Are we Empty Nesters?

When people hear that our youngest son has just left for university, many respond with: “So, you are empty nesters now?”

Regardless if our adult kids belong to Generation Y, known as the Millennials, or young members of the maturing Generation Z (those born after 1995), once they do leave the nest, we acquire new parental reality checks.

What do you think about our young adults and their flight patterns? What propels them to leave? Have they decided to leave to pursue their own calling and experience more? Are they leaving due to peer and societal pressures? Leaving the comfort zone of home is a difficult transition.

Fueling the maturing engines with values, standards and realistic goals for take-off, despite the turbulence ahead, is crucial.

I have certainly felt sadness in my heart when each of our children has left the nest. As the nest empties of our ‘kinderlach’, I find myself in a new reality check. We have birthed lives, ideas, projects, and raised our kids to move into their adulthood and to find their own resourcefulness.

Our adult children are launching into diverse new territories. They all will be ready at very different times of their lives to leave the nest. Circumstances might have it that they will be back to visit, to co-exist, or to land for a while in order to regroup. Some might not ever leave physically, but find opportunities to detach and thrive. However, when this separation occurs, we are not left empty, but with a bird’s eye view of our maturing children’s flight patterns, and of ours too!

Shana Tova,

Yours in MOMentum,
Debbie Havusha

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