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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.

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

    Social Media Etiquette: Hold back that comment on your grown child’s Facebook page!

    The temptation was almost too much. Uber son had posted on Facebook his plans to take a trip–to be specific, to take himself and his family to Colonial WIlliamsburg, a destination that lies well beyond his home in the Northeast and just a little beyond ours in the Mid Atlantic.

       He was asking his FB friends and acquaintances for travel tips–where to eat, where to stay in Williamsburg. Paterfamilias was ready to join in. "I was going to say, 'Hey, there's free room and board at your old homestead–and the food's good, too.' Then I thought better of it."

    Good for you PF. Second-thinking is just the ticket. What could be worse than horning in on a social media site read by a grownchild's friends and business acquaintances with a less-than-helpful remark–and one that borders on inducing guilt.If we've got something to say, email, phone calls or a quick text is the preferred method–unless the FB account is for family only. Then no holds are barred. Even for us.

    Related articles

    Social Media Etiquette: Three tips to make sure your grownkids Skype you up when you call

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

    Leaving a Legacy: Four tips for dealing with the touchy-feely side of estate planning

      Fear not: This is not going to be about taxes, codicils, trusts or any of the other anxiety-inducing terms that go into drawing up an estate plan for the material legacy you leave your children. We're going to a higher place: the emotional concerns and in particular, those of the very rich–members of Tiger 21. That's a group of wealthy individuals that have $10 million or more to invest. They not only have to deal with the eventual apportioning of millions of dollars worth of assets to their grown children, they also have to deal with the emotional side of leaving a legacy. Just like you and me.

    The New York Times recently reported on a meeting for members of the elite group. The conference was entitled, dully enough, “Successful Multigenerational Families.” What I learned from the out-takes from that conference is that, when it comes to the emotional side of sharing our material wealth with our children, the rich struggle with many of the issues that bother us as well: how-much-is-too-much for our children to expect, how soon-is-too-soon to share it with them, and how to divvy it up among children, some of whom are financial super-successes and others who are not. 

    Here are some of the Tiger 21 tips about dealing with these legacy issues:

    1. Rely on a simple plan: Too many families focus on tax savings and investment choices and end up with an overly complicated last will and testament that is a challenge to their heirs as well as the lawyers. There are lots of decisions you can leave to them. They are grown-ups.

    2. Don't wait too long to share the wealth: If you have a nest egg that's big enough to cover more than your retirement needs, build into your overall estate plan a way to prefund your children’s inheritance so they don’t have to wait until you die to inherit money or other useful assets. Said one expert: “I think it’s wrong for a child to wait until their 60s to inherit. By that point they don’t need it.”

    3. Split it evenly: Leave your material wealth split 50-50 (or whatever the fraction is for more than two children) among your grown children, even if one child is a schoolteacher and the other a hedge fund manager. If you want to tilt the material goods toward the child who needs it, have a clear understanding up front and get buy-in from your children. Without that, one expert said, "you’re going to tear a family apart. No matter how much a family has, if it’s not equal there is resentment.”

    4. Be inclusive: Bring your grown children into the planning and understanding of what's involved. Hold family meetings, even if it's just to talk over who might want the Russian tea samovar that sits in the dining room and who is fond of the painting over the fireplace.

     

    Related articles

    Money Matters: Slicing and dicing the financial legacy for your grown children

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

    Empty Nesting: Even Power Parents feel the loss when their almost-grown kids leave home

    The power-career parents among us–famous politicians and actresses–don't just feel that empty-feeling when their kids leave home; they also temper their career moves around their coming-of-age children. Like us, they do not take empty nesting lightly. At least that's what struck me when I read a Q and A conversation between a New York Times columnist (my personal fave, Philip Galanes) and two famous moms: Julia Louis-Dreyfus [Elaine on Seinfeld, the Vice Prez on Veep] and Nancy Pelosi [the first woman to be speaker of the House).

     

        

     

    In that conversation, Pelosi talks about having five children in six years and waiting to run for Congress until her youngest was in high school. When asked about "pangs of sadness that four of your five kids had flown the coop" when she finally ran, Pelosi said:

    NP: I have a very specific answer: Three of my children were at Georgetown when I went to Washington.

    JLD: So, that’s why you ran for Congress!

    NP: I could never have done it otherwise. I could never have left home. But when they went away to college, they basically said: “Mother, you’re in Congress; we’re in college. Why don’t you forget we’re in the same city?” They didn’t want me, but I was still hoping to see them.

