Empty Nested: The warring emotions

I am now more than a decade past shipping uber son and alpha daughter off to college. They've graduated, started careers, moved to other cities and coasts, are leading successful and independent lives: just what any parent could wish. I couldn't feel better about them. And yet, I still remember to this day the first month of the empty nest--my children are one year apart in school years and when my youngest left, the house was suddenly so cold, so empty. No loud music blaring from the stereo; no basketball being bounced in the living room. Paterfamilias and I, who've had a good marriage, found ourselves quarreling with each other. Nitpicking. Not being nice. It took a while to realize that we were both feeling incredibly sad at the loss of the children. And it is a loss, no matter how happy we are to see them set those feet on the road to independence. And as in any marriage, it always helps when one is feeling up when the other is going through a down. But here we were, both down. We got through it and started to enjoy the next stage in our lives. But there are dangers in letting our children see those emotions--it's called a guilt trip--and there are strongly competing emotions as well, as therapists Susan Newman and Michele Weiner-Davis point out in this bit of blog from Psychology Today. Hopefully, paterfamilias and I never transmitted the sad ones, only the glad ones, to our kids. Evidently, they felt guilt-free enough to move about the country.

Here are some highlights from the Psychology Today blog:

Some words of caution from Susan Newman:

"In our digital age, the real risk is that parents remain in charge directing a student's every move no matter where in the country he or she attends college. E-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones allow immediate contact -truly a double edged sword. For college-age children, the journey toward independence is being short-circuited when parents continue to micromanage their college lives. "

"When parents run interference for every single snag in their child's life, mom and dad maintain control of their college student. Constant involvement is a very hard habit to break."

Finally, here's a surprising observation about the empty nest and the blue feeling parents feel when their kids move out and on.

"Men are 'less prepared for the emotional component of the transition.'
For women empty nest is not such a terrible thing, but rather they view it as an opportunity to move on. Men express regret for the things they didn't do and opportunities they didn't take to be with their children."

Some observations on empty nest emotions from from Michele Weiner-Davis:  

"A certain stage in one's life is over. The kids have flown the coop. And while it's true that when young adults leave home, it opens up many new horizons for parents, it's also true that endings often bring a sense of loss. Feelings of loss are not unhealthy, they are a sign of love, connection and caring. What is unhealthy is the mistaken but common notion that feelings cause people to act in certain ways. In other words, if I'm sad about my child leaving home, I will behave in ways that will signal these feelings and "lay a guilt trip" on my child. "

"I have no difficulty experiencing diametrically opposed feelings at one time--sadness and pride--and feel no compunction whatsoever to act on my feelings of grief other than to normalize it when others share this emotion and encourage them to find ways to fill the void. In other words, it's possible to feel sadness and not behave in ways that are self-centered or that would thwart our children's growth.

"When a young person asked me what she should do because she felt guilty leaving her single mother behind, I simply responded: It's not your job. It is lovely that you care about her feelings. But she is an adult and she must find ways to make her life fulfilling without you. All parents need to do this, even single ones. I know you love her, and you should keep in touch with her. But she should reassure you that she is fine(even if she is lonely), because it is YOUR job to spread your wings right now and fly. Let her know you love her but keep flying."

Comments

[Katherine]

We are now in the third week of being empty nested. Oddly, having our second child go off to college makes us miss our first one more as well. Probably, what we really miss is "the four of us" and the sense that the times when we will all be together in that four-of-us kind of way are ebbing away. They're not disappearing, but we suspect that kind of family grouping will get to be rarer. We know, with luck, this will be replaced by the many-of-us, in-laws and grandchildren, etc., but that's something just to be imagined at the moment.

Also, for me, one of the big issues with the empty nest is the symbolic aging that goes along with it.

[grownchildren]

i think you've put your foot on very real complicating factor. not only do we miss our children when they leave our homes, we also feel the passage of time. I never really noticed my birthday--that is, birthdays never made me feel older--but I did feel I was passing into another and older stage of life when I no longer had my children living under my roof. They were just toddlers! and now they're toddling off to independent lives and that stage of our lives--active child rearing--is over.
And so is the four-of-us time, as you so elegantly put it. It occasionally happens but girlfriends and boyfriends arrive on the scene. it's exciting but it's not the same.