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.

    Boomerang Children: A strategy for emptying the nest

    Some of us go with the flow when our grown kids move home with us–especially if they're recent graduates and are trying to gain footing in the work world. A neighbor whose son went to cooking school (to study the glorious culinary arts) loves having his son at home: When the son cooks dinner–and he does so a few times a week–the meals are sensational.

    But more of us find the experience frustrating: too up-close with adolescent habits they have yet to shed and with adult ways we're not ready to deal with. For some of us, the experience is financially draining: We're spending money on our adult children that we should be squirreling away for retirement. That is the point Barbara Torris makes in her blog Retire In Style.

    She has proposed a solution: downsize. Sell [or rent] the house you brought you kids up in and move into something smaller that doesn't necessarily have room for an extra grown up.

    Here's a fuller explanation of the theory from the Retire in Style post:

    "Many mid-life and retired people are downsizing so that, when the children
    need help, coming home to live will not be a choice. They know it would not be a happy situation for them. Interesting huh?

    "Could it be people are saving enough money by
    downsizing so they are able to help children in trouble but not make
    them
    dependent on them totally? The family remains on good terms and the
    children continue
    to mature and be self reliant. Helping pay part of the grown child's
    rent is a lot different than them coming home to live rent-free.
    The child could still be responsible for most of the cost and be forced
    to live
    within their means."

    Just throwing the idea out there, as was RetireInStyle.

    In case you're wondering who–daughters? sons?–is boomeranging back home, there's this recent finding from Pew Research.

    Notes: Pew Research Center Notes:
    “Living at home” refers to an adult who is the child or stepchild of
    the head of the household, regardless of the adult’s marital status.
    Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of March 2012 Current Population
    Survey Integrated Public Use Micro Sample.

    Related articles

    Money Matters:Our grown kids' financial struggles are tougher than ours were at their age.
    Catching the Boomerang: Downsizing?
    When Parents Throw a Boomerang!
    When your adult child moves back home
    Baby boomers movin' on down: Downsizing your home means scaling back on stuff
    Tips on Downsizing From a House to an Apartment

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

    Social Media Etiquette: Logging onto a grown child’s site? Keep your footprint light.

    Oh for the good old days when the telephone was the main means of communication with our grown children. What we said to them was between them and us–and if we slipped and said something untoward, we could apologize there and then or by calling them back later.

             Now, many of us learn what our kids are up to by checking in on their Facebook page (if they've allowed us to be friended by them), signing up for their Twitter account (we don't need their permission), or peeping in on their Instagram or Pinterest postings. (see chart below for our "social media usage" growth rates.) We can also use those sites to interact just as we would with a phone call, only now everything we "say" is public–and potentially embarrassing or worse.

    Here's a case in point from a Philip Galanes Social Q's column in the New York Times. 

    I am a college student and an aspiring fashion designer. Recently, I
    started a fashion blog to draw attention to my work and share ideas
    about what people are wearing. My problem: The first (and sometimes
    only) people to comment on my blog posts are my father and mother.
    “We’re so proud of you, honey!” “Good job, Susie-Q!” They make me feel
    like an 8-year-old. I told them nicely that I would prefer they not
    comment on my posts, which only hurt their feelings. Was I wrong?

    Galanes is the most understanding of responders. He understand us as well as them. What he told Susie-Qs parents holds true for responses on a Facebook page as well as other sites.

    "Ah, what puts a spring in my step like falling on the youthful side of a
    generation gap? I feel your pain, Susie-Q. But your parents are only
    trying to be supportive. (In their hearts, they would probably like
    nothing more than for you to drop out of fashion school and take a job
    at Goldman Sachs, so you could pay your own rent and therapy bills.) Go
    easy on them.


    What they don’t understand is that your blog is a newfangled extension
    of the workplace. It’s your cyber-office and shouldn’t feel like a
    preschool T-ball game. “Go, Susie!” So, explain it to them. They would
    never bust into your boss’s office to complain about a middling
    performance review. Say: “I’d love to hear your feedback over dinner or
    e-mail. But I want my blog to be professional, and that means no
    parental cheerleading.” They’ll knock it off. They grow up so fast, if
    we let them."

