by Dianne Sundby, Ph.D.

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!”