12 Most Positive Things about Being An Empty-Nester

by Sharon Greenthal on Nov 18, 2011 

website: http://12most.com/2011/11/18/12-positive-empty-nester/

Eventually, all parents become empty-nesters, whether it’s when the kids leave for college, work, marriage, or other pursuits. Suddenly, your home is no longer the place where your children live. Though it takes some adjusting, patience and creativity, being an empty-nester can be an exciting and rejuvenating time in a person’s life.

1. Your house is clean

Gone is the detritus of your children’s lives scattered here and there, carelessly flung about and forgotten. Your bathroom towels will stay hung neatly on their bars, the dishes are placed in the dishwasher instead of left to sit next to the sink. Beds remain made, floors remain clean, clothes are neatly put away. Mystery spills vanish, and you never wake up to a mess. Who knew it could be like this?

2. It is very, very quiet

The decibel level drops significantly when the children leave home. Televisions are watched at a moderate volume and music is played without an underlying “thumpa thumpa” that shakes the windows. No longer do you hear multiple electronic devices pinging and beeping at once – unlike your children, you aren’t capable of watching, listening and texting at the same time – nor do you want to.

3. You discover you still like your partner or you make a big change

It’s either one or the other. Some couples decide to separate and move on, others remember why it was they fell in love in the first place. Without your kids, you become each other’s only companion when you’re at home. I can’t overstate how much of a distraction our kids are while they are growing up. This is probably the most jolting part of the empty nest – when you look at each other and think – “oh wow, it’s just us now.” For better or worse, it will happen.

4. You can sleep through the night

No longer are you waiting for the sound of a key in the door, or the front door light to be turned off upon their safe return from another night out. Along these same lines, you no longer are part of the day-to-day ups and downs of your children’s lives…no matter how often they may text/call/email/facebook message/tweet you. Their mental and physical well-being, though still hugely important to you, are their responsibilities now, and you no longer have to endure the worries of their daily lives like you did when they lived at home.

5. Your food bill drops significantly

I know, if your kids are in college, or even if they’re not, you may still be paying for them to eat. But isn’t it lovely to go to the grocery store and come home with just enough of the kind of things you want, and not have to buy all the things they want, things that you really don’t want in your house? It’s been a while since I’ve bought a bag of Doritos or a package of Chips Ahoy cookies.

6. Your cash lasts longer

Again, I realize that if you are a recent empty-nester, you may still be supporting them – in fact, you probably are still supporting them. But no longer do you have to fish twenties out of your wallet because “I didn’t go to the bank,” or “the car needs gas,” or “I have to buy a football/baseball/basketball t-shirt at school.” They have an allowance, they manage their money, and you (almost) always have cash when you need it.

7. You have a lot more free time

Initially, this may be disturbing and/or difficult for you to deal with. I know I found it strange to no longer have show choir performances to watch or football games to go to, and my level of volunteering dropped off significantly once my kids left the house. But then a funny thing happened – I remembered how much I liked my solitude, and my husband and I discovered the joy of doing nothing much at all if we feel like it, truly happy to be in a quiet, clean home together. You may want to do things – museums, movies, theater, travel – whatever your thing is, there’s now time to do it… a lot.

8. You can spend time with people you like

What I mean by this is, you no longer have to socialize with other parents because of your kids’ connection to each other. No more booster club barbecues or committee meetings, making small talk with people you most likely never would have crossed paths with if it weren’t for the fact that your children were on the same team/in the same class/part of the same group of friends. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m glad to be done with all of those forced relationships. I have great friends, and I’m glad I have more time to spend with them now.

9. You begin to experience your children as young adults

This is probably the most rewarding part of being and empty-nester. Your children leave home and, for better or worse, they have to grow up, no matter how much help you may be giving them financially OR emotionally. There are just too many daily things to manage, too many random people to deal with, too many bumps and blips that they have to encounter on their own that leads to them, inevitably and sometimes painfully, growing up. It’s a thrill when my kids take over, driving or planning or explaining – giving up some of my authority is in many ways a huge relief. And I like them, these young adults – they’re interesting and have lives of their own, and I very much enjoy getting to know them in this new and different way.