    Amen. We may be etiquettely challenged, but an August 2013 Pew Internet & American Life Project  survey shows we (the parents of grown children) are growing are using social media in increasing numbers. Here's Pew's latest chart–note that we in the plus-50 groups are totally with it (or whatever the appropriate social media terminology for "with it" is.)

    Related articles

    Hashtag Etiquette: What And What Not To Do – Infographic
    Social Media: It's High Maintenance

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

    Family Vacations: Grownchildren may find too much togetherness a trial

    Willa penpen Vt hike

    I thought I understood what Uber Son was saying. After a decade of family-togetherness vacations in Vermont, he wanted a piece of the time in Vermont for
    himself and his small family–a time that did not include his parents and his sibling and her
    family. His children's lives are so tightly programmed all year long–soccer
    games, piano lessons, gymnastic classes, play dates time three children
    going to three different schools. He just wanted time and space to do
    nothing together–to not have to be anywhere at any particular time, to
    be totally unscheduled and unpressured.

    That wasn't what he was getting on this year's vacation. Although he had made this particular need known during the spring when vacation plans were being made, somehow the scheduling for various arrivals got boloxed up–by me, the central planner who tried to meet the disparate needs and overlapping vacation dates of both of my grown children. So Uber Son only had five days before the hordes descended–into a separate condo to be sure but still a presence and a pressure for the cousins to do things together, for his family of three kids to absorb his sister's family of one child, for negotiations with everyone on what hikes, bikes or swims we would take and for debates about what to cook for dinner for 10.

    He seemed to be making the best of it. Many good times were had by all. But on the last day, he suggested we take a walk. That's when he let me know just unhappy he was about the intrusion–the mix-up on arrival dates (he had set his, we kept changing ours) and the central planning that overrode his needs and the plans he had made for 'alone' time. I assured him I understood, that Central Planning was on the case. It would not happen next year.

    And it won't. But did I really understand? It's one thing to accede to a request and another to comprehend the complex layers that drive it and to not experience it as a rejection of the rest of the family. 

    Then came this comment posted on this blog by a reader a few days ago in response to a previous post on family vacations.Among the key points she made:

    "It is unhealthy not to realize that your children are grown
    adults with families and traditions of their own."

    "Forcing
    togetherness and pretending like we are all still living in 1978 under
    one roof is foolish. It doesn't allow for who we have become or
    recognize that our significant others didn't marry our siblings or
    parents for that matter."

    "Having a good relationship with in laws requires mutual respect and crossing boundaries and invading vacation
    time is not respectful."

    "If you want to drive
    your children away keep on forcing together time."

    I can't say I saw myself in all her points, but the idea that each of my children want to have "families and traditions of their own" hit home. And so did her point about "invading vacation time."

    In short, I was viewing these vacations from my perspective: my desire to have the family together, for the
    cousins and the grown kids to bond and for me to enjoy the sight of it.
    There is something primal here: if they spend these happy
    vacation times together (my children do not live near each other or near
    me) they would be there for each other when we parents no longer are.

    But the truth is, Paterfamilias and I would not have put up with such invasions from our parents. So why should ours put up with it from us? So thank you, commenting reader. It is sometimes easier to "hear" a different point of view when it's made by a third party–in this case, by a total outsider.

    Related articles

    Is Your Family Vacation Normal? New Survey Highlights Summer Travel Behaviors
    Joys of a holiday without your husband

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

    The Pain of Parting: A grown child will be living abroad for a year. Again.

    Three years ago, Alpha daughter moved to Berlin for a year, taking with her my Grand, my son-in-law and my grandpup. We visited, we Skyped, we emailed. There was all the excitement of new experiences. Time went by. She moved back. We made it through.The dog did too, narrowly.

    But now she's packing her bags, leasing her house, inoculating the dog and heading for another year in Berlin. Where there was the first-time sense of adventure, that's missing this time. This time I know too much. Which is to say, I don't remember time flying by so much as I remember how much I missed her and her family–and the sympathetic warmth of her voice.

    We may not live through our grown children but what they do can give a little extra edge to our lives–from the kudos they win at their jobs to the triumphs their children achieve in math class. The second year abroad is a positive for her career, so we should be thrilled–again–about the move. And yes, we'll go visit  and use the trips as a jumping off place to see more of the world. Maybe go bicycling in Portugal or hiking in Turkey. We'll brush up on our minimal German. Tschüs (bye bye) will be in our working vocabulary again. We'll bring our laptops and work side by side in a cafe with our daughter and feel for a few days that we also live in Berlin. It is, after all, an exciting city with energy coming up out of its sidewalks and streets. And when we come for a visit, we can be helpful in bringing our relocated family those things that it's hard or very expensive to buy in Berlin–middle-school novels written in English; Mexican-style hot sauces.