    PG: Kids are monsters.

    JLD: No, that’s appropriate.

    NP: When I first ran for Congress, I went to my daughter Alexandra, who was going to be a senior in high school, and said: “I have a chance to run. I may not win, but I’d be gone three nights a week. So, if you want me to stay, I’ll be happy to.” And do you know what she said to me? “Mother, get a life!”

    As to Julila Louis-Dreyfus, Galanes asked her if having her oldest child leave for college was "as hard in real life as you made it look in the movie “Enough Said”?

    JLD: It was hard for sure …

    PG: When your character in that film takes her daughter to the airport, the sniffles echoed through the theater.

    JLD: It was a momentous occasion in our family when our eldest left for college. We were intellectually prepared for it, but not emotionally. It was a big whack to the brain. And by the way, he’s graduating in May.

    NP: It goes by fast.

    JLD: As parents, we don’t completely understand that we are raising these creatures to leave us. They have to. But you don’t get that until it happens.

    Related articles

    Julia Louis-Dreyfus On How To Create An Unforgettable Character
    Busy week for Julia Louis-Dreyfus includes new film, Emmys (Video)

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

    Emerging Adults: Five quick tips for their transition from college to career

       "The transition from college to adult life is treacherous, and this is nowhere more visible than among new college graduates in their first real jobs." Thus spake Charles Murray, the controversial social historian. A few years ago, he reports in a Wall Street Journal column, he took it upon himself to start writing tips for the young staff where he works about how to avoid doing things that would make their supervisors write them off. As he points out, at senior levels of an organization there are curmudgeons everywhere, judging a young worker's every move. It is their good opinion–not those of their peers–that newly employed college grads need to win if they hope to get ahead.

    Murray's WSJ column was, in effect, touting his new book ["The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life,"] that's more about his take on how to live a good life (marry young; take religion seriously). His curmudgeonly pointers on demeanor for workplace success–also included in the book–are worth passing along to where the shoe might pinch.

    • Excise the word “like” from your spoken English
    • Don’t suck up
    • Stop “reaching out” and “sharing”
    • Rid yourself of piercings, tattoos, and weird hair colors
    • Make strong language count

    "Like" or not these words of wisdom, feel free to reach out and share them.

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    Real advice for a happy life
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  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    Grandparenting: Have we let everyone know how clever our grandchildren are?

               

    It's one of my favorite stories about my mother-in-law, who was a charming and intelligent woman, short in height but highly competitive. Even in the small things and sometimes in ways that, well, bordered on the embarrassingly exaggerated. When I told her the new height my son had reached–he graduated from high school as a six-footer and came home from his freshman year at college at 6' 3"–she denied it. "Oh no," she said. "I told Aunt Nettie he's 6' 7."

    Most of us made it through the parenting years with at least some boasting–however subtle–about our wonderful children and their accomplishments. My mother-in-law was not alone in keeping those bragging rights and applying them to the next generation. 

    Grandparents do it, as I was reminded recently by a delightful piece in The Hindu which detailed the creative one-upsmanship of Indian grandparents or, what the author calls "the proud, and sometimes patronising, tones of the competitive grandaprent." It's worth clicking the link and reading the whole piece but here are two anecdotes that make my mother-in-law seem a master of understatement.

    One discussion between friends who are both grandparents went like this: “Siddharth has already started piano lessons.” The reply: “That’s so good! So he’s seven now? My grandson started at five, and he’s such an accomplished player at 12!”

    And another: “Keerti is getting quite good at her Carnatic music lessons back in the U.S. She’s found a really good teacher.” Reply: “Really? Well, we’ve arranged for a Chennai teacher to coach my granddaughter through Skype, in addition to her local classes in the U.S., of course — the teachers there are not as professional as the ones here, are they?”

    The author suggests that we who live far from our grandchildren may be the worst offenders–because we don't have the day-to-day ups and downs to give us perspective. "To and fro visits are too short and …are spent in observing and relishing accomplishments. The hours that might have earlier been put in child-minding are now spent in re-living memories of annual or bi-annual visits."

    Since my grandkids arrived a year or three later than those of several of my friends, I remember all too well the fear that I would have to listen to "charming" anecdotes about the adorable offspring of their grown children. As the author in India notes, "nobody wants to hear odes to somebody else’s grandchild."

