PenPenWrites

parenting blog, memoir notes, family punchlines & more

© 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.

© 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: Uncategorized

  • As we age into our more mature years, many of us find our kids “parenting” us on the little things: telling us what to do about a checking account, giving us advice on how to dress for the weather or sharing the latest on what we should be eating for breakfast. Some of it’s helpful,…

  • I must have been prescient when I wrote my previous post about people who didn’t want to be with family on Thanksgiving. That wasn’t me, of course. I was looking forward to traveling to my son’s house and being with my son, daughter, their spouses and my grandchildren. Grandpups, too. I was in fine fettle…

  • The holidays–especially the two big ones in November and December–can loom as a misery for some families. The difficulty of travel, the forced togetherness at an endless meal, the anxiety over family infighting. There are joys, too, but for many of our adult kids who face long miles of travel with cranky children the holidays…

  • So your adult kids are now young parents. Babies are gurgling; toddlers are beginning to walk, drunken sailor style. Pre-schoolers are making friends and picking up reading basics. For us as grandparents, this is such an exciting and joyful time. For some of us, though, it is tempered by our concerns that our kids’ parenting…

  • There are reasons — let me not count the ways — why our adult children may stop talking to us, avoid all contact (even blocking us on their cell phones), or enter what’s called “low contact” mode. They may decide to stay away from family get-togethers–or we might not want them to join us. Whatever…

  • Let’s call this a variation of the King Lear dilemma. How do we divide our estate so that all our children are treated fairly, particularly if there are reasons not to split everything evenly. There is nothing wrong in dividing an estate unevenly (even if Lear botched it). The problem is that money talks and…

  • Too fat? Too thin? Some of us are unhappy with the state of our adult child’s body. We remember when they were oh-so-fit soccer players, runners and dancers. But now, are they eating too much? Overindulging in junk food? Are they sitting around playing video games instead of jogging. It’s so tempting to remind them…

  • If you have a 20-something hanging around your life, chances are 50-50 you’re getting your cultural and political news from different sources. If the young person is a grandchild, the odds go to 99-1. I’m making up the numbers but the point is that our older generation gets information about the world from very different…

  • When our kids are planning to visit us–be it to drop by for an hour or to come home for a weekend–we’re usually alive with anticipation. Ah, the the joy and positive energy a visit brings. The question is, are they feeling as positive as we are?Yes, they are! That is, they share in the…

  • Our closets are full. So is the attic, basement and every cranny that can hold papers, memorabilia and photo albums. To say nothing of unused dishes, scarred pots and chipped figurines. Getting rid of some or all of that stuff is formidable. It looms like a climb up a mountain of slag. And yet, do we…