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: mother-daughter stuff

  • Our Daughters’ Naming Rights: Free at last to choose what name to use when they marry.

    There is something primal about my generation's desire to see a family name carried forward through marriage. In its simplest, most traditional form this means our sons marry, have children, and bingo! the name moves down the line. The wife's family? Well, they lose the name game. The link to their family history is broken.…

  • Leaving a Legacy: A push to get our storytelling act together

    I have been working on a memoir for several years–writing sections, taking breaks, losing heart, returning to the work.  Anyone who's tried crafting anything personal knows what I'm talking about: So easy to lose confidence and stall out. The memoir is about my career–a legacy for my grandkids so they can know the times and…

  • Observation: The profound value of mothers to their adult daughters

      As Mother's Day nears, what more touching message could we hear than this one from author Abigail Tucker via an e-newsletter from NYTimes staff editor, Sarah Wildman. Only human females and a handful of long-lived whales have a lengthy life phase when reproduction ends and the time arrives to pitch in with the grandkids,”…