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: money matters

  • Money Matters: When our heirs get ahead of themselves (and us).

    We have an elderly cousin. He never married and lives alone in a Park Avenue apartment where the walls are lined with old paintings that may or may not be worth a small fortune. His closest relatives (besides us and some second cousins) are two nephews. One of them has struggled financially, and our cousin…

  • Money Matters: Can we control the gifts rich relatives give our kids?

    We're a protective species. When it comes to our kids, we want fair play in all things, even when it's only a matter of gifts from family members. Or maybe I should say, especially when it's gifts from family members and even more especially when those relatives happen to be rich. We may not want…

  • The Grandchild IOU: Can we sue if our kids don’t reproduce?

    Here's the premise: After we've helped support our adult children through college and early work years, they (and their spouse)  owe us grandkids. If they don't deliver, they should pay us back. Moreover, we can sue them if they don't fulfill their part of the next-generation equation.  Hah! A laughable notion, right? But in India,…

  • Our Children’s Love Lives: What to do when we object to their choice for a mate.

    We're not always happy with our child's choice of their future spouse or significant other. Our reservations about them may not be centered on the old standby, "No one is good enough."  We may have valid concerns about the future mate's values, behavior or distressing cultural differences. Unless there are signs of physical or emotional…

  • Leaving a Legacy: Is there a fair way to divide our assets?

    The two most boring words in a parent's vocabulary: Estate Planning. Within that world, the most volatile words are Unequal Shares.  Whether we have a gargantuan billion-dollar estate to divvy up among our children or just a small savings account to apportion (or somewhere between those two extremes), we may have reasons to deviate from…

  • Money Matters: Grown children and the financial intelligence gap

    A letter to a financial expert asking for advice about an inheritance was not your usual request. The question came from a woman whose father-in-law left her 29-year-old daughter—his granddaughter–a sizeable fortune in a trust that was currently being managed by her daughter's father. When the daughter reaches 30, however, she is eligible to manage…

  • Money Matters: When sibling rivalry crosses the helping hand

    Many of us take great pleasure in helping out our children financially. If we have the wherewithal we're likely to help them with a downpayment to buy a house. (Roughly 20 percent of U.S. homeowners received gifts or loans to help them buy a home, according to Money Magazine, and most of that money came…

  • Post Pandemic Issues: Can we close our helping hand to our non-vaxxed kids

    The country is riven by the vaccinated versus anti-vaxxers. Infection rates are escalating among the unvaccinated. That's allowing new, virulent variants to thrive, threatening our health and the return to normal, whatever that may be. What happens when the unvaxxed hits home, when it's not the rogue uncle or distant cousin but your adult child…

  • Daddy Indulgence: If we’re guilty of over-helping our young-adult children, is that bad?

    Scratch someone who doesn't have children and they'll probably tell you: Too much. That would be in answer to the question: Do parents do more than they should for their adult children. I had a single co-worker who dubbed my husband "Daddy Indulgence" for such "crimes" as paying for our children's college tuition. (We had…

  • Should we reboot the tough-love rules on loans to our kids during the corona crisis?

    As we welcomed in the new year of 2020, our adult kids were on a steady financial path: working, paying their rent, fiscally independent. Or they might have been in mid-struggle but showing promise. Then along came the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating effect on the economy. Our adult kids may now be in financial…