A few years ago, I kissed my youngest child goodbye and declared my husband and myself to be empty nesters. Apparently, the universe had other ideas. March of 2020 brought our two youngest children home for quite a long time. Our daughter stayed home for about ten months and our youngest son for well over a year. The empty nest was mostly full again and what an interesting time it turned out to be.
Although I will never hope for another pandemic, this one brought both heartache and happiness. Over 600,000 Americans died and I never want to diminish the tragedy and devastation of this horrible disease. It also brought families together in a way that we never could have planned on or even thought possible. When we say good bye to our young adult children, most of us assume that they won’t be living with us very much in the future. Luckily for my kids, I hadn’t taken over their bedrooms quite yet.
Now it’s time for my youngest to go back to college and complete his senior year. He has already told us that it’s unlikely he will move back home when college is over. Maybe he’s really sick of us or maybe he’s ready to start his adult life. Either way, we are calling it the Empty Nest Redux and we’ll see how this one goes. The last empty nest was sad and exciting. My son was ready to go off to college and we were ready to have no teen-agers in our home. When the pandemic hit, we welcomed back young adults and honestly, it feels harder to say goodbye to them this time.
The Lessons of The Pandemic Full Nest
Some societies and cultures live in two and three generational homes for most of their lives. Our culture doesn’t and I’m not unhappy about that. Yet, it was really wonderful having our two- generation family together to ride out a frightening pandemic and a shaky future. My adult children were part of the solution and despite a few bumps, made our generational mix a pleasant one. Lessons were learned, communications expanded, and I now know how to use TikTok.
What I have heard from the leaders I work with is that so many of them are grateful for the time they have had with their family during COVID. Time was spent with newborn babies, teen-agers, and young adults. That was time most of us would never have had in the past. So many leaders now tell me that they want to change how much they work and how they work to ensure that they get more time with their children. Their values have changed and they want to maximize the nest time before it’s empty.
After over a year of Covid many want to change how and how much they work to ensure they get more time with their family. #emptynest #family #values #pandemic #Covid Click To TweetMaybe COVID gave us all a unique, albeit challenging opportunity to rethink our work/life balance and to recognize the beauty of our nests. That certainly happened for me and my husband. We will celebrate the empty nest redux and we will also celebrate the time we had a fuller nest. Life felt very fragile during COVID and I vowed to never take time with my family for granted. Thus, the nest will never fully close and the redux feels far less scary than the first one.
Good luck to all of you first-time empty nesters. And cheers to all of you who are on your empty nest redux. Enjoy the ride!
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC