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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The holidays are coming. Maybe you've been distracted by the disastrous hurricanes or the sudden outbreak of winter weather. But Thanksgiving is not that far away. That dinner often sits on the back burner because, unlike multi-generational family get-togethers around Christmas, it's supposedly free of stress and anxiety. Don't you believe it! Thanksgiving may not…
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I have long espoused my Blitzkreig theory: When visiting grown children who don't live near you, Get In, Get Hugs, Get Out. I have perfected the two -day visit for weekends, holidays or stop-bys on the way to somewhere else. I have been vindicated about my approach. Science is with me, and the time…
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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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We are midway into the Holiday week. The family feasting and gift-giving parts are behind us. Behind us, yes, but those of us who weren't present to see our presents unwrapped by our grown children or grandchildren still want to know that, hey, they liked it, and more importantly that it wasn't lost in the…
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Let me not count the many ways the pandemic has changed the way we live our lives–the holidays chief among them. Last year was the outlier when the pandemic was a full-blown menace–we hope never to repeat a Zoom-only family Thanksgiving again. This year we would have liked to return to our usual family traditions–some…
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We are on the cusp of setting a totally new tradition for our family's Thanksgiving. It's time. We are no longer young parents. Our kids are middle-aged adults; they have children who are young adults. Extended family members are growing frail and need special attention. I, who usually embrace change, don't like the changes that…
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I have a moment of hesitation every time I step up to do something I used to do before the pandemic: Fly on an airplane; ride the subway; eat in a restaurant; have a dinner party with several friends. Now Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and with it inter-family negotiations over what it will be…
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Labor Day Weekend is a chance to step back and take stock as our kids and grandkids make their way through various transitions. "Summer" is over. The worst of the pandemic and its quarantines is behind us and yet it lingers. Young-adult kids and grandkids are starting their school year with masks, social distancing and…
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We've all been there–gotten annoyed at our grown children. Maybe it was for not returning our text promptly, or forgetting their sister's birthday, or taking time off when they should have been buckling down at work. Or just plain not doing things the way we have always done them. Whatever. However much we love them,…
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