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penny
I'm a writer and editor with two grown children and four grands.
Interests: parenting, yoga, bicycling, novels about India, memoir writing
Recent Activity
New Year Blues: The pain of holiday visits with adult kids
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The holidays were barely over when the calls for help started pouring into Jane Adams help line. Parents of adult children had had a rough time during the "joyous" December celebrations. Adams, a social psychologist, reports that she had more... Continue reading
Posted 4 days ago at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Mind the Gap: When our child's new love comes from a different background
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Some of us count ourselves lucky. Our children find their future Mr or Ms Right next door. Or within the same time zone. Or in the same country. Or from a similar culture. But what happens when none of that... Continue reading
Posted Jan 7, 2025 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Gift Giving: Bringing the warmth to cold cash.
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Young adult kids and teen-plus grandkids are well beyond the Toys for Xmas stage. The Holidays and birthdays bring more of a gift challenge. Could we possibly pick out a sweater or shirt that would be appropriate in their world?... Continue reading
Posted Dec 26, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Grandparents and Holiday Gifts: Giving grandkids presents from our grown child's childhood.
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Our social media feeds and retail websites are exploding with gift ideas for our grandkids--a dancing robot, AI Flying Orb, a remote-controlled spider. No wonder some of us are living a sentimental moment when we see in our attic or... Continue reading
Posted Dec 10, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Gift Giving: Grrr. The frustration when a Thank You is not forthcoming.
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Gratitude never goes out of season and yet, when it comes to our kids and grandkids, acknowledging a gift may not be "on trend" for them or, as the French so stylishly put it, pas au courant. The formal, hand-penned... Continue reading
Posted Dec 4, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Great idea about dessert delay. Thanks for that plus an extra thanks for thinking of me abs the other ways people need help at holidays like Thanksgiving. I’m fortunate to be spending the weekend at my son’s house with my daughter and her family also here to remind all of us to be grateful for the many blessings we have Sent from my iPhone
Toggle Commented Nov 28, 2024 on Surviving Holiday Feasts: Getting the help you need at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
Surviving Holiday Feasts: Getting the help you need
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At a coffee with my friend C a week before Thanksgiving, she put her head in her hands and said, "I'm already tired." Now, C's husband does most of the Thanksgiving cooking but C does the cold dishes plus all... Continue reading
Posted Nov 25, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Surviving Thanksgiving Togetherness: 5 boundaries to keep the family in line during the "holidays"
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Here they come again: The holidays and their feasts. As parents of adult children (and possibly as grandparents as well) we have our expectations of how joyous Thanksgiving dinner or the long weekend of togetherness will be--or how stressful and... Continue reading
Posted Nov 19, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Observation: An early 20th Century philosopher's take on parents and their grown children
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We cling to the joy we remember from our early child-rearing days "in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality." Thus wrote Philosopher and Logician Bertrand Russell in his essay, "How to Grow Old." The early 20th century "influencer"... Continue reading
Posted Nov 13, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Money Matters: Great expectations on gifts for new grandkids
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A friend, C, called this morning. Distraught. Needing to vent. She was upset about expectations for a gift for a second grandchild who is due in a few months. On a visit to her son and family over the weekend,... Continue reading
Posted Oct 25, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Grandparenting: Offering parenting advice to an adult child and family.
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Our kids are having kids. We have grandkids! Such good news. But what happens when we believe our children are taking a wrong tack in parenting those children? We know--or, if we've read any advice columns on the topic, should... Continue reading
Posted Oct 15, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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On Estrangement: Joshua Coleman's counsel on reconciling with an adult child
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What could be more painful than a deep and long-lasting rift with one's adult child? How does one bridge that gap? Joshua Coleman, a practicing psychologist who also researches estrangement preaches reconciliation. A key point he makes for parents in... Continue reading
Posted Oct 7, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Observation: Living within the limits of being a mother-in-law
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I was lucky. My husband didn't get along with his mother but I did. She didn't interfere (as my mother did) and, unlike most women of her generation (my mother, again) she never had a negative word to say about... Continue reading
Posted Sep 25, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Grandparenting: Fun and games with grannie names
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When I first learned I was going to become a grandma, I panicked. I told myself, "I'm not old enough to be called that." I was. I had already passed into my 60s. Much of my discomfort was with the... Continue reading
Posted Sep 18, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Empty Nest: Support for the college-dropoff blues
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My yoga teacher is a single mom. She dropped her only child off at college a few weeks ago. The daughter is a freshman and this is the first prolonged time away from home. My yoga teacher came back a... Continue reading
Posted Sep 9, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Vacation Togetherness: Seven tips to keep a get-away with grown kids running smoothly
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'Tis almost the end of the season to revel in summer vacations with our grown kids and possibly grandkids. It's also the start of thinking about next year or a winter-holiday getaway with the kids. So, here's an underlying truth... Continue reading
Posted Aug 26, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Money Matters: Who's picking up the check?
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Many of us have been here: We've fallen into the habit of picking up the bill when we take our grown child out for dinner. If we're not struggling to pay our own bills, we feel good about indulging a... Continue reading
Posted Aug 19, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Emptry Nests: Do we want our adult kids to live at home again?
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Emotional Misery. That's what I remember about those first few months of becoming an empty nester. After we sent our youngest child off to college, my husband and I had the blues all through that September. There was a sadness... Continue reading
Posted Aug 7, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Competitive Grandparenting: The deep-seated drive to outshine the other grandparents
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My children don't live near me. Which means my grandchildren don't either. Which means the gramps and I have never been able to go to every soccer game, piano concert, or other event our grandkids participated in. The other grandparents... Continue reading
Posted Jul 30, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Observations: How to deal with rude comments or questions about our loved ones.
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Our grandkids are the best--precious, smart, beautiful. But what do we do if someone sees their photograph and makes an unflattering or rude comment about them? Or asks why they are so "wild" at family get-togethers? Or makes a negative... Continue reading
Posted Jul 23, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Grandparenting: That "feeling ignored" feeling
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Sometimes we're upset at our grandkids over the unwritten thank you note. or the failure to acknowledge a birthday or a special visit. Or forgetting to answer a text or phone call--or initiate one. When our grandkids (or adult kids)... Continue reading
Posted Jul 17, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Tracking Apps: Young adults need to grow into independence. Tracking them blocks that.
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"Almost all my friends track their college-age kids." This is my daughter-in-law speaking, though she is not among the trackers. She lives in a medium-size city far from the perils of major urban hubs. But her fellow parents, she says,... Continue reading
Posted Jul 8, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Rebalancing Acts: When our kids become our social advisers
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I was invited to a pool party. It was last minute. Casual. A text read, "You are invited to pool dip and also dinner tomorrow Saturday night here. Come anytime afternoon. Cupla folks you'll like." I went into panic mode.... Continue reading
Posted Jun 18, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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Leaving a Legacy:The Great Transfer of Wealth from us to our adult kids. Is it for real?
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Here's what the headlines tell us: The greatest wealth transfer in history is here and we are the source of those assets. Yes. Some $84 trillion in our investment accounts, wallets and collectibles are set to change hands over the... Continue reading
Posted Jun 11, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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The App World: Should we be tracking our grown children?
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Am I showing my age and my app ignorance? Well, I certainly felt the former and learned a lot about the latter from a Carolyn Hax column. The column dealt with a reader's query about tracking her young adult children--children... Continue reading
Posted Jun 4, 2024 at Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us
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