PenPenWrites

parenting blog, memoir notes, family punchlines & more

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.

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

    Detachment Parenting: We can interfere in their lives but only if we do it subtly

     

    One of the by-laws of parenting adult children is to take our sticky hands off the steering wheel. We're practitioners of the art of detachment parenting now.

    But there are times when we can mess around in some of the quotidian parts of their lives and do it in a way that is so subtle it doesn't churn the family waters. That's what my friend Lily did when her daughter (an assertive banker stationed in Hong Kong) let an unfortunate situation develop with the education of her son, Lily's Grand.

    Here's Lily's tale, as she told it to me:

    "My daughter got a wonderful promotion–she was transferred to Hong Kong and put in charge of Southeast Asia for her bank. Even before she got to Hong Kong, she found a good private school for her son who was starting first grade.

    On the first day of classes, she went to the school to pick him up. She looked at the math paper he had in his hand and saw it was stuff he already knew. My daughter can be somewhat abrupt. She went right up to the teacher and said, "He's working at a much higher level than this. I hope you're going to do something about it!"

    Since then, the notes from the teacher have been curt and formal. The teacher uses only her formal name, never her informal one and that is a sign that she doesn't like the family.

    When I went to visit my daughter and her family this winter, I decided I would go to the school and spend a few hours there. I thought I could show them that not everyone in the family is curt, that we're friendly people. I observed a lot of the lessons. I told the teacher how I was a teacher before I retired and how impressed I was with how she handled her classroom. Five hours later I headed back to my daughter's home. All my daughter knew was that I went to school to observe. I shared my observations with her–nothing more.

    I think I made a difference. A few days later, a note came from my grandson's teacher and it was signed with her informal name.

    Taking on a role in a grownchild''s relationship with a child's teacher can be a minefield. Trying to undo a situation that your grown child inadvertently created can cause deep resentment on the part of the grownchild. It's none of our business what their relationship is with the school and the teacher. And yet it is in that we care deeply. We want our grandchild to settle in happily and peaceably and be a joyous learner.

    There's a fine line here. It's not as though Lily went to the school and apologized to the teacher for her daughter's abruptness. She didn't say, "That's how she is" or anything like that. She just showed a friendlier flag and let that work its way through the system.

    Related articles

    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them
    Five tips to keep arguments with grown kids from going over the edge

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

    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them

    In a posting on parenting, a mother of three grown children waxed eloquent about the steps she had taken to meet her goal: having "an adult, pleasant relationship" with each of her three children. She started when she first faced an empty nest–her children were 20-somethings. Now that they're in their 30s, she is feeling pretty good about achieving her goal, even though "some years along the way have been far, far less than ideal."

    What did she do to get so close to this best of all possible worlds?

    Step one: she treated herself to therapy.

    Step two, she read (twice), "How to Talk So Kids will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk." 

    Step three was a simple duh moment: She asked her kids to suggest ways she could "be a good parent to them as adults."

    Some of the pointers her kids gave her were specific: "You don't have to put that Spider-Man on my birthday cake anymore."

    But they did address bigger-picture items and few principles on which they should agree:

    –A tardy or a non-reply to a text message should not be taken personally.

    –Questions about anything going on in their lives is okay but an acceptable answer is, "I don't want to talk about it."

    –Before any family meet-up, alerts should be sent out ahead of time if there's a specific agenda. Nothing important should be sprung on parents or siblings unannounced.

    –Gossiping about each other is a no-no.

    –Sarcasm is not funny.

    Not bad for a start. Sounds oh-so reasonable and probably easier said than done. I would guess it would take many a deep and deeper breath to de-personalize or not worry about the non-reply or the "don't want to talk about it." But then, parenting adult children takes flexibility and the ever-elusive ability to let go. Hopefully, we figure out–possibly with a few suggestions from them–how to do it well before we're in our dotage.

     

     

    Related articles

    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?

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

    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?

     

    Over at grownandflown,a question has been posed: What are the unexpected pleasures of raising children? Answers from 15 women are featured–from moms of newborns to parents of fully grown adults. Some of the answers are funny, some deep and all from the heart. I enjoyed the list not just for its content but because it got me thinking about what I've found to be the most surprising gift of raising children.

    Like one of the parents on the site, a major joy has been in how amusing my kids are–how they make me laugh. And, as another mom put it, it's been delightful to see the world anew through their eyes.

