On adult children: Learning the boundaries of communication (guest post)

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Dear readers: This guest post was written by my grandma friend and fellow GRANDparent Network member Donne Davis of GaGa Sisterhood. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom on the tricky-at-times relationship between parents and their adult children, Donne.

mother and adult daughter

When it comes to communicating with your adult children, where do you get stuck? I posed this question to the 25 GaGas attending our January 15 meeting and added, is it around discipline, visitation, values or boundaries?

All of the above, and more, they answered. One member said: “All I have to do is open my mouth and my son misinterprets what I’m saying.” Another joked: “OMG! Just asking ‘how are you’ can trigger...

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Musing elsewhere: Thoughts on my daughter's miscarriage (PurpleClover.com)

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Thoughts on my daughter's miscarriage

Published October 18, 2015 on PurpleClover.com

purpleclover.com

My daughter lost her baby last week. A miscarriage in the first trimester.

Coming from an abundantly fertile family, it's hard to wrap my head around that. My mom had seven children. Three of my sisters had several children, and a number of those kids had kids. I had three children myself, and my middle child had three children, too.

All of us had no problem. Yet it's a problem for my oldest child, Brianna.

"Problem" doesn't come close to accurately describing the fertility challenge for my daughter. A dead baby is far more than a problem. It's a painful, traumatic, inexplicable loss.

My 33-year-old daughter, who learned just this past year that her chances for conceiving and delivering a child are sadly...

Click to continue reading on PurpleClover.com...

More on moms, plus GRAND Social No. 155 link party for grandparents

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More on moms

Mother's Day has come and gone but there's no end to the love between mothers and daughters (and sons too, of course, but that's not what this is all about). Here's a lovely mother/daughter video grandmothers and soon-to-be grandmas will especially appreciate.

 

Sweet, right?

GRAND Social No. 155 link party for grandparents

Wipe away your tears and get...

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Musing elsewhere: When a teen mom hits midlife

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In the summer of 1982, I graduated from high school, got married, turned 18, and had a baby. I went from kid to wife and mother in the span of three months, just like that.

teen mom and baby

My husband was 21 at the time. Now, 33 years later, we're empty-nesters. We've patted ourselves on the back for a job well done. We beat the odds and raised three lovely and amazing daughters from diapers to dorm rooms and into the real world. Our journey featured little outside the typical bumps, bruises and pains of parenthood, despite the fact that we were mere children ourselves at the outset. Our girls are grown and gone—one has even made us grandparents.

Time to rejoice! Time to enjoy midlife!

Time for an unexpected reality check, is more like it.

Once my kids split and I recovered from the initial empty-nest jitters, it became clear that having been a teen mother would...Click here to continue reading my article published on PurpleClover.com.

purple clover

Laughing Baby... and laughing babies

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As a little girl, Megan — my middle daughter and mother to my grandsons — had a baby doll named Laughing Baby. Throughout most of her third year, Megan kept Laughing Baby in her arms or cuddled up close to her wherever she went, whatever she was doing.

toddler and baby doll

Laughing Baby was named such because she laughed and laughed when her...

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Gobsmacked, plus GRAND Social No. 139 link party for grandparents

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Gobsmacked

On Saturday, I was smacked in the face unexpectedly with the realization that in exactly six months, my baby, my youngest daughter, my little Andie who makes me laugh so hard will be thirty years old.

mom and adult daughter

Well, not exactly six months, as Andrea will celebrate the milestone birthday...

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Christmas and how the empty nest gets harder after college

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Christmas and how the empty nest gets harder after college

I used to be one of those moms whose child — or children, plural — recently left for college. You know... the moms walking around with a dazed, how-the-heck-did-this-happen-so-fast look in their eyes, virtually visible cracks in their hearts as they miss the once little ones who have flown their nest. They're the moms who live for holiday breaks, spring breaks, summer breaks, for that's when their loved ones return home, back to the safety of the nest where mom can hold each one in her arms and savor the sweet scents and sounds of her babies all around.

family christmas stockings

I was one of those moms. That first year my daughters were scattered afar for schooling and such was rough. It got easier, though, as it does for all moms (and dads) whose kiddos have gone off for enrichment and enlightenment on the road to becoming full-fledged adults. I found new...

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Mom's magazines

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Mom's magazines

Before I was a grandmother of three grandsons, before I was a mother to three daughters, I was a daughter of one single mother. My mom had custody of four or more of her seven kids — myself and my four sisters and two brothers — at various times, depending on who might be staying with Dad, from my twelfth year up until I left home at 17.

family circle magazineFrom Pinterest: http://bit.ly/11VZkAKWith so many kids to care for, the rare treats Mom allowed herself were the Family Circle and Woman's Day magazines she'd pick up when stretching thin as can be the dollars at the grocery store. Back then, the...

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