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My
book, You
Know You’re An Empty
Nester When… is
a product of my personal
experience.
When our youngest
child left for college, my
life took a dramatic
shift—like going from drive
to
park at 100 m.p.h.—a
screeching halt to the
familiar life I had
learned to navigate: life
with “a kid at home.”
While
I had always worked as a
psychologist, I also spent
a large chunk of my time
going to my kids’ school
events, games, plays, and
concerts—and had dished
out years of holiday pizza
lunches on room-mom duty.
Before my kids
could drive, I took my
turn with carpools for
AYSO soccer and Little
League practices, karate,
and ballet lessons—plus,
I shuttled my kids to
scouts, music rehearsals,
and tennis meets—and always
on time—well, mostly
always.
With
my youngest child suddenly
3,000 miles away at
college, I now had what
seemed like an unnerving
amount of free time.
How to fill it was
the perplexing question.
Rock climbing, sky
diving, and bungee jumping
were certainly
options—yeah right!
Actually, it was
the process of venturing
into this “off-road
terrain” of
life-after-kids that led
to this book.
In
the course of that first
empty-nest year, it
occurred to me that we
moms spend nine months
before birth incubating
our kids—then well over
nine months adjusting to
their leaving the nest.
That time,
post-kids’ leaving the
nest, is a topic I thought
might be helpful for both
moms and dads to read and
reflect on—and,
hopefully, have a few
laughs at the same time.
As
it turned out, I was not
alone in my concern about
that transition from the
“known world” of being
a parent of a kid at home
to the “unknown world”
of being an empty nester.
The heading of a
front-page article in the
November 28, 2004 issue of
the Los Angeles Times
reads: “Colleges Are
Learning to Hold
Parents’ Hands.”
The sub-heading
declares: “The same baby
boomers who cast off
family ties when they left
home just can’t let go
of their kids.”
The article goes on
to discuss college offices
throughout the country
which have opened in
recent years to tend to
moms and dads of college
freshmen.
It seems that
parents are calling
colleges with questions
concerning their kids’
roommates, their kids’
class schedules, changing
their kids’ class
schedules, and changing
their kids’ roommates.
These
baby boomer parents, born
between 1946 and 1964,
number some 76 million.
That’s 28% of our
population, so that’s a
lot of parents of college
students—and that means
a lot of phone calls and
questions for colleges to
answer.
The
baby boom generation has
had a major effect on life
as we know it.
They marched in the
sixties, pursued
high-paying careers,
introduced us to the idea
of dual-career couples,
and spent time
“actualizing” before
starting parenthood.
And, because the
baby boomers didn’t rush
to have kids, their
children, I believe,
became exceptionally
precious to them—and
consequently, much harder
to let go of.
Add to this mix a
much more complex world
than that of their
parents, and we begin to
see why these parents from
the time their babies
first arrived, became
concerned with being
“super parents” and
wanting to insure the very
best for their children.
This wanting to
make sure that their
children have the very
best is why it is so hard
for so many of these
parents to let go of their
children at the college
door.
While I was born a
few years before the start
of the baby boom period, I
feel very much like I am a
part of this group, as I
attended grad school in
the late sixties and early
seventies when so many
societal changes were
taking place that affected
the identities of that
first shift of baby
boomers—and me too.
I
know, also, that while I
had worked as a
psychologist with empty
nesters in my practice and
had empty nest friends, it
was only when my youngest
child went away to
college, that I could
truly appreciate what
Empty Nest Syndrome was
about.
Did I find myself
attempting to keep in
touch by e-mail, phone
calls, letters, cards, and
care packages galore?
You bet.
And because a group
of moms from my
daughter’s high school
decided to stay
abreast with each other
“post-kids” via
potlucks, I was able to
hear about their empty
nest experiences.
What I heard from
them coupled with my own
experiences became fodder
for my book.
And, knowing that
“laughter is often the
best medicine,” I
decided that presenting
empty nest parent behavior
in such a way that it
could elicit a smile or
chuckle might help us cope
with our empty nest times.
It’s a
well-researched fact that
if we can chuckle at
ourselves as we experience
new phases in life, we
actually survive the
changes better.
Thus, my book, You
Know You’re an Empty
Nester When…,
which is illustrated by
Jeff Law, a Disney artist,
came into being.
So, how do you know
you’re an empty nester?
Well, you finally
get around to completing
your kid’s baby book;
you seek out jury duty,
and you have a party and
no one calls the cops.
Please
keep in mind that Empty
Nest Syndrome is not a
fatal disease—but it is
real.
In a survey done a
year ago, approximately ½
of the women and 1/3 of
the men reported that they
didn’t feel that they
were emotionally ready to
have their kids leave.
Is it any surprise
then that parents, who
aren’t ready to have
their kids leave, are on
the phone calling colleges
about their kids?
But
there is life after kids. With
a little planning for
post-kids time, that time
can be productive and
enriching.
In fact, when your
last child is starting
high school, it’s not
too early to start
thinking about how
you’re going to deal
with that empty nest
period.
Maybe during those
three or four years before
becoming an empty nester,
you can learn some new
skills that will help you
prepare for a new job—or
take some classes—just
for you—to develop new
hobbies and interests.
Or, you can, as I
did, write a book…
And
with that, I’d like to
conclude with the words
Jeff Law so ably
illustrated at the end of
my book:
“After all is
said and done, you finally
understand that when the
nesting door closes,
another one opens—and
it’s not being slammed
by a shrieking
teenager!”
©
2006
Dianne Sundby, Ph.D.
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