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: Uncategorized
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My friend Lee doesn't understand what is was about her son-in-law that made him attractive to her daughter–even though the marriage is now 15 years old. From the start, Lee didn't see what they would have to talk about–the daughter grew up in an intellectually demanding home; the husband in one where mechanical abilities were…
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I was reading an interview with Janai Brugger in the New York Times. Brugger is the 28-year-old singer who entered the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions and won. Then won Placido Domingo's Operalia competition. And then was offered the ultimate and most amazing of prize: an offer to debut at the Met in Puccini's "Turandot"…
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Here's a line to remember when we have a spat with our spouses or kids: "Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional." Susan Adcox posted this Max Lucado line on her grandparents.com blog. She says she tries to remember the maxim when she has disagreements with her husband but "when it comes to family disputes,…
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When Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club came out, I sent a copy to my mother. It was an interesting choice. The book, which details the lives of four women born in China and their daughters who grow up in America, covers the travails the younger generation [me] face when the immigrant mothers [my mother] are…
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I checked in with the Educated Grandparent, a site that's on my blogroll. The two women who write it–both grandparents and social workers –recently posted on a topic that is a hot button issue for many of us with grown children (and grandchildren as well): the invasiveness of social media activity, or as they put…
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Thanks to Susan Adcox and her blog on grandparenting, I've come across a transcript of a 1996 This American Life show with the theme of "Adult Children." Part I is a conversation between Ira Glass, host of This American Life, and his mother, a family therapist who, at the time of the conversation, has been…
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A friend doesn't like to talk about her son's good luck in landing a career job–even before he donned cap and gown and got his college diploma. None of her friends college grads have had the same good fortune–those who are working are in non-career, just=-barely-earn-your-keep jobs. The same pressure is on kids. A friend…
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A recent online Forbes story talked about charisma–who's got it (Steve Jobs, Marilyn Monroe) and whether it's teachable. (Reader alert: if I may have a wee bragging moment, it is teachable, and this writer's son was mentioned by the Forbes author as one who teaches it to teachers.) The author went on to posit why charisma…
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