EMPTY NESTS

It's September, which means children are back at school and some of us have had to bid adieu to our children as they head off to university or college. A trying time for parents and offspring alike, especially the higher education scenario, as it means that our days of 9 -5 parenting are over, from now on we will be needed less and less - the empty nest is within reach. If you happened to read my book The Sum of all Parts, you'll know that the 'empty nest' theme is touched upon and this week, as my youngest embarked on her second year at university, I was thinking about this aspect of a parents' - particularly a mothers' life - once more. Writing about children leaving home was relatively easy: I am the mother of three, and my eldest two left home a long time ago. Not an empty nest quite yet but it's definitely getting closer. The prospect of our children leaving home and heading out into the world, be it for college or a job - whatever reason - is a difficult time for all involved. A scary time. As parents we invest so much time, love, care, and attention in our children only to have them leave us mostly without so much as a backward glance. Which is how it should be I suppose, they are excited to live their lives as they wish, they want their independence just as we did when we left our family homes all those years ago. But knowing this doesn't necessarily help. For me, when my eldest left home I suddenly realised the pain and anguish and worry I must have put my parents through when I left the nest - as young adults we don't realise this at the time, too selfish perhaps or maybe if we knew we'd be less inclined to leave.
I look at my child and it seems that she changes with every heartbeat. And I am scared. Scared for her and scared for me.

Where did the time go? How could I have missed the change from child to youth, from youth to adult?

She is slipping away from me, and she is taking with her my very sense of being, my sense of worth, my heart, and my soul. There is so much that I wanted to say to her, to share with her. So many adventures missed. So many regrets.
The Sum of all Parts, Sara Sheeran
I worried - still worry - about my children leaving home (you never stop being a mother, no matter what age your children are). The minute they started high school, it felt like the countdown to them leaving began and the six years went by in a heartbeat. I worry about the prospect of an empty nest after all these years, I worry about a child-free home and what changes this will bring to my life. But I'm also a little bit excited, if I'm completely honest. Excited for my children and excited for me, it's an opportunity for all parties involved - parents and children - to grow, to embark on new adventures. Ok, when my eldest two left home I cried - I still do sometimes - and yes for each of them it took me about five years before I altered their bedrooms and put most - if not all - of their unwanted bits and bobs in storage; but our children are meant to leave home. From the moment they are born that is exactly what we are preparing them for, for independence, for self-sufficiency, for not needing us.
My main character in The Sum of all Parts was not quite as positive when her only child left home, she had lost herself incontrovertibly in motherhood to the extent that she forgot about herself and neglected her marriage. The result being that she was not equipped when the inevitable happened and she was faced with an empty nest. There is no such thing as a perfect parent, or a perfect child for that matter, and the 'empty nest' is a scary prospect. I used to think that the term 'cutting the apron strings' applied to the children , that they needed to cut them, but it is in fact the parent - normally the mother - who needs to do the cutting, they need to stop investing so much in their child, to stop living through them, controlling them, maybe even stop supporting them so much. We need to allow our children to live their own lives, even if that means they inevitably make mistakes that we have to clean up. So many mothers (dads too of course), like my MC, didn't want to cut any apron strings and she - like so many of us - also forgot self-care. My MC also forgot boundaries, she tried to be a friend to her child rather than a mother.
The Sum of all Parts highlights that women have multiple aspects to their character and I attempted to emphasise the importance of acknowledging and nurturing each of these aspects. My main character didn't do this, but let's face it, most of us don't. Negativity is far easier than positivity - I bet if I asked you to name 3 good things and 3 bad things about yourself you'd find it easier to think of the bad. We are our own worst enemies. We need to remember that no one is infallible, no one is perfect, and being a parent is the hardest job we will ever face. It's ok to make mistakes, to be scared, to feel alone, to fail; and it's definitely ok to ask for and seek help. Whatever life throws at us, our children leaving home perhaps, we need to face these events with positivity. We will always be mothers and our children will always need us in some capacity or other, we just have to make sure that the boundaries are in place and that our adult children don't take us and what we do - have done - for them, for granted. As parents we need to give our children wings to fly, and guess what? With those wings they will return to us. Admittedly they'll return with dirty laundry to be washed, loans required, broken hearts - the list is endless - but they will return.

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