PenPenWrites

PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Leaving a legacy: To divide the spoils evenly or not?

11/04/2025
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.
- If we have two sons and one is killing it as a venture capitalist and the other is doing good work for an underfunded advocacy group, it may seem fair to leave more to the “non-profit” son than the venture capitalist.
- Or, one child may be more attentive to the parents than the other. That is, one child may have neglected his aging parents for years while the other has shown up for weekly dinners, come by to watch a movie together or been there to help with doctor visits.
- In this somewhat privileged world of ours, there can be other wrinkles. A dad wrote Philip Galanes at Social Qs about his three sons. Two stand to inherit sizeable amounts from their well-off mom–the dad’s divorced wife–but the third son has a different mother who is not well off. The dad wonders whether he should “even things out” out by leaving a greater portion to the son with the not-wealthy mother. “I want all of them to be comfortable when I’m gone,” the dad writes, “but I worry that my older sons will be hurt if I leave more to my youngest son.”
There is nothing wrong in dividing an estate unevenly (even if Lear botched it). The problem is that money talks and it can whisper “favoritism.” We may not be here to witness the trauma but at least one of our kids may come away feeling that the way we parceled out our treasures is a reflection of parental love.

If we want to go the “uneven” route, there is a simple measure we can take to make sure that when we’re no longer here, our kids feel we loved them equally. In the case of the several-mother situation, well, there’s is an additional consideration.

Let’s start with the all-purpose general advice and then let Galanes chime in on the specific.
- One Size Fits All: No where is it written that the details in our will or the division of our estate must be kept secret–except in movies where the surprise of disinheritence or the leaving of a fortune to a beloved housekeeper is the melodramatic turning point in a story. (These scenes invariably take place in a lawyer’s office. Does that even happen anymore?). This is a long way of saying, we should talk to our kids about our estate plan while we’re still available to explain our reasons and to make adjustments.
- Stay Focused: In the case of the sons with different mothers, Galanes points out, “for better or worse — and probably for better — you are not creating an estate plan with your ex-wife. And while you believe that she is “financially comfortable” now, that may change depending on her health and other circumstances as she ages. (The same can be said of you.) I suggest focusing on what you actually control here: namely, your own finances.”
painting: Ferryman by Ivan Canu
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Observations: Weight watching our adult kids

10/27/2025
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 that they could diet or exercise their way back to fitness. We may work ourselves into a state of anxiety over what their body weight means for their health and/or their romantic happiness–and what we want to share with them in terms of ways to correct the imbalance in their body size. .

Readers, Don’t go there. To that end, I offer observations on the subject from three advice columnists. First up: Philip Galanes from Social Q. He is answering a reader who complains that people often comment on her and her family’s height (they are all tall) and her middle school-age child finds it upsetting, but his observations apply to weight and other comments about physical appearance. , Galanes writes
- For 17 years, I have advised readers that unbidden comments about others’ appearances are unwise. We never know what people are going through or how our observations will affect them. Even purported compliments — “What long legs you have!” — can trigger insecurities and private pain, even though that’s not what the speakers intend…..
- Yet, for 17 years, I have met with steady resistance. Many readers believe that they are entitled to give compliments and to be curious (“Just how tall are you?”). Some even assert that they are making the world a friendlier place by butting in.
Next up: The always reliable Carolyn Hax. A young woman wrote Hax to complain that her parents have been harping about her body size ever since she was a child and now have added the suggestion of taking GLP-1 drugs, such as Wegovy, Ozempic or Mounjaro. Hax is not buying it:
- Parents have no business discussing adults’ weight unless invited, much less harping on it.
- Should the reader try a GLP-1? Her doctor’s is the only outside opinion that counts.
Third expert: the NYT’s Ethicist ,Kwame Appiah. His reader writes that he longs for the day when his daughter was a lithe and graceful ballerina. As an adult, she’s overweight and his concern is for her health: There is a family history of diabetes on both sides. Appiah sees a little wiggle room for weight discussions given the bona fide health concern. His suggestion:
- Speak to her as an adult, with respect and candor, rather than as a child whose body you wish were different. That means keeping the focus on health and family history. Make sure she knows the concern comes from love, not disappointment — that your concern is for her well-being, not her waistline.
photo: Maia Lemov
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Generation Gap: Where do we get our news and does it matter?

