June 19, 2006

It was dinner time. Only Butch and I sat by the dinner table. “We’re alone.” My husband sighed. “This is a preview of our empty nest” . My two daughters moved in to their dormitory yesterday. Of course, they will be home during the weekends or on wednesday for my daughter studying in UP. It seems my husband is more emotional than me when it comes to the children . Like I wrote in a previous entry, Butch is my co-homemaker and acts more motherly than me sometimes. Well, I teased “we need to live together in harmony now that we’re alone most of the time.“. He nodded “We have all the time to be ourselves but it’s lonely without the children“. He continued to mope. What we felt is normal. We’ve heard of empty nest syndrome as college students when we left our parents for dorm living. We both came from large families and the empty nest didn’t occur overnight. We had no idea what it was like until both of our children left for semi-independent dorm living. After reading my daughter’s declaration of semi-independent living, I wonder how my husband will take it after she leaves us after graduation. So what is empty nest syndrome?

Empty nest syndrome refers to the grief that many parents feel when their children move out of home. This condition is typically more common in women, who are more likely to have had the role of primary career. Unlike the grief experienced when (for example) a loved one dies, the grief of empty nest syndrome often goes unrecognised, because an adult child moving out of home is seen as a normal, healthy event. Upset parents may find few sources of support or sympathy. In many cases, [tag]empty nest syndrome[/tag] is compounded by other difficult life events or significant changes happening around the same time, such as retirement or menopause. Source

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