    All true, but as the parent of the grown child, I'd prefer not to have a repeat performance. Not that I have a choice, but I'd rather have her family close enough so that when I get that overwhelming longing to see her, I can hop a short flight and be there, without a change of six time zones.  

    Related articles

    Parenting Grown Children: "The Way We Were" isn't necessarily the way they want to be.
    Visiting Grown Children: What are the good-guest rules when you don't feel well?
    Berlin / Zitadelle / Dead Can Dance
    In Berlin, Michelle Obama, daughters visit Holocaust memorial

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

    Money Matters:Our grown kids’ financial struggles are tougher than ours were at their age.

     Our generation may be "overinvested in our children." That's the reason financial planner (and consumer advocate), Eleanor Blayney, gives as why some of us have let ourselves slip into debt–despite carefully saving for retirement.

    There is, of course, the job market problem–an issue for those coming out of college in the past few years. Now that they are grads, we may help them with rent, put them up rent free at our place and otherwise offer a helping hand until they find their footing. It can become a problem when the costs go beyond our vacation funds and tap into out retirement kitty.

    But the issue is wider than that. Even their older brothers and sisters who entered the job market at a more generous time are struggling with financial disadvantages. According to a March study from the Urban Institute, they have considerably less wealth than we did at the same stage of
    life: They bought homes at the height of the bubble–the market's peak–and are now stuck dealing with the decline in home prices; they also
    put less money down (unless we helped with that 'little' investment), making it more likely that they have negative home
    equity. The UI study also reports that younger workers have tended to marry at a lower rate, have
    lower incomes than their parents, pay much higher costs for health
    insurance, and are more likely to be carrying college debt.

    No wonder many of us rush to "invest" in them, to try and even out the balance and keep them heading in the direction of a lifestyle that al least nears the equal of ours. If that sounds frivolous–or keep-up-with-the-Joneses–it is nonetheless at the heart of a worry many of us have. A friend remembers her daughter's post-graduate apartment in a run-down (low-rent) section of a city in California. It was in a dreary neighborhood in a one-room apartment that had hooks on a wall for a closet, an entryway covered with planks (to keep you from falling into a hole) and space for little more than a bed and night table that doubled as the table where she ate her meals. "It made me want to weep," my friend tells me. "How could her father and I live in such comparative luxury and let our child live in such reduced conditions. I wanted to write her a check right then and there and demand she find a better place to live."

    Most of us resist (as did my friend) and let our kids build character and work their way through the "tough" times. That is, we do that unless we feel the safety of our child is compromised. And then we invest, whether we have to tap our 401k account or not. It is one thing to say–as friends without children do–that children should stand on their own two feet, that we do them no favor by sheltering them from reality. No one helped them out when they were our kids' age.

    And yet, times have changed. the burdens are blurred–and heavy. We don't want to spoil them–whatever that means–or enable destructive habits. And that remains a basic tenet in whether or not to help support a grown child. But beyond that, for many of us, the investment seems both necessary and worthwhile.

     

    Related articles

    Lackluster job market drives thousands of young adults back home to live with parents
    Young adults really do have it tougher
    Money Matters: Not so easy to cut the lifeline of support
    Money Matters: Retire? Not as long as we feel our grown kids need our help
    Half of Adult Children Think Parents Made No Money Mistakes
    Emerging Adults: When is it time to cut the cord on financial support?
    Money Matters: There's still a positive ROI in a kid's college education

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

    Parenting Grown Children: Keeping your thoughts bouyant even when they’re not

     

    There's that old phrase: "We're only as happy as our unhappiest child." And it's true. We often feel down when there is a bump of trouble in one of our children's lives. We also feel less than upbeat when things are going not quite well in our lives–from job-related woes to health stress.