    But the most surprising pleasure has been in the access they've given me to worlds and universes I knew nothing about. In the early years, there was the entry into the dynamics of gymnastic's competitions (parent alert: the judging at meets is the pits when it's your child up there on the balance beam) and the pressures of soccer tournaments (parent alert: it's harder to be the mother of the sweeper who's defending against a goal than of the forward charged with scoring). 

    Now that our kids are adults, we've been pulled (intellectually only; no more managing from the sidelines) into even more dynamic and fascinating universes–brainwashing, educating disadvantaged children, use and misuse of databases. Our adult children recommend books and link us up to articles about subjects we would never have chosen on our own.

    It's fascinating and exciting stuff for us–Paterfamilias is a regulatory lawyer; I'm a financial columnist. Who knew about mind control or classroom management? We may have shepherded our children through their growing-up years, but now they're leading us to new terrains for our minds. It's a pleasure. A great one.

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

    More tips on keeping arguments with grown kids from going over the edge

    Recently I posted an item on how to keep an argument with grown kids from getting ugly. One of the pointers was to think before you speak. Take a deep breath before you plunge into the heat of the moment.

    In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks brings that point into the instant-communication era of the Internet and its social media tools.

    "Communications technology encourages us to express whatever is on our minds in that instant," he wrote. "It makes self-restraint harder. But sometimes healthy relationships require self-restraint and self-quieting, deference and respect (at the exact moments when those things are hardest to muster)."

    His bottom line is similar to the old-era approach: "A new kind of heroism is required. Feelings are hurt and angry words are at the ready. But they are held back."

    So it seems we not only have to control our mouth, we have to keep those thumbs from tapping on the keypad as well.

    Related articles

    Five tips to keep arguments with grown kids from going over the edge

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

    Five tips to keep arguments with grown kids from going over the edge

     

    Over on her blog Gal Time, therapist Barbara Greenberg reports that in the 30-odd years she's been counseling couples, time and again she hears them speak words that "were meant to stimulate discussion" but instead "have either cut things off or have wounded feelings." 

    Her tips for " 'non-ouch' fights and healthier relationships" make sense not only for couples but for parents and their adult children. I'm particularly partial to the first two tips, but they all apply to any discussion–heated or heading that way–we may have with our offspring.

    You can check out the full post at Gal Time, but meanwhile, here are the top five therapist tips for couples, with some edits for parent-child relationships:

    1. Think before you speak: Pretend that what you say is going to be made very public. Take a minute to pause and take a deep breath before you plunge into the heat of the moment.

    2. Do not cross boundaries: Don’t speak the unspeakable. If something was told to you that is very private and personal, do NOT under any circumstances use that against your grown child… EVER.

    3. Listen very hard to what your grown child is saying: Don’t think about your response while your child is spilling his/her guts. You might just learn/hear something very relevant.

    4. Learn to let things go: There is nothing inherently virtuous about holding grudges. You will earn tons of emotional points for letting things go.

    5. Learn how to make your grown child laugh: Sometimes a moment of levity can not only relieve pain but can be oh-so-connecting. And it’s connection that we want and need.

    Related articles

    Emerging Adults: Detachment parenting means letting go of our great expectations for how they'll "turn out."

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

    Emptying the Nest: Does father know best when it comes to career advice?

    TV's Father Know Best family

     

    A colleague at my office is telling me about his 26-year-old son–the eldest of three. When he got out of college, he moved back home and took some "non-career" jobs while he job hunted. After a year–"not a happy time for us; adult sons should not live home" says my colleague–the son finally landed what his father calls a "suit and tie" job. Three months later, he was laid off as the company reduced its work force. Within a year, the company was out of business.

    The son moved south–to a beach community where he hooked on with a beach-umbrella business where he had worked during summers past. He was, the father reports, really happy. As the beach season ended, the business owner, who moves his business to beaches around the world as seasons change, offered my friends son a permanent position. The son was delighted.

    That was okay with dad–his son was independent and managing his own finances. But then a neighbor contacted the son about a job interview with a "suit and tie" company. The interview went well; the son was offered a job. But now he is telling his dad he would rather stay with the umbrella rental company, that he doesn't really like working in an office.

    The dad is frustrated. He feels his son doesn't understand the implications of his decision–that he will need the benefits and structural support of an office-based business. But the son is adamant: He is much happier in his new life.

