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: pandemic behavior
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I was invited to a pool party. It was last minute. Casual. A text read, "You are invited to pool dip and also dinner tomorrow Saturday night here. Come anytime afternoon. Cupla folks you'll like." I went into panic mode. I would know no one but the host–an editor I'd met years ago during my…
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Several years ago when my daughter lived clear across the country, she called late one evening. She was sick and so was her husband and the baby–my year-old granddaughter. "I wish you lived next door," she said in a dispirited, sick-person voice. I was on a plane the next morning, It's what we do if…
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When my brother was recovering from his first round of chemo for intestinal cancer, he put on a lot of weight. He was 45 years old, six feet tall and he blimped up to almost 300 pounds. My mother was unhappy about it. She was worried, of course, that weight gain was unhealthy but that's…
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Pre-pandemic, my yoga class ended the "semester" with a dinner out together–beer, pizza, mellow discussions among mostly women who knew little about each other than their down dog limitations. The subject turned to adult kids and how tied we are to them. More specifically, the question was raised about whether, if your children live in…
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When our kids were young and living under our roof, if they were impolite or said something inappropriate to their grandmother, we stepped up to point out (kindly, of course!) a more polite way to do or say something. But now that they are adults, is it still our job? Are we still in the…
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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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During the pandemic lockdown many of us experienced a strange shift in the balance between us and our grown kids: Instead of our previous parental controls, they were "ordering" us around–telling us we had to stay home, stop going out to buy groceries and order take-out food delivered. It came, of course, from an overabundance…
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The pandemic was difficult for everyone. As parents of grown children, some of us couldn't see our kids or grandkids–no hugs, no in-person visits. Infants and toddlers had no "village" to support them or playdates to socialize them. School-age kids–well, the school year was a disaster for many of them. Our grown kids, especially the…
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