Empty Nest? Or Open Door?
Last year, Gretchen Rubin wrote a widely circulated piece about trading the “empty nest” metaphor for something that “emphasizes possibility”: the open door. I somehow hadn’t read it when it came out, but being in the midst of emptying the nest/opening the door, it was unsurprisingly resonant for me to read now. Rubin writes:
I balked at empty nest’s connotations of futility or meaninglessness. No wonder so many adults, when and if they anticipate this stage of life, consider it with dread. I found myself searching for a different metaphor — one that could help me and parents like me not to languish but to see this new phase as a time of self-discovery, possibility, and growth.
For me, I’m not so sure the terms or framing matters too much. I’ve been genuinely looking forward to my kids being out in the world and the possibility more freedom & bandwidth, but I am still feeling allllll of this bewilderment and questioning:
That lack of foresight isn’t surprising. The tumult of everyday family routine can make it hard for people to step back and think about their lives. As I often remind myself, something that can be done at any time tends to be done at no time, and the demands of parenthood make it easy to delay facing what can be difficult questions. Am I living the life I want to live? Is it too late to start something new? Do I really want to be married anymore? Or simply: Now is it okay to eat meals in front of the TV?
Some people I’ve encountered whose children have left home have told me — in tones of shame, sadness, or bewilderment — that they’re reassessing long-standing habits and relationships. “I thought I had a group of friends, but I didn’t,” a woman seated next to me on an airplane last year said. Her social circle was tied to her daughter’s activities, such as soccer and violin; once her daughter graduated, those bonds dissolved. Some have reported a crisis of identity. “I keep asking myself, What am I for?” a friend said. Another warned me to resist the lure of all those hours freed up on my schedule: “I know you love to work, but be careful not to work all the time, because now you can.”
What am I for? Am I living the life I want to live?
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For me, I've found that some events in life have a sort of event horizon that you can't see over. You know your life is going to change, you see this big thing sitting in your future, but it's so all-encompassing that you really have no way to guess what's next.
When I planned to quit my job and move hallway across the country, we knew it was coming for months, but we just couldn't even guess what 'the day after' would look like. We talked about things we wanted to have happen, but we just accepted that we were going to have to feel our way for awhile.
Eyes closed, head-first, can't lose!
Oh wow, I really like that metaphor of the event horizon.
My wife and I have twins. We went from zero kids to two, and just as fast went from two kids back to zero. It was almost equally as jolting. They both left for college on the same week and it's been just 4 years now. One stayed in college, the other dropped out and owns her own food truck. It's been really weird going from always having commitments due to the kids schedules (sports mostly) to looking for what the hell used to hold my interest before I had kids.
That is a perfect metaphor. When my son left for school this year, I knew I'd miss him. He was a good friend to me, and my day (and mood) benefited from periodic interactions with him, no matter how small. But I didn't know how things would change when he left -- I couldn't see over that event horizon. Suddenly, though, I find myself with a bit more space for reflection, and a few less obligations. I haven't figured out how to fill the time yet, but it's there, and I'm working not to squander it.
This is an amazing anology, and just like Mike, we have (only) twins. 11 years down, 7 to go before college. Trying to treasure every moment, not knowing what life looks like on the other side. Will really need that reminder not to sink myself into my work.
Our three children all left for university between 2011 and 2016. They keep coming back for one reason or another. The middle one got a job in London, but when COVID hit he was able to come back and work from home. The youngest came home after she graduated with a place on a master's course that was partly taught online. Two out of the three of them now own their own properties, but they all feel like this is their home.
For me, that is the key. What do they feel? Just before I went to university (decades ago), my mother moved to a much smaller house. I never felt at home there, so it was clearly her nest, not mine. My wife's parents still lived in the house she was born in until they died. She (and her siblings) never stopped feeling like it was their home. We will probably find somewhere smaller once we completely retire and can be absolutely sure that nobody will be bereft at losing their history in a house they occupied from the age of 3 (or 6 or 8).
One thing I particularly like about the open door is that it's for both. Too often the "empty nest" is a negative for the older generation, but completely disregards that the whole point of raising adults is to provide them the ability to move out into the world on their own. This is why I don't mind the term itself, the idea is that the nest is empty because the young are now able to fly.
I take solace, comfort and wisdom fromTheodore Roethke poem The Waking and the link "I learn by going where I have to go." How could I know what the actual lived reality of my twin sons leaving home would be? What it would feel like, how my schedule--which had been a lot of their schedule--would change? My professional life has focused a fair amount on endings--marking them, ritualizing them. I wonder if, counter-intuitively, there's an opportunity to lean into the ending. The end of one's hands-on, living under the same roof parenting life is a big deal. It can offer up an existential/spiritual challenge/crisis. And that, to me, isn't a bad thing. 'Cause I learn by going where I have to go -- and hearing similar travelers' trip reports.
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