    So dear reader, if you press me, I can assure you that my grown children and grandchildren are brilliant, joyful and superbly talented. (Some of them are even tall.) Anecdotal proof, however, is available only upon request. I hope I live up to that promise.

     Related articles

    The competitive grandparent at work
    Grandparenting: Advice on giving unsolicited advice to the newborn's parents
    Grandparenting: The gift of helping Grands understand how children in other parts of the world live.

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

    Re-framing our role in the lives of our grown children

    They've graduated college, are living independently, may even have acquired a spouse–or spouse-to-be. If we are no longer the central player in their lives–and we're not or shouldn't be–then what is our role? Re-framing how we function as Mom or Dad is the ongoing challenge of parenting adult children. It's one many have tried to define.

        Robin Marantz Henig, a science journalist and co-author, with her daughter Samantha Henig, of Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?, has noted that "many Baby Boomers have adopted the role of concierge, and at a luxury hotel!" For herself, Henig  tries "to think of myself as a consultant to my two daughters, but who knows—every now and then the concierge (aka Jewish mother) in me inevitably peeks out."

    In her book, Linda Herman gives parents of grown children the "right"–or peace of mind–to let go. "Over the course of our children’s lives, we need to make the transition through the “three Cs of parenting," from choreographers to coaches on sidelines to consultants referred to for expert advice.

        My own take is that we stumble and bumble our way from being the benign dictators that we were when we reared our young children to recognizing that, now that those kids are adults, we’ve been forced out of office. Finding a graceful way to come to grips with the coup d’etat may sound simple but is hard and harder to do as life's joys and blows come along.

     

    Related articles

    Parenting Adult Children: Great gift ideas for grown children
    Refilled Nests: It isn't just economics that drives our grown kids back to home base.
    Behind the Cover Story: Robin Marantz Henig on Making End-of-Life Decisions (and Changing Your Mind)

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

    Grandparenting: Finding ways to talk to pre-teens. Tim Gunn helps out.

    It's always been my challenge: how to get a conversation going with grandchildren who live far away–some of whom are now pre-teens. Skype may make it seem like we're in the same room when we chat, but we don't have the same day-to-day sense of interchange as we would if my Grands lived next door–figuratively speaking. Or at least in the same city.

    When my Grands were small, questions like, what's your favorite color? animal? sport? worked wonders in breaking the ice. But with pre-teens those questions can, well, seem childish. So far we've found it's easy with our boy Grand: sports is an ice breaker and conversation base. He's big on soccer, baseball, football–you name it. So's his dad and so is Paterfamilias [the Granddaddy]. When we're on an in-person visit, I get in on it by posing crossword questions having to do with sports (4 down: Cy Young winner, 1988), which sometimes brings him around to working the crossword puzzle with me and chatting about the various other clues, which we like to answer with the help of an iPad or laptop. Lot's of conversation starters there.

     Tim Gunn, mentor extraordinaire

    But with the girls? There isn't the same tried-and-true connector. Except that I lucked into one with my 11-year-old Grand who is living in Berlin for a year. In December, when she and her parents came to our home for the holidays we watched Runway together–hours of reruns on YouTube. It's become our "ice-breaker"–that is, my way of getting a conversation started. And it's been working. It isn't the fashion stuff that' we talk about–neither of us is into high style or brand labels. Rather it's the personalities on the show. We are both fans of Heidi Klum (and the way she says "Auf weidersehn" when she gives the week's losing designer the bad news) and Tim Gunn, the mentor and co-host.

    When we Skype we talk about the new show (Under the Gunn), what it's like. And then came what I call My Big Breakthrough. I mentioned on one of our chit chats how I heard Tim Gunn interviewed on Terry Gross's Fresh Air show on NPR. My Grand wanted details. Among the points Gunn made–and among those I chose to repeat to my Grand (I did not tell her about his suicide attempt when he was 17)–was how difficult a childhood he had as a schoolboy, how he was shipped him from one boarding school to another and teased for being different: he had a stutter.

    Tim Gunn's story was the opening. She sat on her sofa at her end of the SKype call and we talked about the fear of being teased or bullied at school and that morphed into her talking about her social standing in school–a school she was attending for one year while she is in Berlin. I told her what mine had been [neither popular nor bullied–just a shy person with friends who, like me, weren't part of the popular crowd] and she detailed her's. It was a wonderful conversation. I got a sense of the struggles she was having and concerns she had at the school in Berlin, her hopes for what it would be like when she was back in her home school in September with her friends–with whom she keeps in touch by email and Skype. (Let's hear it for technology!) I feel I know her better and–this is all hope on my part–I feel she feels closer to me, that there's an enhanced element of trust.

