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: loans to adult children

  • Your Money and Your Kids: Are they counting on a legacy?

    Some grown children may get spooked if they see their parents spending what they thought was going to be their legacy.

  • Lending Money: What to do when your adult child needs financial help

     These are hard times. The Great Recession is taking its toll–not only on our 401ks but, for some of us, on our jobs and worse, our children's jobs and financial well-being. Just to put things in perspective, a recent survey by Fidelity Investments found that 41 percent of U.S. households did not have emergency funds…

  • Money Matters: How we view the recession’s impact depends on how old we are

    As readers of this blog may know, I've got quite a collection here of studies done in Great Britain, Australia and other countries on how "the bank of mum and dad"  is faring in this economic downturn. Short answer: not well. To complement those reports, here's one from Pew on how our perspectives of the…

  • Money Matters: An Aussie take on what we can afford to give our adult kids

    The economic retrenchment is, as we know, global. We aren't the only families having to pull back financially, and that includes support for our grown children–be it paying off a college debt or helping with the down payment on a house. A report out of Australia mirrors what many here are experiencing.Evidently, the hard times…

  • Money Matters: What if the kids are over their heads in debt?

    It's one thing to struggle with your own fiscal problems–retirement looming, nest egg shrinking. But it's even worse to watch your kids fall into debt. What do you do about that?That's a question raised in a recent Washington Post column, which advises parents of grown children NOT to denude their own assets in an effort…

  • Money Matters: Generic guidelines for those fiscal apron strings

    Advice on the on-going debate over offering fiscal help to adult children when they are young and struggling.

  • Money Matters: Hard Hit and Hating It

    Many of us who have grown children have been hit hard financially by the economic crisis. Money we thought we'd have to live comfortably on and still help out our adult children is gone. Is that changing our relationship with our adult children? Some of us may be worried about becoming dependent on them, or…

  • Money Matters: Helping the kids till it hurts

    For many of us, gone are the days when we could open our wallets with ease and help our grown children when they were in need–paying off a college loan, helping with the down payment on a house or even defraying everyday living expenses. Now our 401ks are half of what they were, the value…

  • Money Matters: When the kids face foreclosure

    To lend or not to lend when your grown children face losing their home. Not an easy call–especially if your own fiscal well being is greatly diminished. Here's some general advice on the subject from a Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary. Singletary is answering a question posed by a sister about saving her brother's house…

  • Money Matters: Helping the kids with their expenses

    Sally is feeling good about how she's handling the helping hand she gives her adult son: She's offered to pay for day care. Her son is in the middle of the struggle years–finished with graduate school but just starting his career; ditto for his wife. Right how, with a one-year-old, costs are suddenly high [day…