Tag: emptynesting
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Pity The Parents Whose Boomerang Children Have Been Forced Back Home By COVID-19
One aspect of COVID-19 that is rarely mentioned on the news is the impact on families who – due to recent job losses – have had grown children return back home. Some of you, I imagine, view the bounce back home of our Boomerang Generation as an opportunity to rebuild relationships, fatten them up and…
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Empty-Nesting: How awesomely liberating is it doing exactly what YOU want now?
It’s my birthday next week, and as has been our agreement for a number of years, the old man and I have a process in place for the event when it comes to presents. It goes something like this: I negotiate a budget (that usually works in my favour because he pretends to feel some…
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9 Reasons Why Empty-Nesting Is So Much Better Than I Expected
Since Kurt left home – the last of our young adults to leave the nest – friends keep asking us how we are coping with our loss, how much we miss him, and whether we’ll get another dog? Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash And my diplomatic answer is a resounding YES – of course,…
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Empty-Nesting: You Know When It Is Time…
Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash The old man and I became empty-nesters this week. Kurt has left the building. I swear he wasn’t pushed. We view our negotiations as closer to a manipulation that made sense – primarily, for him. Not once did we bring up the subject of our sanity in the conversation.…
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The Prodigal Daughter Is Not Coming Home For Australia Day, She’s Coming To See Us
The prodigal daughter returns this weekend for the first time since she left the nest. While she assures me that she won’t be celebrating Australia Day for political reasons, I’ll believe that when she turns down the special bottle of Champers I’ve bought for tomorrow. Although I only saw her a few days ago, it…
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I’ll Even Miss Her Drinking My Wine. Maybe.
Its been a long and exhausting week since child number-one finally decided to leave the nest a few weeks before Christmas. In fact, it has been so completely crazy helicoptering over the move, there’s been very little time to consider the emotional ramifications. While my daughter is a bright little cookie with a very practical, logical…
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Not Exactly Leaving The Nest…But Close
I drove NC to the airport at stupid o’clock this morning. They might not have flown the nest quite yet, but it turns out we have two budding explorers in the family, and from the perspective of two parents that rarely leave the house these days, I see their recent adventures as a reaffirmation that…
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Empty Nesting: I Know I Will Miss Them, But Will I…Really?
As we approach freedom the next stage of parenting with mounting trepidation, I do question whether I’m ready. I adore both my kids and I will miss those rare moments of family harmony when the four of us sit around the table, laughing and joking together and I can almost forgive them for drinking my…
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Teenagers, Privacy and Door Slamming
A friend once bragged how when her daughter went through that special teenage phase when she used to ram home her opinions by slamming her bedroom door, she finally reached her tipping point one day, found a screwdriver and removed it. When her daughter returned home from school, she explained to her that privacy is…
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The Secret To Long-Term Relationships
If I could seriously answer this, I’d be a millionaire by now. Nice pic, but like it would ever happen in our relationship! Either I would fall off or the old man would keep moaning about how my weight made it impossible for him to pedal until we had a fight. But… You do get to…
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Moving House Again
We’re on the move again. Or perhaps we’re running away. We do this a lot as the relationships in our family, that now comprises of four adults, continue to evolve. The average age for kids to leave home is now 27 due to rising house prices, as opposed to 21 in the past, so I…
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Empty Nesting: When The First Takes Flight
NC left for her trip halfway around the globe at 5.30am this morning. She looked somewhat out of place with her backpack and beanie on. It’s not that our girl’s a princess, but she’s not into roughing it either, like her mother. We celebrated her departure last night over much too wine, our favourite Japanese…
Louisa Simmonds 