    What I tell myself now is this: You never know where the opening is going to come from. (Thank you Tim Gunn for being so open and honest–and so likeable–that an 11-year-old takes seriously what you have to say.)  When that opening for an intimate conversation does come along, I plan to hold on and make the most of it. It's the jackpot. And say my Hosannas that it was there.  It may not come again.

    Related articles

    Social Media Etiquette: Three tips to make sure your grownkids Skype you up when you call
    Social Media Etiquette: Some people don't have to live by the Skype rules
    Tim Gunn: On And Off The Runway, 'Life Is A Big Collaboration'

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

    Money Matters: That feel-good feeling when we help out our grown kids

    We were well into our pear-tini's (a delightful pear flavored cocktail) when my friend C said she didn't mean to gossip but….her husband's father still pays his daughter's credit card bills even though the daughter (the dad's youngest child and only daughter) is about to turn 40. The daughter, C says, has a good job and so does her husband. "He [the dad] just spoils her rotten," says C, whose Midwestern father wouldn't have dreamed of running up a credit card bill, no less paying his daughter's debts or minor indulgences.

    I cringe. I don't pay my children's credit card bills but I do help out my kids occasionally–and I enjoy doing it. Am I spoiling them? They give no indication that they expect any assistance. The few times they have asked for money to help them ride out a cash flow problem, they have paid it back quickly and in full. It was hard to express to C how much pleasure I get from giving–from knowing I'm there as a helping hand, to take the edge off any financial worries or make some small indulgence possible.

    Now I feel vindicated–and pretty upbeat about myself. A new study finds that while we parents of adult children want our kids to be independent and self sufficient, some of us still get a thrill from helping out–though some decidedly do not.

    The study looked at 337 older parents of middle-aged children and found that parents are giving help to their children, well into their children's middle age. "This support is often associated with lower rates of depression among the older adults," reports Lauren Bangerter, one of the researchers from Penn State. Those who felt rewarded by providing financial support had fewer depressive symptoms when they were helping generously compared with when they weren't. Meanwhile, those who did not feel rewarded by helping financially had more depressive symptoms when they helped financially.

    The results also suggest, according to Steven Zarit, a Penn State professor also involved in the study. "that depressive symptoms are more frequent when the level of reward a parent feels regarding giving is inconsistent with the amount of tangible support that he or she actually gives."

    To those of us who have the wherewithal and share it with our grown kids no matter their age: Let's have another pear-tini and give ourselves a pat on the back. We make ourselves feel good about being indulgent–even if others see it as spoiling our kids rotten.

     

    Related articles

    Parenting Adult Children: Great gift ideas for grown children
    Parents' attitudes about helping their grown children affect their mental health
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  • PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

    The Guest Rules: Making the most of a visit to a grown child who lives far away

    "Their lives are all set," my friend Lulu says. "What to do with me?"

    Lulu was talking about an impending visit to a grown daughter and the daughter's family–two children and a husband–that recently relocated to Hong Kong. This would be Lulu's first big trip on her own since her husband died last summer.

    It's the daughter's job with a development bank that's brought the young family to the former British colony that's now part of China. The job is one that keeps Lulu's daughter busy–traveling part of almost every week to Southeast Asia countries where the bank has interests. So when Lulu announced she was planning to visit her daughter and family in January, the daughter wondered what Lulu would do. The kids would be in school, the daughter would be working–and traveling–and the son-in-law would be spending his days as usual on his computer. 

    Not exactly an inviting prospect. And yet, well—here's Lulu's report on her 10-day visit:

    "I enjoy visiting my children and getting a sense of how they lead their lives. But they wouldn't be around during the day on this visit. I figured I could go off and do things by myself–after all, I was going to a pretty exciting part of the world. It turned out to be easy getting around. I was able to figure out the subway. I read guidebooks and each night I would figure out what I wanted to do the next day and how to be back at the apartment when everyone else came home. I asked my son-in-law, who doesn't have a job, if he wanted to come with me to some of the things but he didn't want to go. I didn't say anything.

    "One thing I wanted to do was have high tea at the Peninsula Hotel. My daughter was surprised that I was ready to do that by myself. It must have sounded interesting because she decided to meet me there and we had high tea together. It was lovely.