    What am I getting at? We want to be honest with our kids about the big issues in life–not everything is a joy and a smiley face–but we don't want to visit on them our everyday anxieties or woes–or the over-reaction to theirs. The telephone can be a dead give-away. My kids have me at 'hello' when they are feeling troubled. I assume they can read my voice as well. So, I was struck by a recent blog by happiness guru Gretchen Rubin that talked about comfort foods of the mind–little ways to turn our bleak thoughts around and keep us from being negative when we talk to our grown kids.

    On her list of "comfort food"
    for your mind–ways to pull your mind away from worries onto positive topics:

    Watch a movie — and not an upsetting one — or a favorite TV show.

    Read or re-read a favorite book (preferably an upbeat one). Rubin prefers children's literature. My pick: anything Jane Austen but especially Pride and Prejudice for its humor and the wonderful fairytale like ending.

    Find
    an activity that gives you exercise, gets you outside, or brings you in
    contact with other people. Taking a walk alone is not necessarily a good idea. It can lead to brooding unless you've got something upbeat on your iPod.]

    Got any other ideas?

    Related articles

    Visiting Grown Children: What are the good-guest rules when you don't feel well?
    Giving Yourself a Boost
    Happiness Project Update 27: I Fell Off the Wagon … But I Found Refuge

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

    Emerging Adults: What does it take for employers to want to hire our college grads?

    These are the hours–or years–of our discontent. It remains difficult for our recent college graduates to get their foot in the door of a career job. They are far from oblivious to the challenges. There is fear and trembling amongst them. A friend tells me her son  wouldn't write his resume–and when finally forced to do so (on pain of some penalty or other) came up with a lame version–a piece of work that was not adjusted to the real world of full time work. He actually had no clue. The dad was traveling and the mom had been out of the work force for 20 years.

    What employers in the real world are looking for–what the resume and personal interview need to show–are part of what's discussed in a New York Times Economix piece. It's must reading for parents of recent college grads–for insights into what the problem might be in terms of getting employers interested in hiring their talented, smart and well-above-average son or daughter.

    If you don't want to wade through the whole story, here are the main highlights:

    –There’s always been a gap between what colleges produce and what
    employers want, but it isn’t necessarily specific technical skills that are lacking.

    –he skills most needed by employers and the skills most lacking among job candidates
    are written and oral communication skills, adaptability
    and managing multiple priorities, and making decisions and problem
    solving. 

     –Young employees are very good at finding information, but not as good
    at putting that information into context. They’re
    really good at technology, but not at how to take those skills and
    resolve specific business problems.

    –In the U.S. and in other countries, there are problems among new employees with collaboration,
    interpersonal skills, the ability to deal with ambiguity, flexibility
    and professionalism.

    –Most recent college graduates expect
    employers to provide on-the-ground training, but most of them don’t
    actually receive it.

     

    Related articles

    Paying for College: Congrats on graduation. Now here's an update on whether the degree is worth it.
    Money Matters: Caught in the web of generosity guilt
    Recent college grads face 36% 'mal-employment' rate
    What do employers really want from college grads?

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

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

    Where is it written that, when we write our Wills and split our estate into legacies, each of our grown children has to be treated equally? That is, the worldly goods have to cut down the middle if there are two children, into equal thirds if there are three–on down to fourths and fifths or more.

    There are lots of reasons why we might not want to divvy things up evenly–reasons beyond dis-inheriting a badly behaved child. A friend, recently divorced, has three children–two daughters, one son. She wants to leave the bulk of her considerable estate [the divorce agreement left her very comfortable financially] to her daughters. The reason is simple: The son has hit it rich in a business he runs with his father. He has no need for a share in his mother's estate. The daughters are both struggling financially–one in a low-paying but rewarding job; the other as a stay-at-home mom with four children and a husband who, says Will-Writing Mama, will never earn a lot of money, at least not by the standards of the family.

    Her mind is made up, and she had a plan to explain it to her son–later, in a letter that would accompany the Will and be read when she passes on.That's when her estate lawyer gave her a solid piece of advice: Give her son a heads up in advance. She's working on it–by writing a letter he can read now that explains it all and makes clear that this has only to do with his financial success and nothing to do with the son's partnership with his father.

