“Finally, I’m going to get some time to myself!” That was the way Deanna Ryan of San Luis Obispo, CA envisioned how her life would be when her children went to college. A weaver and full-time mother of two, she struggled to find time for herself and her craft while raising her children.

“I had this very romantic idea of what that was going to be like,” she laughs. “But the reality was, when they did leave, I was immediately struck by the emptiness around the home. The house was way more quiet than I ever imagined it would be.”


What Ryan describes is the storied empty nest—when children leave home and family life is transformed. As parents, how do we experience this life transition?

Childrearing “comes with the expectations that the child will eventually grow up and leave the nest,” says researcher Marilyn M. Skaff, PhD, of the University of California San Francisco Department of Family and Community Medicine. Dr. Skaff recalls that she and her husband had a favorite phrase (“When Michael goes to college…”) when their son was an infant that denoted all the things they would be able to do when free of their day-to-day parenting responsibilities.

But when the moment arrives to drop off your son or daughter at the dorm room, or attend the wedding, or move them to their first apartment, emotions may run high. Barb Bewyer’s oldest daughter Katie chose to attend the University of Iowa in Iowa City—the same city and on the same campus where Bewyer works. Still, she recalls crying all the way home after moving her daughter into her dorm room. “It doesn’t really matter whether your kids go across the country or across town to go to school,” says Bewyer. “Once they step out of the house that means they’re stepping out into the world, never to return under the same circumstances.” She cried, she now realizes, “just because of the passage of it all.” My own son was so happy to be at college that he didn’t want help setting up his dorm room. We cheerfully said “Bye!” to him, and I waited until my husband and I pulled away from the campus before I, too, started sobbing.


Psychologists have long agreed that having a child is a transformative event for a woman. That is, it changes her identity, her outlook on life and her value system. The evidence is now accruing, says sociologist and demographer David J. Eggebeen, PhD, associate professor of human development and sociology at Penn State University, that becoming a father also transforms men.

So it makes sense that—for both mothers and fathers—adjusting to an emptier house may entail mourning for the loss of those roles in which they were formerly quite invested. Bert Hayslip, Jr., PhD, a regent’s professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Texas in Denton, studies lifespan development. He finds that adjustment to losses and life transitions can be influenced by a person’s attachment style. Those with a secure attachment style are malleable and less worried they’ll lose a child’s love when the child leaves; those with less secure attachment styles may have more trouble adjusting.

That women today are more likely to have careers outside the home bodes well for the empty-nest adjustment period. “If your self concept is made up not only of your role as a mother, but as a partner, a professional, a volunteer, an artist, a tennis player—all these roles contribute to your feelings of yourself as a person and to your sense of control over your life,” says Dr. Skaff.

Patterns for fathers whose children leave home have not been extensively studied. Investigations might reveal new patterns, says Dr. Eggebeen, because it’s now more culturally acceptable for them to bond with their children. He completed a study earlier this year and found that men who became fathers tended to participate more in community organizations (Cub Scouts, church groups). And when their children left home, these men continued their community involvement.

Other life passages can complicate the empty-nest transition for women. Depending on when you had your children, you may find yourself on the cusp of (or fully into) menopause. Baby boomers may find that their aging parents need more care, while you may find that parenting your young adults entails a balance between helping out and letting go. As children move into early adulthood, “parents have less and less control over bigger and bigger problems,” observes Dr. Skaff. It can be challenging for parents to watch their children make mistakes.

Eight months into my son’s freshman year, he told me he was arguing with the supervisor at his campus work-study job. I urged him to work it out. Later that week, I dreamt I was riding in his car as a passenger. He was driving too fast (nothing new) and erratically. Feeling scared and unsafe, I yelled at him to pull over to the side of the highway so that I could take over the driving. He did. I walked around to the driver’s seat and got in. To my surprise, I couldn’t find the clutch pedal, the accelerator didn’t respond and the steering wheel seemed unconnected! The dream ended there, with me in consternation, trying to figure out how I was going to drive the car home. When I told my husband about the dream at breakfast the next morning, he laughed: “You don’t like how he’s driving his life, but you don’t know how to drive it now, either!”


I realized that the process of letting go, which begins the moment our children are born, accelerates when they leave for their new lives. The good news is that—by and large—when children move out of the house, the relationship with their parents improves. “I think it’s something to look forward to, overall,” says Jeffrey J. Arnett, PhD, research professor in the Department of Psychology of Clark University, Worcester, MA, and author of the book, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties (2004, Oxford University Press). “Emerging adults are less egocentric and see their parents more as people.”

Dr. Arnett coined the term “emerging adulthood” to encompass the period from 18 to 25 (and sometimes later) when young adults gradually become more self-sufficient. During this time, try to redefine your relationship with your children as people who no longer need your protection every minute. “It’s not as if you’re cutting the strings,” Dr. Hayslip says. “Children can and often do return—even if you don’t want them to!”


Although children’s initial (and subsequent) leave-takings may engender sadness, this usually does not linger. There is a “delicious selfishness,” says Dr. Skaff, when women realize they have the space to pursue activities they formerly did not have time for. This increased freedom can reveal itself in small and symbolic ways.

As a professional and single mother, clinical psychologist Bonnie Wolfe of Los Angeles, CA, had had little unscheduled time during her hectic child-raising years. After her two children (now in their 30s) moved out, she had a revelation: “One day, I caught myself window shopping!” There are other gains as well. Bewyer formed new friendships by choice (instead of by default because they were her daughter’s friends’ parents). She’s in a book club where none of the women have children the same age, and she joins new friends at weekly knit and wine meetings at a local knitting store. “And,” she adds, “I’m not finished developing—and certainly not finished enjoying—the new relationships with each daughter. I consider it an enormous privilege and success that my daughters choose to be friends with me. That is a great pleasure.”

I also take pleasure in my evolving relationship with our son. One day last spring he emailed to say he loved his classes and had another “great” on-campus job. “Running my life is good!” he wrote. What more could a parent hope for?

About the Author: Gretchen Henkel is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.