10/17/2025

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 sources than younger ones do and those sources don’t necessarily have the same outlook or rely on the same set of facts.

Most of us kinda know this but what does it mean? Is it just some bit of perceived wisdom or cliche that we mouth at social gatherings? Does it impact our lives in any way? The stakes of this info gap were brought home to me not by a chat with a 20-something but, oddly enough, by a reaction to my daughter’s book.

This past March, her book, The Instability of Truth arrived in bookstores (and on Amazon). It’s about brainwashing, mind control and hyper-persuasion. As part of her campaign to bring the ideas in the book to a wide swath of the public, my daughter went on a podcast blitz and landed most prominently on the Joe Rogan Experience,. Rogan’s show is one of the top five podcasts in the country and one which hews right/conservative and young male.

A few days after the podcast hit the internet, my daughter’s nephew texted her. HIs message: His friends thought it was cool that his aunt was on Joe Rogan. A week later, she was on a zoom call with an alumni group from her college when one of them told her, “My 22-year old was star-dazzled when he heard I was going to be talking to you. He’d heard you on Joe Rogan.”

Step back with me now to the media world of my generation. When the book came out, a few of my friends called to say how delighted they were to see it discussed in the New York Times and New Yorker. When I mentioned to other friends and colleagues that she had been on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the response was befuddlement. One said, “Oh, is he the guy who claimed the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax?” No, that was Alex Jones. Others knew who Rogan was by reputation and asked if he had bullied her on the show. No, he had not. He and she had a polite and serious conversation, a portion of which centered around MK-ULTRA, a clandestine CIA mind control program circa the 1950s. MK-ULTRA has been one of Rogan’s long-standing interests and is probably why she was invited on the show.

Clearly, there is a wide gap between what older and younger generations see, read and listen to and their sources delivered information about my daughter’s book in very different ways. The traditional way told us what to think generally about the book and its ideas. The newer way discussed some of the book’s content based on the perspective of the podcast host. There was little crossover or room for discussion between the readers (of the reviews) and the listeners (of the podcast).

As many of us know from keeping our eyes and ears open, Gen Z does not read traditional newspapers or tune into the 6:00 evening news. They get their information via social media sites as well as podcasts and substacks. Most of my generation (aging boomers) is on a well-worn path where we trust institutions to bring us news that’s reliable and vetted. Do we and our adult children and grandchildren have a common base to discuss the response to a book on brainwashing to say nothing of what’s happening in the world?

Generation Z is not going back to the way things are for us. It will be up to us to bridge the gap, to stay abreast of their world by tuning into their sources of news and information. I can’t say I’ve become a Rogan regular, but I am trying to add to my news intake thought-stretching podcasts and news from social media sites. Here’s hoping I’m not sucked down a TikTok rabbit hole.

painting: Elizabeth Catlett, “Links Together”
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Visits with Grown Kids: Tips on making the most of together time

10/07/2025
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 delight of a visit when we set the right mood and tone. That’s the gist of a column I came across headlined with these practical words: 7 things older parents can do that make their adult children enjoy visiting them. Cuts right to the point, doesn’t it. It’s up to us to make it work..

Here’s a summary of the seven points. No one–least of all me–says all of them are easy to execute, but we can try:
- Be welcoming: Keep things light and warm. Don’t let irritants rise up and dominate the conversation.
- Cross no boundaries: If they want to talk about something deeply personal, they’ll let you know. Don’t be the one to bring up their touchy subject.
- Tell family stories: It’s fun to share anecdotes about the family and their childhood but they should be fun stories you can all laugh about, not stories that double as lectures or could embarrass them.
- LIttle things mean a lot: Have small things on hand that remind them how welcome they are–be it a snack or a favorite pillow.
- Be an engaged listener: Pay attention to whatever it is they’re talking about–even if you’ve heard it before and even if the dog is asking for attention.
- Stay away from old arguments: Social visits are not a time for conflict resolution.
- “Let them know you’re happy to see them: “I’m so glad you’re here.” Saying that goes a long way in setting a comfortable and comforting tone.
Painting: Renoir, The Boating Party.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Downsizing: Tips on purging the clutter and closets.

