Love, Purpose, and Life's Little Imperfections > Empty Nest
I made a career out of mothering. Literally, I spent my life from just before my nineteenth birthday to my 54th birthday raising 8 children. Now I'm an "empty nester". I could give a long list of my jobs, hobbies, volunteer activities, travel (including walking the Camino on the Portuguese Way from Lisbon, Portugal to Santiago do Compostela, Spain), and on and on. I still can't stop wanting to be with a baby. I LOVE BABIES! I enjoy stimulating an infant to respond to the world around her. I have worked with babies. I worked as Director of a pre-school, I've been a nanny, I've got three small grandchildren to dote over, but it's not enough. No matter how I reason with myself, I'm miserable. It is not pleasant. I find myself imaging the wonderful days when my children were little. I'm hopeless!
Debra Stewart
I'm not empty nest yet! I have a 26 year old on her own, a 22 year old in college, and a 16 year old in high school. The stretch of ages between them has me in a perpetual state of parenting. I was a stay at home mom for about 13 years with the three of them and then went back to work full time as a teacher. It's been crazy being everything for everyone, especially since going back to work. I some times think I am losing or have lost my mind. I have said to my family I have one brain that thinks for the 5 of us, and have two full time jobs. The older ones although not home I still am mothering them not in a stalking way, but in a concerned advice/ helpful way, (and the money way for the college one). I am 52 years old and wonder if I will ever have a true empty nest and still be young /healthy enough to enjoy it.
Liz
Everyone asks, what's it like being an empty nester. Now not to sound too heartless, I LOVE IT! For one thing I get to swim after work, have breakfast whenever I want (not to dis the school schedule, but they would start way too early, and breakfast with the kids meant working out at dark, getting home in time to pour a sugary bowl of ceral and hearing little about the coming day from a half-awake teenager). So now I get to get up at a normal hour, do whatever I need to before work, and then go!
I still chat and text and email and skype and love to touch base with my two kids. They stalk me on facebook (though I am not allowed to do the same) and they generally call when they need money or a little advice (rare but it happens!).
I see them whenever the weekends allow, which for my daughter is almost every weekend and for my son is almost never because of his sports and student activities. But we love each other. I couldn't love them more if they were still in the nest. I might just have to push them to fly though. For once in the past 15 years I have a little space, thinking room and time to myself. Oh, and the remote, which is nice!