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: letting go

  • Wedding Blues: When the bride and groom break with family traditions

    Some of us dream (this writer excluded) of planning our child's wedding, especially if our child is the bride. Oh the bridal gown we'll buy, the party we'll plan, the food we'll serve, the band we'll hire, the flowers we'll choose. And if we have clear and happy memories of our own extravagantly traditional wedding,…

  • Observation: An early 20th Century philosopher’s take on parents and their grown children

    We cling to the joy we remember from our early child-rearing days "in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality." Thus wrote Philosopher and Logician Bertrand Russell in his essay, "How to Grow Old." The early 20th century "influencer" didn't stop there. He also touched on parents and their relationship to their grown children,…

  • Observation: Living within the limits of being a mother-in-law

    I was lucky. My husband didn't get along with his mother but I did. She didn't interfere (as my mother did) and, unlike most women of her generation (my mother, again) she never had a negative word to say about my pursuit of a career.  Not that I sought her out as a confidant. But…

  • Tracking Apps: Young adults need to grow into independence. Tracking them blocks that.

    "Almost all my friends track their college-age kids." This is my daughter-in-law speaking, though she is not among the trackers. She lives in a medium-size city far from the perils of major urban hubs. But her fellow parents, she says, want the reassurance that their young adult child arrived safely at wherever it is they…

  • The App World: Should we be tracking our grown children?

    Am I showing my age and my app ignorance? Well, I certainly felt the former and learned a lot about the latter from a Carolyn Hax column. The column dealt with a reader's query about tracking her young adult children–children who are in college and no longer living at home. The parent wrote that "EVERY…

  • Grandparenting: Do our kids want our advice about how to raise their kids?

    The question does not call for a "man bites dog" answer. Most of our adult children who are raising their own children do not want to be bombarded with our parenting advice. Not because our advice has no value. It's because they no longer want to be parented. They're the parents now! They'll ask if…

  • Empty Nesting: The college dropoff blues

    The college dropoff (freshman year version in particular) is a rite of passage as tearful as sending our firstborn to kindergarten and laden with plenty of meaning. Our kids are transitioning from the cosseted safety of home to the independence of young adult life. We're transitioning from controlling parents to advisory ones. In the moment…

  • Observation: Philip Galanes on our role as parents.

    When our children were young we were on the frontlines: Hyper-vigilant when it came to keeping them safe and confrontational when we feared others posed a threat. Even as our children grow into young adults, we have our super-protective swords at the ready. But it's time to back off. At least that's what Philip Galanes…

  • Empty Nest: Letting Go of our college kids.

    Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and for some parents, that means more than turkey: The freshman they dropped off at college just a few months ago will be returning home for a few days. Probably for the first time since they left in September.  My experience with this happened years ago and yet I still…

  • Grown Children and Their Romantic Partners: Are we allowed to express an opinion?

    As our young adult children move through their twenties and onward, chances are they've had at least one romantic relationship. And chances are that we the parents have met at least one of those romantic partners.  I look back at those years when my children were part of the dating scene (it was a while…