09/25/2025
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 want to leave that paring, parsing and purging to our kids. They’re likely to have it all hauled away–the valued treasures as well as the junk.

If the clearing out is part of a plan to move to a smaller space–from a house, say, to an apartment–here’s something to keep in mind, especially if you’ve accumulated a lot of collectibles. On average, most of us take 25 percent of our belongings with us to our new homes. Of the 75 percent left, there is usually a market for about 60 percent, according to an estate planner who helps families downsize and sell off valuables.

Here are some tips, thanks to a Washington Post piece and other sources on how to get the purging and parsing underway.
- Take it slow: Take a gradual approach. Part of the process is a walk down memory lane. Allow yourself time to process both the good and bad memories. Besides, speeding through a purge could cause you to toss away something meaningful or valuable by mistake.
- Think Piecemeal: Working through one small stash of stuff at a time can keep the project from feeling overwhelming
- Call the expert: For items that are valuable — or for those of us with a high volume of belongings or collectables — it can help to bring in an estate expert who can take items to auction or sell them online.
- Say no more: Some of your adult kids will be pleased — even touched — to be offered one or two of the collectible or valuable items piece by piece. But they may also see your treasures as clutter-transfer. If they agree to take some stuff and you don’t see it displayed at their house, don’t ask about it. Let sleeping treasures lie.
- Feel Good: As to the donate-to-charity pile, it’s often easier for us to let go of stuff if we remind ourselves how useful these items will be to someone else. When my husband passed away, I gave his winter coats and sweaters to a church that distributes clothing to the needy. It was comforting to know his clothes would keep someone else warm.
painting: Hilary Pecis
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Welcome to Parenting Grown Children’s new home

09/19/2025
We’re now grownchildren.org.

We had to move from our old home (our host closed its doors, or rather its digital presence) and our domain name (grownchildren.net) became problematical. (I’m working on it!) Meanwhile, the new home at WordPress and slight variation on domain name promise to be a plus.
- First bonus: There’s a subscribe button in the left hand corner, and if I can figure out how to make it work (not easy), you’ll be able to subscribe to the parenting blog. You don’t have to subscribe to read the posts if you don’t want to: just type in grownchildren.org and you’re here.
- Second: I’ll be adding another page with notes and tidbits from my almost-finished memoir, The Time and Life Rules: Six decades, three upheavals and one writer’s journey to find her place in the world of work. As the subtitle suggests, I’m writing about my career as it played out amidst the cultural and workplace barriers, hurdles and other sometimes shocking challenges women have faced since the 1960s.
- Third: I’ll also be creating a page about a project I’ve been thinking about (and gathering data on) for years called Family Punchlines. It will be kinda what it sounds like. If I’m very zen-like and apply the parenting and grandparenting karma I’ve doled out in my blog, I might be able to persuade my artistically adept children and grandchildren to illustrate the amusing musings family and friends have said over the years,
_{painting: Rebecca Lemov}
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Social Media Alert: AI’s threat to the joy of posting grandkid photos

08/22/2025

Last year I wrote a post about checking with the parents (your adult kids) before posting pix of their kids (your Grands) on a social media site. I was neither prescient nor alone in calling attention to the photo-posting issue. Debates about publishing photos online have been going on since social networks became an integral part of our daily lives. It’s a pretty one-sided debate right now: 75 percent of parents share photos of their children online. (I’m sure the grandparent stats are even higher, especially pictures of those adorable toddlers wading through puddles in bright yellow galoshes.)

Dangers have always lurked from the dark side of the web, particularly concerns that online predators could harvest personal data. I’m writing about the issue again because a recent set of AI (artificial intelligence) apps take “sharenting” (parents sharing photos of their kids online) to a higher level of concern.

Writing in the NYTimes, Brian X. Chen, a tech reporter (and a recent dad), sounds this alarm in a personal way:

Parents like me have joined the “never-post” camp because of a more recent threat: apps that can automatically generate deepfake nudes with anyone’s face using generative artificial intelligence, the technology powering popular chatbots.

In other words, AI apps generating fake nudes, amid other privacy concerns, make “sharenting” far riskier than it was just a few years ago.

The dangers are greater as kids grow from toddlers to teens. That’s a whole other and disturbing problem. Even for very young children, though, Chen suggests ways to make photo-posting safer.

