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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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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Alpha daughter has a bum knee. I overhear her father's long-distance phone conversation with her about the problem. Her doctor is advising surgery to fix the moving part that's irritating the other moving parts. Then to my surprise I hear Paterfamilias say, "I can fly up there to help out if you need surgery." It…
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The name Mom or Dad is loaded. It's what our children called us when they were small and what they continue to call us–or some variation of that name. So it can create a little ball of hurt to hear a son call his mother-in-law Mom or hear a daughter call her father-in-law, Dad. For…
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When our children first leave home–for college, on their first steps toward finding a career–we realize the parenting isn't over. We may not be in control, but we're a very active guidance system, back-up and safety net. We're there to encourage, share the wisdom of our experience and, if we can, lend money to get…
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Let us now praise our college grads. Grown ups at last. Let's not minimize their accomplishment. They may have had their wild moments on campus, but they've made it through at least four years of academic rigor, learned something and matured. Some of us want–and can afford–to reward that accomplishment with a gift that will…
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