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: holidays and adult children
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With all the talk of toxic family gatherings and the politcal frights of the past year and for the coming one, let’s step out to revel in All will be well. Someday. Hopefully within our lifetime. Here is holiday comfort from the meditative Tara Brach: “May your moments over these days be filled with presence,…
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All families have their holiday traditions. For those of us who plan a full family get-together over an extravagant holiday feast, there may be a surprise in store when our grown kids head home. They may bring a new love interest, someone who may be a possible new partner in their life. Or they may…
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I must have been prescient when I wrote my previous post about people who didn’t want to be with family on Thanksgiving. That wasn’t me, of course. I was looking forward to traveling to my son’s house and being with my son, daughter, their spouses and my grandchildren. Grandpups, too. I was in fine fettle…
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The holidays were barely over when the calls for help started pouring into Jane Adams help line. Parents of adult children had had a rough time during the "joyous" December celebrations. Adams, a social psychologist, reports that she had more inquiries for coaching "from parents whose grown kids disappointed them by not showing up, blaming…
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At a coffee with my friend C a week before Thanksgiving, she put her head in her hands and said, "I'm already tired." Now, C's husband does most of the Thanksgiving cooking but C does the cold dishes plus all the prep work–the constant shopping trips to supermarkets and farm markets and cleaning the house…
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Here they come again: The holidays and their feasts. As parents of adult children (and possibly as grandparents as well) we have our expectations of how joyous Thanksgiving dinner or the long weekend of togetherness will be–or how stressful and difficult. Whether we're hosting or another family member is, our grown children have their concerns…
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'Tis almost the end of the season to revel in summer vacations with our grown kids and possibly grandkids. It's also the start of thinking about next year or a winter-holiday getaway with the kids. So, here's an underlying truth to think about. Whether we're paying all or some of the tab, traveling to an…
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All families have their holiday traditions. For those of us who plan for a full family get-together over an extravagant holiday feast, there may be a surprise in store when our grown kids head for home. They may bring a new love interest, someone who may be a possible new partner in their life. Or…
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"If it isn't one thing–it's another! It's always something.” Thus spake Gilda Radnor (SNL circa 1970s) as Roseanna Roseanadana. I think of that line now as summer vacations loom. Some of us may loll on beaches or travel the country without our children and grandchildren. Others of us, though, are planning intergenerational get-togethers. In today's…
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The Holidays are upon us. May there be peace and joy in our lives and in family get-togethers. But just in case, here's a column I wrote a few months ago about the behavioral stresses at play when our adult children are in our company for extended periods of time. May we all relax and…
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