Post the photos only on an account that close friends and family members are allowed to see.

Send photos to a few friends and relatives through text messages, which are encrypted.

Share photo albums of family pictures with a small group of people using online services like Apple’s iCloud and Google Photos.

I’ll end this post on the upbeat note I ended the previous one on photo-posting:

The rules do not apply to grandpups. Here’s one of mine.

art credit: David C. Driskell

photo credit: Palo Coleman
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Emptying Nests: Parenting lessons from (or for) the birds.

08/11/2025

Sending off our young adults to fend for themselves, to live independently of us–it's what all those years of toddler-through-teens parenting were about. And yet, it's hard to let go. We want to hold their hands, keep the safety net in place, be there for them should they falter. We're only human. We're parents. We're not sure the wings are ready for flight.

So what can we learn about launching children up and out of the nest from non-humans who literally have wings and live in a nest? From a photo essay on bald eagles that live amongst trees along the Nith River in Ontario, Canada, there is parenting advice to glean from the fly-away world.

It's worth linking to the story for the photos of bald eagles and their young. Meanwhile, here are some tips from the birds, as translated by photographer Paul Gains, who has spent several years following bird families along the Nith. I've edited his comments for clarity and brevity.

The issue for bald eagle parents:

Every year they cater to a new brood of young, and teach them to hunt and fly. Although eaglets are almost fully grown at three months of age — and have closely studied their parents’ behaviour — they still have to figure out the mechanics of flight. Should they leap or flap their wings first? And what constitutes a safe landing?

The risks eaglets and their parents face:

Some eaglets will assess the risk of flight, decide it’s too high and instead confine themselves on a branch for days. The adults will attempt to feed them in that position, but without a nest to catch them, meals often wind up on the ground below. It’s no wonder bald eagle mortality rates are roughly 50 per cent in their first year.

Support during the learning curve:

An eaglet can spend weeks perched on a branch after struggling to gain sufficient elevation to get back into the nest. The adult male may bring a fish and then feed her beak to beak. Or drop a freshly caught fish by the river’s edge. It takes a few attempts but the eaglet manages to retrieve it. This is a hunting lesson provided by an expert fisher.

Practicing tough love:

Young bald eagles fly nervously across the river and often crash spectacularly into some tree branches, snapping them with an audible crunch. Bumps and bruises are an important part of an eaglet’s maturation, getting them ready to leave their parents’ nest. Despite a few horrific tree collisions, an eaglet gains confidence — and ability — in flight each day.

Over the coming weeks, the eagle parents will practice tough love, spending less time at the nest so the young are forced to explore their surroundings. It’s a proven parenting method, implemented by a couple that has successfully raised dozens of eaglets.

Lessons beyond flight control:

Adult eagles in this area have become tolerant of human disturbances like trains, planes, noisy bonfire parties and fireworks, not to mention birders and photographers lined up along the riverbank. It’s a skill their young need to learn to survive.

photo: Peter K. Burian (in Wikipedia)
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Leaving a Legacy: Clean out those closets. Our kids don’t want to be stuck doing it.

07/29/2025

I've written, possibly too often, about how cleaned-out closets are part of our legacy to our children and other assorted heirs. That is, whether they're in basements, attics or closets, the collections of items we no longer use and we know our kids don't want should be dealt with by us. We should chuck those papers that haven't been–and haven't needed to be–touched in years. I doubt our kids want their drawings from third grade or the story they wrote in middle school. (Check with them if you aren't sure, but don't be surprised at the rolled-eyes answer.)

It is a point of pride that I am joined in this crusade by Social Q's Philip Galanes. He makes the point more elegantly than I and looks at the issue in part by trying to figure out what's keeping us from moving our detritus out.

His column is in answer to a 40-year-old son whose father has asked him to speak to his stepmother about paring down her belongings which verge on the overwhelming. The father has already spoken to his wife, to no avail. Here are the key points Galanes makes about how widespread the issue is and what's keeping the stepmother from taking action.

The reluctance is prevalent:

"I receive many letters from readers who bemoan the chore of clearing out their parents’ cluttered homes after they die. So, I sympathize with this issue: Your father wants his affairs in better order, and you may be anxious about a cleanup that will fall into your lap."

