How parents cope with empty-nest syndrome

I'm thinking of that empty nest now as my youngest heads overseas this weekend, to live for several months playing a game he loves across the ditch. I'm not quite sure I'm ready for him to go, but he's gone. And so has a little piece of my heart.

My eldest, Blossie, is now 22. Can you believe that? She's both working and studying full-time, planning overseas trips now they can again. She makes me proud every day, she's feisty and opinionated and gentle and kind, such a good friend to many. My first born.

This time of the year is always full of emotion for me. Mother's Day, both their birthdays. It's a reminder as they get older that my days as a hands-on mother are few and far between now.

I struggled early on when my mothering duties were split 50/50. I was a good mother (still am) but I thrived in those hands-on years, caring, feeding, organising, loving them, making sure they were where they needed to be, doing what they needed to be doing. They're doing that all by themselves now. Mostly.

But if I've learned anything from the past few years it's that your children reach a point where you have to step aside. The most important thing to me now is making sure we have a good relationship when they are fully grown adults, that they'll want to visit mum in their 30s and 40s, meet me for brunch at cafes, want me for more than regular babysitting of prospective grandchildren.

But that still doesn't mean I'm happy about it. I found some research out of Heidelberg University in Germany that found people whose children have flown the nest have greater life satisfaction and fewer signs of depression. If there's regular contact, they're even happier still. I guess that's what I'm aiming for. But at this stage I don't believe it.

I sometimes wonder if my malaise would be lessened if my nest wasn't totally empty when the kids weren't there. It's been interesting watching this progression in my friendship circle of mostly loved-up couples.

One friend marked the farewell of her youngest of three with the comment that now she'd be able to wander the house naked and have sex with her husband in any room they chose to. That's the kind of nest I was envisioning too.

Others are planning overseas trips, checking out caravan parks along the coast, someone bought a ridiculously expensive dog, a few are working on their tennis and their golf handicaps.

READ MORE:

Perhaps I should be thinking about these things too. Maybe not the caravanning. Sometimes I'm scared legless by the idea that I can now choose exactly what I want to do without really having to confer with anyone.

I am heading overseas later in the year and I'm scared and excited all at the same time. I was booking a hotel room in Edinburgh and I would have loved to have someone to talk about it with. Do you think it's the right choice? Is it too expensive? What should I do while I'm there? But I didn't, I just went ahead and booked it all. I know I have to reach that point where that feeling is empowering more than anything else.

I remember a conversation with my own mother about this time in her life. You were 18 and you were gone and it broke my heart, she said, as I left Orange and headed to Canberra for university and never really went back. At the time I scoffed at her, no real understanding of what she was going through, but now I totally get her. When you've invested 20 or so years into the upbringing of a child, it's hard to cut those ties. When your identity is still somehow wrapped up in the whole idea of mothering, there's a part of you that just feels empty when you're not doing it anymore.

Maybe I should spend more time thinking about what a good job I did, that they are now these young adults ready to head out into the world on their own and they'll be perfectly fine. But still.