    "I knew before I left home that my daughter had a trip to Vietnam planned and that I was invited to go with her. That was a lot of fun. She had a big room at a luxury hotel in Hanoi. She went to her meetings and I kept myself busy: I took a cooking class, which was a lot of fun–they take you shopping to the outdoor markets to buy ingredients. I went to a museum on Vietnam's history and I walked around the city–though that was tricky since it's really hard to cross the streets: hundreds of motorbikes are coming at you and they never stop. In the evening, I would join my daughter and have dinner together with her and her colleagues.  

    "This was the best visit I had. Part of the reason it went so well is that I was doing my own thing. I was happy, and they were happy."

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

    Parenting Grown Sons: Who’s to blame for unpleasant housekeeping habits?

    I am awash in guilt. My daughter-in-law is having a problem with my son's personal "clean-up" habits. He does not place his dirty laundry in the basket provided at a convenient place for him. It has led to great annoyance on her part–and even some good-natured retaliation, which I learned about from a Facebook entry he posted.

    My DIL had sent my son an email addressing the issue. Riffing on a book he wrote about teaching techniques, she emailed him a photo of that morning's laundry basket with his dirty socks lying nearby and then wrote: "I'd like you to try again at the end of the day to nail the laundry in the basket thing we've been working on. I'm giving you the opportunity to show me how much you've improved! POW. Technique 39."

    His Facebook item noted that, upon seeing the photo, he was unsure whether it did or did not suggest he had shown some improvement. He showed the photo (not the idealized version above) to two female colleagues, both of whom assured him it was overwhelming evidence that he was doing a poor job.

    Well, it turned into a very amusing Facebook entry (for those of us who know my son), and we who saw it–including many of his colleagues–got a good chuckle out of it. But when I talked to my DIL a few days later, she wasn't laughing.

    She was frustrated about the mess he was leaving for her to pick up and she had had enough of it. That's where my guilt came in. I remembered, too clearly, what a messy kid he had been–how he left his dirty laundry on the floor of his room: just stepped out of his jeans and left them as they were, along with the tee shirts he'd worn and, of course, the underwear and socks. I had just let it all sit there till he couldn't walk around in his room anymore–on the theory that that would encourage him to clean up. Evidently, it didn't work. When I mentioned this early "training" to my DIL she tried not to be aghast or to put the blame on my shoulders, though clearly some of it belonged there.

    I am sure–at least I think I am sure–that she does not want me to intervene in this squabble, that she was just letting off steam in a safe place. And I do feel for her. But also for my son. No question, he should put his dirty laundry in the basket, not around it, and that he should support his wife when she sends the same message to the children. But having grown up with a neat-freak mother–much more of a "you will do it my way" housekeeper than my DIL–I know how impossible it can be to meet expectations and sometimes to not even know what those expectations are. Though in this case, there are no excuses: Dirty laundry is either in the basket or it's not. How could he not know that? Didn't his mother teach him anything?

    When I looked at it I wasn’t totally sure whether she was showing me the picture as evidence that I was doing a good job or a bad job. However, I shared it with my Practice Perfect co-authors, Katie Yezzi and Erica Woolway and they assured me that, devastatingly, it was overwhelming evidence of a poor job on my part. – See more at: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/personal-confession-came-crashing/#sthash.Pm0fb5sY.dpuf

    I’d like you to try again at the end of the day to nail the laundry in the basket thing we’ve been working on.  I’m giving you the opportunity to show me how much you’ve improved!

    POW!  Technique 39.

    – See more at: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/personal-confession-came-crashing/#sthash.Pm0fb5sY.dpuf

    I’d like you to try again at the end of the day to nail the laundry in the basket thing we’ve been working on.  I’m giving you the opportunity to show me how much you’ve improved!

    POW!  Technique 39.

    – See more at: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/personal-confession-came-crashing/#sthash.Pm0fb5sY.dpuf

    I’d like you to try again at the end of the day to nail the laundry in the basket thing we’ve been working on.  I’m giving you the opportunity to show me how much you’ve improved!

    POW!  Technique 39.

    – See more at: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/personal-confession-came-crashing/#sthash.Pm0fb5sY.dpuf

    I’d like you to try again at the end of the day to nail the laundry in the basket thing we’ve been working on.  I’m giving you the opportunity to show me how much you’ve improved!

    POW!  Technique 39.

    – See more at: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/personal-confession-came-crashing/#sthash.Pm0fb5sY.dpuf

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