Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    When my youngest left home, I literally talked out loud to myself for
    nigh onto six months, the house was so quiet and unnatural.  It was a
    real revelation to me.  We had all always been close even when we
    hadn't felt that way (if you follow me), so I had a sense it was going
    to be tough, but the change in...I dunno, energy level?...was so marked
    that even the cats spent a lot more time during that period looking
    into empty rooms and miaowing plaintively.
    
    							=maggie

    My youngster won't leave for college for a couple of years yet but
    I have a question.
    
    How does one plan for it?

Funny - when I left for college my mother says she *loved* the quiet, the
way the house didn't get dirty of its own accord, she didn't have to buy
food she knew she wouldn't eat, no one woke her up by coming in at 3 in the
morning etc.

When I came back for visits, she was always happy to see me, but if I was there
for more than a couple of days, she would get antsy desiring her privacy.
She says now, even though she loves me and everything, she doesn't relish
the thought of having a kid living in her house.

Diff'rent strokes, I guess.  :-)

D!

    See also:
    
    PARENTING
    topic 197 - empty
    
    -Jody
    

    If you really love having teen-agers around, dropping in, you
    can volunteer to be an adult advisor to your church youth group
    (if you are a church member and there is one).  Another choice
    is the local teen center, if there is one.  Or call the local
    high school and volunteer as chaperone to school dances, or other
    clubs and events.  My experience is that if you chaperone their 
    events, some of the young people will "adopt" you as adult friend.  
    Your life can be as full of teen activity as you can stand. 
    
    None of this will help if the problem is missing your individual
    children.  
    
    Pat   

    Both my kids are college graduates and have their own living spaces.
    I recently got a call from one of them to check out whether one
    could return to the nest.  My answer was that the nest was never 
    closed but that circumstances are different and will have to be 
    worked out if the transistion to the nest were to take place once
    it has been left.  Learning to fly these days is more fraught with
    perils than it has been in the past.

    The final breaking away stage is the most difficult one for both 
    the parent and child.  It needs to happen for both the parent and
    child to continue with their individual lives.  This does not mean
    losing each other but being available for each other in a different
    way.  Realizing this is tough.  One looks longingly back on the 
    times shared in the past....times to share do occur in the future
    has to be firmly held on to.  

    Getting back to not having the little ones in the nest at this time
    is a bitter-sweet feeling.  The peace of having the house left 
    exactly the way the parents left it when they went out the door and
    returned can be heavenly....the joy of seeing your offspring walk
    through the door is more than heavenly.  The bitter part is knowing
    that one has made mistakes raising them that one would like to have
    had the knowledge that one has now to do over again.  The "if onlys"...

    justme....jacqui
    

re: .2

Well, I thought I was prepared, but was I in for a surprise when
the event actually occurred!  

We had already had a child leave for college three years earlier, so
I knew life would be different -- but we still had one at home.
My daughter had spent six weeks away in a summer program the summer
before her senior year in high school, and had gone to various live-
away camps in the summers, so it wasn't as if I wasn't used to her 
being away from home...

I really tried to prepare myself mentally for her absence; intellectually,
I knew life would be very different.  But, I wasn't at all prepared for
the incredibly empty feeling that enveloped me for the first few weeks.
It actually felt as if these emotions were a physical reaction to the
lack of having a "child to mother," even though 18-year olds don't need 
much mothering!  I know that may seem weird, but that's how it felt.  
Other women I talked to who were also close to their daughters also
felt the same way.  One friend told me of walking through the supermarket
about a week after she'd left her daughter at Princeton.  She reached for
Kristen's favorite juice, but Kristen wasn't home anymore to drink it; she 
reached for Kristen's favorite cereal, but Kristen wasn't home anymore to
eat it.  Each time this happened, she felt the tears crowding her eyes.  
Finally, she bumped into two of Kristen's friends who hadn't yet left for 
college -- as irrational as it sounds (and this is NOT a flaky woman!),
she then totally lost her composure, and had to leave the store.  It 
happened to me when I was chatting at work with a close, and well-meaning,
friend.  (This was about 2 weeks after our daughter started school.)  She 
said, "You must really miss your daughter..."  Well, the tears just poured!
It was about 5 minutes before I could even talk.  That was one of the days
I had to leave work early!

So, my advice is this: enjoy your child/children while they're around,
realize that you'll probably miss them a lot after they leave, but time
does make it easier.  You will adjust.

    
    Please!! empty my nest.  My daughter went away to college and I
    really enjoyed not having any one around, she came back home and
    lived with me for about 3 1/2 years and then moved out for a year
    and came back again.  Now she says she is leaving at the end of
    this year for good :-). I can't wait. I love my children dearly,
    but 'it's time'. Of course when I was my daughters age,(almost 27)
    I was married with two kids, She dosen't even have a steady boy