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: supporting adult children
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Our generation may be "overinvested in our children." That's the reason financial planner (and consumer advocate), Eleanor Blayney, gives as why some of us have let ourselves slip into debt–despite carefully saving for retirement. There is, of course, the job market problem–an issue for those coming out of college in the past few years. Now…
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We've brought up our children to be independent. And many of them have grown up to be just that. Certainly, my friends Pam and Don have two such children. One of them–a daughter–lives in apartment near them. She's married with two small children. Pam and Don play an active part in their daughter's family life–picking…
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The subject is a tricky one: Generosity guilt. If we share the wealth with our grown children in the here and now, do we risk doing them more harm than good? Do we do more harm than good by indulging them–and ourselves–in making life easier for them? It's a question we were hashing out…
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A friend and i have this conversation almost every time we meet for coffee. We are both still working–me part time, she full time. We have other projects we'd like to attack but work pressures get in the way. We both admit that part of why we continue to toil away is the money. Not…
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I had lunch with a friend who was worried sick about her college-senior son. Her complaint: He is directionless and unable to take action to get a job. Not only hasn't he signed up with his college's job-search office or applied to opportunities his mother has suggested or unearthed. He hasn't even written a resume–no…
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These have been rough economic times and they aren't over yet. Young adults (recent college grads in particular) are having a much harder time than we did in latching onto a career job–harder even than their older brothers and sisters. There are economic stats and charts ad nausea that support the discouraging outlook. All of…
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Our kids coming out of college have been struggling–it's hard to find a job, no less one that is a stepping stone to a career. A lot of us are supporting those kids, either by hosting them rent free at home (goodbye emtpy nest) or giving them a monthly stipend while they job hunt. When…
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This little graph explains a lot. Despite the devastation of the recession and the lingering downturn, many of us with grown children are willing and able to lend or gift our kids money–to pay off debt, to get a start in life. Yes, our 401ks suffered in the 2008 debacle; some of our homes are…
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He's 24. He's got a job. He's still living at home. My friend Cathy is beyond frustrated. Her son is not helpful around the house. She's tired of asking him to take out the garbage, empty the dishwasher or run an errand–in the car she and her husband are providing. Part of his inertia is…
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