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.

    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?

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

    Emerging Adults: The impolite way they treat us is not necessarily the way–or who–they are

    We are waiting for our Southwest Airlines flight to be called, B boarding passes in hand. As the flight manager calls for passengers with A passes, a family kerfuffle is unfolding in front of us. A mom and dad stand up to take their place in the A line but the son–an early 20-something–is immersed in his smart phone. The mom tries to prod him along. "Don't you want a window seat?" she asks. "It's time to get on line so you can get one." There is no move to stand up and join his parents. Eyes are on his device, thumbs are flying. The exasperated Mom harrumphs off with a parting shot: "Well, you're old enough to take care of yourself."

    I lose track of the little drama. Paterfamilias and I are too immersed in managing our own travel–the roll aboard bags, the extra parcel of gifts for grandchildren, the sack with lunch sandwiches to eat on board. When the B's are called, we board and struggle down the airplane's narrow aisle with all our encumbrances. Spotting two seats together–a middle and an aisle–we pile luggage and winter coats into the overhead and I plop down in the middle seat. There at the window sits the 20-something from the pre-board family kerfuffle. He has managed on his own! And yes, he is still immersed in his device. I sneak a peak–is that Candy Crush on his screen? As I settle my belongings, I accidentally knock my elbow into his arm and apologize. He is impeccably courteous. No problem, he assures me. We have a mini-chat: I ask if he is flying home and he says no, on vacation, and returns the question. I get no surly lip; no leave-me-alone glare.

    Oh it is so nice not to be the parents and live through this post-adolescent phase of growing pains:The pushing us away; the preference for the company of anyone or anything but us; the seeming sureness that they know more than we do. 

    I have this instinct (fortunately repressed) to locate his parents and assure them that when he's on his own, he can not only manage to get a seat he prefers, he can also be polite and pleasant–everything they undoubtedly hope he'll be but fear he's not. Having been there, lived through that, I want to tell them: this too will pass. But not quite yet.

    With that, I rely on words often attributed to Mark Twain:

    "When I was seventeen, I could scarcely endure my father, the old gentleman was so ignorant; at  twenty-five I was astonished at the improvement he had made in the last eight years."

    Related articles

    Literary Insights: Alice McDermott on empty nests and backing off the control button
    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.

    Leaving a legacy: A mantra for cleaning, clearing out the closets. Basements, too

     

    In her blog After the Kids Leave, Karen Irving writes about downsizing in preparation to a move to smaller quarters. Clearing stuff up, cleaning it out: This is something about which many of us have thought, fantasized, made decisions or delayed decisions. In previous posts on Leaving a Legacy, I've written that cleaned and cleared closets (whether or not we're moving) are part of the legacy we leave our grown children and grandchildren–the gift is that it's something they won't have to do for us.

    In her post on tips for downsizing, Karen takes note of a guiding principle, thanks to William Morris, propounder of the English Arts and Crafts school of decoration. His words–her mantra and now mine as well: “Keep nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

    As I tackle the mess of stuff in my basement and try to de-clutter my living spaces, I am tacking on an additional point to the Morris dictum: Check first with your grown children before tossing anything out–photographs, letters, figurines, decorative boxes or century-old baby shoes. There might be items they treasure for sentimental or other reasons. It's okay to store if for them; just be sure they will be willing to haul those treasures away when the final cleaning and clearing takes place.

     

     

    Related articles

    Holiday Gifts: What about giving our kids some of the treasures our parents left us?

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

    Social Media R Us: Staying in touch with our kids, Part 2

     

    Following up on yesterday's post on opening many lines of communication to stay in touch with our grown kids, there's this new Pew report

    Pew's research suggests we–parents of grown children–are keeping up with the times and opening lots of avenues of communication with our iEverything (All-Thumbs) children.

    Here's one excerpt from the report:

    Facebook continues to be the most popular social media site, but its membership saw little change from 2013. The one notable exception is older adults: For the first time in Pew Research findings, more than half (56%) of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook. Overall, 71% of internet users are on Facebook, a proportion that represents no change from August 2013.

    Every other social media platform measured saw significant growth between 2013 and 2014. Instagram not only increased its overall user figure by nine percentage points, but also saw significant growth in almost every demographic group. LinkedIn continued to grow among groups with which it was already popular, such as professionals and college graduates, while Twitter and Pinterest saw increases in usership across a variety of demographic groups.

    And some other data of note:

    Fully 52% of internet users are on two or more social media sites. There’s wide overlap between users of different platforms.

    Onward and upward with ways to stay in touch.

    Related articles

    Social Media Etiquette: The many ways to stay in touch with the grown kids
    One Third Of America's Senior Citizens Are Now On The Facebook
    Pew Internet and American Life Project Releases Updated Social Media Usage Statistics