another country, another state–rub up against a special dilemma: Remembering that it's their home, not ours; that they set the "good housekeeping" rules. It's not easy since we make our presence felt whether we try to be low key or not.  Here are…

  • Re-Nesting: To have or have not a contract with your adult children

    Parents of 20-somethings–especially recent college graduates–are experiencing a steady march of children returning to the nest. It’s a hostile economy out there: difficult job market; horrendous credit crunch; rising prices for everything. And it’s not just the 20-somethings, as the reports noted in earlier blog entries make clear. But all that raises the question of…

  • Real Life: When the Kids Come Home

    We’re an exhausted little band of people–those of us who’ve had our grown children and their children visiting for the holiday. I don’t mean just for Thanksgiving dinner. I mean for an overnight or two. One friend emails: "We had all the kids here from Wednesday afternoon to Friday night. As I type it doesn’t…