    That's one way to handle the decision to disperse unevenly. In answer to a similar issue in Social Qs, Philip Galanes suggested the legacy-leaving parents have a heart to heart talk with the child whose financial success is so much more secure that her sibling's. "Talk with her privately," Galanes suggests, "and say: 'We always
    imagined leaving our money to you and Bobby 50-50. We love you both. But
    you’ve become so successful, and Bobby really needs our help. How would
    you feel if we left him a bigger piece of the pie?'
    Then listen." It's the dialogue you open that counts, Galanes says. And he adds one additional point to make to Super-Successful Child: "Be clear that if anyone’s
    circumstances change, your estate plan will, too."

    Solid advice. The money in our estate is ours to disburse as we see fit, but we don't want the sharing of our wealth to create ill feelings between siblings–or a grudge against a demised us. The reality is that one child may not need the money where the other does, but being unprepared to be read out of a
    Will can lead to unintended and unhappy consequences. Besides, as Galanes put it, "the sanest people can go bonkers where cash is concerned."

    Related articles

    Money Matters: Retire? Not as long as we feel our grown kids need our help
    Money Matters: Caught in the web of generosity guilt
    When you have more than you need: How to give your money away

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

    Parenting Grown Children: Letting their success stand for itself

    Friends are visiting. We haven't seen them in years. The two husbands grew up in the same New York neighborhood. We wives became friends as young marrieds. Then they moved north to Vermont; we moved south and we would see them once a year when we headed for the Green Mountains for a summer vacation. Those annual two-family dinners and picnics became a marker of sorts–of how our children were growing up. We started when our kids were still in preschool and continued into the college years. It was a limited, once-a-year history, but a tracking of passages in the life of our families.

    So it isn't surprising that on this visit we are talking about our kids and reveling in how all four of them–their two and our two–have turned out to be independent and productive. It's not a matter of bragging rights–it's more a catching up with some of the details on what our children have accomplished and are doing.

    Our friends are very proud of their children–with good reason. Like our children, neither of their two daughters live close to home.
    One of them is currently living as far away as Madagascar. So it comes as something of a surprise when the mom tells me, with a little laugh, how when one of her daughters comes to visit mom and dad in the old homestead they hang out and occasionally, my friend suggests something–a little something about her daughter's clothes or hairdo or her children's play-together habits. Just a wee critique that slips out in the course of a long day. That's when, my friends tells me, her daughter tells her: "Mom, I run a household. I have two kids. I'm working. I'm an adult now. Back off."

    She says it in a nice way, my friend tells me. And she tells me this story by way of saying how good she feels about having an independent and resourceful child. Isn't that what it's all about? Isn't that the message we want to convey to them–even if we slip from time to time and forget to "back off."

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

    Parenting Adult Children: When their romantic relationship is not who we want

    This is an addenda to my post a few months ago, "Backing off when we don't like their choice of romantic partner." We don't always understand why our grown children choose the love interest they bring home for us to meet. Somehow, the new love doesn't measure up to our vision of who would be a good match for them.

    It isn't easy to come to terms with a person–a possible son- or daughter-in-law–who seems, well, less educated or less sophisticated or just not as classy or too old or too young as you had hoped. Sometimes, we don't even wait to meet them–we don't like them based on description alone.

    That was the case in the Social Q's (Philip Galanes, New York Times) answer to a woman worried about her 23-year-old graduate-student son's relationship with a 28 year old woman he met at school. Not only has the mom not met the woman her son is bringing home for a weekend visit, she has received a request from him that she dish out vegan foods (quinioa, seitan and tempeh) for himself and his guest–he no longer eats meat, fish or fowl and neither does his guest. After Galanes tells the mom how to deal with the challenge of the cooking request ("Reply to your son, "When you get home, we'll go shopping for groceries together."), he addresses her real concern: that her son "is living the louche life with an old cougar when he should be holed up in the library."

    "Let me be clear Mama Bear," he advises. "You have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, in going to war with them…. Time will tell whether this gal is a distraction or enhancement to your son's academic career…. In the meantime, try to be happy for him and his falling cholesterol levels."

    And there's the hitch for all of us–trying to be happy when we think we see an unwise relationship in the bud. But we can't nip it. It's their life now. The control button is no longer at our fingertips. Unless we see signs of abuse, all we can do is swallow hard, smile and hope nature takes the best course.

    Related articles

    Philip Galanes Answers Your Wedding Etiquette Questions
    Parenting Grown Children: "The Way We Were" isn't necessarily the way they want to be.
    Mark Bittman, Philip Galanes, Wine and Beer Advice, the Science of Cooking