    Does father know best? Do we know what will be a more satisfying career for our grown children than they do?

    There is this consolation for the dad. His son is making a real-world choice. Not a choice between something [beach umbrella job] and nothing, but between something [beach job] and something . That suggests he's making a much more thoughtful decision than when he was just going with the serendipity of opportunity.

    As this dad admits, his preference is for the suit-tie career but that may not be what works for his son. He's given him his best advice. Now he and the mom will watch it play out. If it doesn't work out, they won't say "I told you so,"–or so my colleague assures me– but they have also made it clear, there will be no return to ye olde homestead. He's got two other sons living at home, one of whom is a young adult who has been put on notice about how long he's welcome to stay.

     

     

    Related articles

    Emptying the Nest: Blame it on dirty laundry when grown kids don't move out and on.

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

    Emerging Adults: Detachment parenting means letting go of our great expectations for how they’ll “turn out.”

    It's a new phrase for me: Detachment Parenting. It means, as I interpret it, letting go, or making our way from controlling to advisory parent. One goal, psychologist Carl Pickhardt suggests, is to do it without showing any disappointment over how our child is turning out. That is, whether they're living up to our expectations for them.

    As Pickhardt noted in a column in Psychology Today on the subject, we expect a return on our parenting investment–on the sacrifices we've made for our children as they grew from infants to school kids to post-adolescents. A marker of the ROI is how they "turn out." If our son or daughter "turns out" to be   happy, healthy, and hard working, we're likely to feel we've gotten our "sacrifice's" worth. We may also tell ourselves that this came to be because of what effective–great–parents we've been.

    But what if they hit their twenties–emerging adulthood years–and they're still struggling, or as Pickhardt describes the tumult of the young adult years, "to settle oneself down, to discipline freedom with purpose, to find a job with a future, to form a committed life partnership." What if they're still groping for direction or their personal definition for goals or lifestyle doesn’t live up to our expectations, hopes or ambitions for them?

    We may feel let down, disappointed and frustrated. The risk at this stage of detachment parenting, Pickhardt says, is to go negative, to say things like, “Why can’t you get your life together?” or   “We didn’t raise you to flounder with your life!”

    Pickhardt's point is to avoid equating how our young adult “turns out” with how well we've done our job as parents."One of the hardest tasks, he says, is to "let any remaining vestiges of this false equation go so the young person feels free to pursue her or his individual and independent way unburdened by parental performance needs."

    There's a "Gestalt Prayer” by Fritz Perls in his book, “Gestalt Therapy Verbatim,” that Pickhardt quotes to end his column. I'll end my post with the same sentiment–so hard to accept but part of being the parent of an adult child:

    “I do my thing and you do your thing.

    I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,

    And you are not in this world to live up to mine.

    You are you, and I am I,

    And if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.

    If not, it can’t be helped.”

     

    Related articles

    Emptying the Nest: Blame it on dirty laundry when grown kids don't move out and on.
    Emerging Adults: The impolite way they treat us is not necessarily the way or who they are

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

    Legacy of Support: Making sure the funds are there when, suddenly, you’re not.

    A lot of parents–and adults who aren't parents–swear by tough love: Once the kids are grown and flown, they're on their own. They should live within their means and not come running to the bank of mom and dad to bail them out.

           

    Yet, many of us find that a hard dictate to live by. We may want our college grad to get that PhD in  American history, even if it means we provide a little sustenance along the way. We may encourage our child to take that job with a non-profit that's helping register voters in poor areas of the South, even if it barely pays a living wage. Then there are life's emergencies and tragedies. A child's spouse is disabled; a grandchild becomes ill. Wouldn't we want to hold out a helping hand and, if we're no longer here to oversee the stipends and handouts, make sure there's no gap in the funding?

    Not to be morbid about it, but if we want to make sure that when we die a grown child has funds immediately available for a situation we're overseeing now or for an emergency that could occur in the future, what sort of plans can we make?

    Here are two ideas:

    One is to set up a  joint tenancy bank account now, which would be accessible to you and your grown child. When you're no longer around, it's all your son's or daughter's. That means the money is immediately available whenever it's needed even if it takes weeks or months for your estate to be settled.

