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This ever evolving stage of life called the empty nest can leave parents in a perpetual state of surprise. Agendas are fluid and more flexibility is required than ever before. There is no precise schedule like in the elementary school, little league days. On Monday night there might be two people at the dinner table, a Tuesday afternoon text message might ask if 4 extra mouths could come to the family table and we just love the hustle and bustle of a full house. Then Wednesday could bring the count back down to one.
Once our kids, now young adults, leave for college and beyond we are not involved in the minutia of what goes on in their lives. They study on their own time, go to bed at ridiculous hours, clean their rooms sometimes never, date and befriend people we don’t know. Jill went to see her son in a show at college last week and where she once knew everyone in his high school theater department, at this performance she knew no one. It was a sobering reminder of how our children become so very independent from our homes, our rules, our lives.
Hopefully the values we have striven to instill remain part of their being but we won’t know that for awhile. We have to let them go and grow; we have done our job as parents the best we all could. We now have an obligation to ourselves to grow beyond our parental roles so that we aren’t exactly the same either. It is important to take that photography class, learn how to golf, and embrace our own creativity so we don’t remain stagnant and boring. Claudia has been sewing and creating dresses for young girls. Shout out to her!
The revelation comes when you realize that no matter how independent our kids may try to be and how much they try to break away, they do come back. Maybe it is for dinner a few nights a week; perhaps to ask you to proofread a graduate school paper; or even to make travel arrangements for their study abroad program. Just when we thought we were no longer needed, they pull us back in!
They need us, they really need us. And we need them too. With this struggle for independence is a continual push/pull. While our goal is to help our sons and daughters become healthy functioning adults we cannot forget that they will need us emotionally, financially, and otherwise for a long time to come. Being a parent never ends, it just grows and changes. And it is up to us to go with the flow the best we can.
Tuesday night, for the first time in many months, Jill’s entire family sat down to dinner together. Aside from the fact that it was the first time she cooked in many months, she just sat back and enjoyed the moment. Actually, everyone did and it was sweet. The empty nest isn’t so bad after all!
Join Jill and Claudia on Wednesday, March 17, at 11AM PT on www.blogtalkradio.com/emptynesters as Jennifer Powers, professional coach, dynamic speaker, and author joins The Empty Nesters to talk about her new book, "Oh Shift!"
