Empty Nesters

 
Welcome to BlogHer Moms, With Editor Stacy Morrison
BlogHerMoms wants to serve and serve up mommies, mamacitas, mas, hot mommas, and muthas (you know who you are). Plus green moms, soccer moms, pregnant moms, birth moms, working moms, homeschooling moms, single moms, step-moms, PTA moms, lesbian moms (and dads), need-a-night-out-with-the-girls moms, mom-in-every-way-but-the-name moms, mythical super-moms and for everyone who’s ever wanted to be called “mommy.”

Recent Comments on Empty Nesters

More >
 
Show: Editors' Picks | Member Posts | Network Posts | All Posts

Encouraging Advice to Moms of Recent Graduates

5/24/12 1:00pm by JennaHatfield
  • 0
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
graduation

It's graduation time! From preschool through college, students are graduating and beginning the next phase of their lives, making their way through all of the advice being sent their way. Of course, the parents of those students are also starting new phases as well, feeling a bit forlorn that they don't have the same amount of advice coming their way. Author Karen White shared a lovely post at It's Only a Novel about this very thing, offering a sage piece of advice -- with a writerly twist -- to parents sending kids out of the nest.  Read more

Putting on the Rose Colored Glasses of Empty Nesters

5/2/12 8:51am by grownandflown
  • 15
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
rose colored glasses

In order to look back over the years raising young children, all parents are issued a pair of rose colored glasses. You will get a pair as soon a your kids leave home! My boys had temper tantrums, they threw up in their beds and one of them did not sleep through the night until he was four-years-old (you know who you are). They disobeyed us, they spoke back to us and fought with each other so often that they once upended the dinner table in a restaurant sending all five of our dinners and a table full of dishes crashing to the floor. Yet when they left home I was given the standard issue rose colored glasses and despite the fact that I know these thing to be true, I cannot seem to remember them as they happened.  Read more >

Apparently I'm Not Exempt from Empty Nest Syndrome

4/27/12 1:00pm by JennaHatfield
  • 6
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
empty nest

I remember rolling my eyes when my mom lamented her empty nest syndrome. This was, of course, before I had children. Even now, I can't imagine what a quiet house sounds like, so I just can't place myself in the shoes of empty nesters. Neither could Diapola Momma of Chicken Nuggets of Wisdom... until she was already wearing the shoes. She shares her initial thoughts -- and her reality:  Read more

An Empty Nest Holiday Realization: It's Hard for All

12/23/11 10:00am by Grandma's Briefs
  • 8
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
blue christmas

I won't get to spend Christmas Day with my parents this year, and I've been feeling sulky about it. And a little silly in the sulking considering that I'm 30-years-old. In reading Lisa's post at Grandma's Briefs that discusses both the empty nest side of the holidays and the adult child not able to attend festivities, I felt a little better. I'll be sulking -- guilt free!  Read more

Failure to Launch: Why Won't My Adult Children Leave the Nest?

12/14/11 8:59am by DoriTheia
  • 5
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
find a job

Now with three adult children I am still finding that I continue to learn my job as a parent is not finished and I still have things to learn. How I interact with my adult children and what I both expect and tolerate from them continues to evolve -- and in some cases needs to evolve. I also have found in my wise older age that sometimes as I try to help my adult children it results in holding them back. I have a 21- and 23-year-old that seem to be in a holding pattern because we keep helping them out when they lose their jobs and have no place to stay. Then they don't look for new jobs very aggressively and they allow the rest of us to pay their bills, etc.  Read more >

How I Ruined Jay-Z For My Children

11/30/11 9:59am by Allison Cook
  • 6
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
jay-z

On Thanksgiving morning I posted the Jay-Z song "Forever Young" to my Facebook wall. I see a lot of people post videos that they feel are meaningful, so when I came across the Jay-Z song I thought it was just perfect -- a good way to express the sadness I'd been feeling all morning about a recent loss our family has experienced. My children disagreed.  Read more >

Bad News: The Fundraising Never Ends for Parents

10/18/11 9:03am by njgeiger
  • 14
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
Girl scout cookies

A friend sent me one of those pass along emails recently. It was called ‘Parenting Description’ and set up like a classified ad for a job. I was surprised they left out “Parents must buy not only from every fundraiser that their child participates in, but from all the children of every friend and neighbor who buys from your child!”  Read more >

The Nest Empties

6/16/11 5:42am by GaelMc
  • 13
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
Empty Nest

The kids are gone. The house is empty. Their rooms are neat and tidy. “Face your fears.” How many times have we heard that truism? We even say it to ourselves. Who knew that an empty nest would be lined with fears?  Read more >

Graduation, a Freight Train, and the Explosion in my Chest

5/25/11 9:03am by Sloane Rhodes
  • 4
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
Graduation

There is a party going on, an imbroglio in my chest cavity where competing emotions vie for dominance. My eldest daughter is graduating from high school in just under three weeks, and my chest has been aching, spasming even. I am not having a heart attack, nor am I undergoing a panic attack. Rather, my heart is being attacked by emotion, apparently ALL the emotions.  Read more >

Parents Are Just People and Sometimes Children Need to Struggle

5/24/11 8:05am by Nobody wants to...
  • 3
  • Sparkle (
    )
     
Toothbrushes

I am almost an empty nester. I haven’t been able to put my thoughts into words until I saw that movie last night. My son graduated from college a week ago. His growth into adulthood has been painful for the entire family. He has struggled with every part of studying, taking tests, caring for himself, and social relationships. But he had grown in many aspects of his academia.  Read more >