    But better know your child. He or she could withdraw emergency funds before there's an emergency. As one financial planner put it, "If a child is having financial difficulties to the extent that a monthly stipend is needed to keep them afloat, chances are they may lack the discipline needed to resist taking the money out of the account prematurely." One other hitch: joint accounts held in the names of the parent and child are exposed to the creditors of both. If your child has creditor problems, the joint emergency account could be levied or even claimed by the child’s creditor.

    The other idea is to give the trustee or proposed executor of your estate clear and legal directions to make an immediate distribution to the child who needs support. You can fund the request by either setting up a joint account with your trustee or executor, making cash available to them or giving them a cashier’s check to pass on to your son or daughter at the time of your death.

     Meanwhile, let's hope they're in good health, on solid financial ground, living a joyous life–and don't need your help.

    Related articles

    Nevermind the Legacy: We should spend our retirement money on ourselves. All of it.
    Emerging Adults: The impolite way they treat us is not necessarily the way or who they are
    Leaving a legacy: A mantra for cleaning, clearing out the closets. Basements, too

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

    Emptying the Nest: Blame it on dirty laundry when grown kids don’t move out and on.

     

    This just in from the Brits: a theory on why an increasing percent of grown kids are moving back home with mom and dad–and staying there. Evidently, a record 3.3 million young adults in Britain are still "reliant on their parents."It's not because they can't pull their lives together or find the road to financial independence. No. It's because mum and dad like having them around and don't want them to leave.

    “Things can become very quiet and a little staid when children leave home," the authors of Later! A Guide to Parenting A Young Adult, say. "Parents sometimes feel truly middle-aged, and miss the energy."

    Parents perpetuate this co-dependency "by giving their children things like lifts and money." They tend not to ask their children to pay rent, do their own laundry, "tidy" their bedrooms or help out with food shopping. “They’re not stupid," these British authors say. "They [the young adults] know they’re getting a good deal by living there." To say nothing of nicely stacked and folded clean clothes.

    If I read these comments right, some of us may, in effect, be bribing our young adult children to live at home and keep us feeling young and fresh. Would forcing them to do their own laundry or clean up their room be the way to encourage them to take flight?

    Just sharing a point of view from across the pond. With this add on from Robert Browning:

    Oh to be in England
    Now that April's there,
    And whoever wakes in England
    Sees, some morning, unaware….

     

    Related articles

    Literary Insights: Alice McDermott on empty nests and backing off the control button
    Why parents need to help kids more now than in the 1980s

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

    Nevermind the Legacy: We should spend our retirement money on ourselves. All of it.

     

     

    The headline was as bold as it was brassy: Parents, the Children Will Be Fine. Spend Their Inheritance Now.

    The story itself takes us –parents of grown children–to task for wanting to save some of our nest egg for our children. As in, we "cling to an intention to leave something behind." This devotion, we're told, "may also be the height of foolishness."

    Here's the rationale: After we've spent nearly two decades investing tens of thousands of dollars to rear and educate each of our children (and for an increasing number of us, backstopping our kids who are not quite financially independent), we should not feel obligated to provide even more money for them. We would do better to spend our retirement money in the here and now–either creating meaningful memories with our grown kids and their kids or on top-notch care that can make our elder years more comfortable and graceful.

    Nor do most of our kids want us to save our money for them. According to recent research, if we were to ask our grown children about whether they are counting on an inheritance, the answer is likely to be no. In an article that the journal The Gerontologist published last year, Kyungmin Kim and four colleagues polled both older Americans and their adult children about whether they expected to leave or receive an inheritance.

    The results: Among the parents (ages 59 to 96), 86.2 percent expected to leave a bequest. But just 44.6 percent of the children (ages 40 to 60), thought they would get one.

    There was this P.S. to the stats: "Although bequest decisions are circumscribed by parent's financial resources, our findings suggest that they are also a continuation of established patterns of exchanges."

    Another survey in 2014 by the Insured Retirement Institute found that our expectations about bequests had changed. Today, only 46 percent of boomer-age parents believe it’s important to leave an inheritance to loved ones. In the past, that figure was closer to two-thirds.

    Of course, there's no saying how much that bequest–expected or unexpected–might be. It might be all that's left after we've spent what we could on ourselves (and the memorable moments)–and ran out of time to spend it all.

     

    Related articles

    Parents, the Children Will Be Fine. Spend Their Inheritance Now.
    Asking for an Early Inheritance
    What Kind Of Inheritance Do You Owe Your Kids?
    Money Matters: Is it ever way-too-soon to set up a 529 for Grands?