Empty Nest?
Sandra cannot stop the tears from flowing as she talks about her youngest child getting ready to leave home and go to college. Sandra is thrilled for her daughter, Christi, to have such an outstanding opportunity and would never dream of holding her back. She will be a student at the University of Tulsa this fall.
“I have always told my kids to take risks and live life with no regrets,” she said. “I want them to go after their dreams.” Even through Sandra truly had these dreams for her children, becoming an “empty nester” has been one of life’s most difficult transitions.
Sandra will be joining the ranks of one million parents who will deal with the empty nest syndrome—feelings of sadness, depression or grief that parents or guardians experience when their children leave home. It’s more common in women than in men. Sandra feels she didn’t always make the best decisions while raising her kids, but she cannot change anything in the past. She continually asks herself, “Did I do enough right things to help them for the future?”
As Sandra looks at the pictures of her children, she finds herself thinking thoughts such as, “I should have done this differently; I should have spent more time with them or I should have gotten down on the floor and played with them more.” “Take time to enjoy them,” she said. “It goes by in the blink of an eye, it seems.” She finds herself turning to God more and more for peace, comfort and assurance that He will watch over her children. “They don’t need me as much now,” she shared. “They are God’s children, and He just loans them to us.”
Sandra grew up in a church, but was taught that God was a punishing God. She avoided Him for a long time. While going through a divorce 14 years ago, she began to pray and seek God during the healing process. She began attending a Christ-honoring, Biblebelieving church family in Owasso in 2019, discovered a loving God and came to know that He would never leave her. “No matter what happens, He’s right there with me, holding my hand,” Sandra said with tears of joy in her eyes. She talks to God immediately when she feels overwhelmed. If she is sad, lonely, panicked or confused, she does her best to look to the Lord and ask Him what she should do. The answer she gets is always the same. “Be still and know that He is God,” she said. “I ask Jesus to hold me and help me through these 24 hours, and He has never failed me yet!” To fill the hours that she once spent at home with her children or taking them to activities, Sandra has turned to volunteering. She teaches a Bible class for children at her church, helps at the Humane Society, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center, Little Lighthouse, and a local soup kitchen.
A professional counselor in Tulsa shared with the writer of this article that feeling sad when a child leaves home is normal and healthy. It shows there is a valued relationship between the parent and child. God’s design for parenting is one of caring, shepherding and releasing. The more parents can remember this and prepare for it, the better they will be able to manage the feelings and emotions that come when a child leaves home. Also, hers is a direct quote from this counselor, “I think if a parent is not in an unhealthy place of dependency, then it’s a wonderful thing for them to stay involved in the adult child’s life,” he said. “This is not a stage of emptiness as much as it is a stage of difference. There is not a relational loss, just a loss of a particular kind of relationship.” The empty nest syndrome is a very real condition and can be a very emotional process for parents to navigate.
In closing here are some tips to overcome empty nest syndrome. Have a community outside of your children. New relationships can be established through volunteer, church activities, or join a community group. Then also talk to other parents who have gone through this experience and ask their advice.
Allow yourself to grieve. If you’re dealing with other losses in your life (like death, divorce, or shattered dreams of a successful career), you may find a support group to help you. We need to develop relationships. Spend more time and resources investing in your marriage or friendships. We need to take up a new hobby. Finally, find new ways to relate to and communicate with your children as your relationship evolves into more of a friendship.
John T. Catrett, III
ONHL Hospice Chaplain
124 East Broadway, PO Box 1216
Drumright, OK. 74030
918.352.3080