There may be emotional reasons behind the inaction.

"Is she attached to these things? Does her mortality make her anxious? Does the task seem overwhelming to her?"

A little support (and a plan) could go a long way:

"Now, you might suggest to your father that he offer to sit with your stepmother while she sorts her things. She may appreciate the support. Or they could create a budget for helpers to clean when the time comes."

As Galanes suggests, there's a need to understand what's holding us back. Here's a Washington Post paragraph worth of ideas about a basic cause: decision fatigue.

“Decluttering is tiring not because of the physical effort, but because of the mental load. Every item forces a decision: Do I keep this? Will I need it? Does it still serve me? What if I regret tossing it?” This is known as decision fatigue, and it’s the reason decluttering efforts are often abandoned or avoided entirely.

A last word from me: As a proud survivor of a major downsizing (moving from a relatively big house to a smallish apartment), I was surprised at how many "throw away" and "give away" decisions were easy: doubles of photos taken years ago; old issues of magazines; paper files for articles written years ago when I was a freelancer. These were no brainers to toss away. Once I started, momentum took over. The harder decisions became easier. I managed to whittle us down to apartment-size living.

painting: Hilary Precis
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Traveling Abroad: Seeing a tiny bit of the world with a young adult grandchild.

07/15/2025

My granddaughter and I are back from our 8-day trip to Oslo and Reykjvik and the delightfully cool temperatures of Northern Europe. Each of us came home in one piece, but we did not reach the U.S. on the same day as planned. Our trip, which was otherwise marked by few glitches and an easiness with each other, ended on the very traumatizing note of a canceled flight (hers). I abandoned her at the Reykjvik airport at 7:00 a night with nothing but Icelandic Airlines to take care of finding her a hotel room and rebooking a flight (for her and some 200 other passengers) for the next day. The anxiety is terrible when you run off to make your flight home, the airport is about to shut down for the night, and your 20-something grandchild is alone with other stranded passengers. I reminded myself: She's an adult; she'll manage. She did. But I didn't calm down til my phone pinged with a text from her that she was in a hotel and her mom had booked her an early morning flight home.

The good news is: We're both back in our respective homes in our respective cities–me on time; she, a day late. But she made it through the ordeal of the delay and even thrived.

How to sum up our trip together, one in which I made all the airplane and hotel reservations and she figured out how to see and do whatever it was we wanted to see and do in each city.

A compensatory division of labor kept everything on an even keel. I, who in theory was there to take care of my grandchild, arrived in Amsterdam (our meeting spot; she had just finished a two-week course at the University of Amsterdam) with a GI episode already underway. By the time we landed in Oslo two days later, I had come down with a nasty head cold. She didn't exactly have to take care of me but she was very accommodating and uncomplaining about the limits my not feeling well put on us.

We both like traipsing around cities and our 5-day stay in Oslo was perfect for that. She knew what she wanted to do (visit bookstores, go shopping; she found plenty of both) and helped me find the sites I was interested in–Henrik Ibsen's home, the new opera house and the old church.

Our hotel was in the theater district which was also the heart of Oslo's sites, shopping and its sprawling parks, green spaces and forested trails. I would make reservations for, say, a two-hour cruise to see the fjords, and she would figure out where the pier was and how to walk there. Oslo felt very safe, which meant that she could take long walks on her own in the evening, and so could I. We could also take our books, sit in a park and read by daylight that lasted until 11:00 at night. Those were ways we were able to give each other privacy and space. And that was all we needed to get along–besides her ability to download boarding passes quickly and put mine in my Apple wallet without rolling her eyes.

We had a special moment at the Domkirke (the old church), one that for me marked the deep joy and wonder of traveling with this granddaughter. The church, like so many major buildings in Oslo, was understated–no gilt-laden religious statutes or lavish stained glass windows. Instead, it exuded a simple warmth and comfort. Neither she nor I are religious but we found peace sitting in the silent church, lighting a candle for Mike (her grandfather and my husband, who died last year) and being there in the quiet of the moment, holding hands. Who better to be with for that than her?
I've been home for a week and I still miss her companionship. She says she's already picking out where we should travel next summer.

painting: Travel Jetty by Eugene Boudin

photo: Ivy Coleman