10. Your kids come to visit

There’s nothing quite as wonderful as seeing your kids after weeks or months apart. Their faces are familiar and beautiful, their smiles just for you, their laundry ready to be washed…seriously, it’s such a thrill to have them home for holidays, or summer, or just a weekend visit – and within minutes of their return, it’s as though they never left. You love having them home for a while, but then…

11. Your kids will go back where they came from after a visit

Enough said.

12. Your future is yours

Remember before kids, when you would dream and plan for the rest of your life? Remember when it was wide open, and you had no idea what would happen next? Well, you can do that again, now that you’re an empty-nester. No longer do you have to worry about childcare, or kids missing school, or whether they’ll like the place you pick to go on vacation – your time, your future, and your life is yours to create. Always wanted to travel? Now you can. Go back to school? Now’s the time. Write a book? Get cracking. You have your life to live, just as they have theirs. Go do it!

What Cellphone Calls Say About Parent-Teenager Relations

By RONI CARYN RABIN

July 1, 2011

 

Do cellphones help teenagers feel more independent, or are they an electronic leash?

Poor communication is a common complaint when it comes to parents and teenagers. What happens when you throw a cellphone into the mix?

At least 75 percent of American teenagers today have a cellphone, often purchased by their parents so they can stay in closer touch. And parents are more likely than other adults to have a cellphone, for the same reason.

“The phone is now a huge part of parenting. It’s how you reach your kids,” said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center Internet and American Life project. In a survey conducted in the summer of 2009, nearly 70 percent of teenagers said they talked on the phone with their parents at least once a day.

Now researchers are starting to zero in on how cellphone use affects the dynamic of the parent-child relationship. A paper published online on Monday in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking suggests that both the nature of the calls and who initiates the calls may affect relations.
Robert S. Weisskirch, a professor of human development at California State University in Monterey Bay, asked 196 parent-teenager pairs to tell him how frequently they made different types of calls. The teenagers were asked about 18 different types of situations or circumstances in which they might call parents and to rank them from “never” to “often.”

The calls fell into two basic categories: “ask and confer” calls, in which teenagers checked in with their parents to ask permission or tell a parent they would be late; and “social support” calls, made when they were upset, wanted advice or wanted to tell a parent they were happy and share some good news.
Parents were asked how often they called their children to monitor their whereabouts, track their schoolwork, check in with them and get an update — or express anger or dissatisfaction with something the teenager did.

Parents and teenagers also filled out questionnaires about their relationship, how close they were, how much conflict there was and how well they communicated.

What Dr. Weisskirch found wasn’t altogether surprising. When teenagers called parents frequently to “ask and confer,” it was better for their relationship, and they were more likely to characterize their parents as supportive and say they were close and communicated well. Parents were gratified by the calls, too; such calls seemed to boost their self-esteem.

“What I found generally was that when adolescents are initiating the communication and are seeking out social support and guidance from their parents, then almost across the board they tend to have better reports of getting along with their parents,” Dr. Weisskirch said.

On the other hand, when parents were initiating calls frequently to monitor their children’s whereabouts, track their homework or tell them they were upset, there was more conflict in the relationship, and the teenagers tended to have lower self-esteem. “When the parents call and have a lot of communication around ‘what are you doing?’ or ‘who are you with?’ or when they’re angry at the child and upset or scared, the kids report more conflict in the family,” he said.

Ultimately, the phone is just a tool that may augment the relationship but doesn’t substitute for it, he said. Still, he said, the phone may help during the transitional time of adolescence, when children are flexing their independence but tend to need guidance making decisions. “The phone has the potential to enhance parenting by giving parents an opportunity to provide guidance, even though they’re not face to face, and help their kids learn how to make good decisions,” he said.

But the phone can also increase tension, Ms. Lenhart said. “What this is making clear is that frequent calls from parents can be negative, that parents who are anxious and worried and constantly calling their child to monitor and ask about schoolwork or argue and try to discipline them — when you try to do the negative parts of parenting over the phone, it doesn’t work particularly well.”

Setting clear parameters for phone use from the outset may prevent conflict and mitigate misunderstandings, Dr. Weisskirch said. It is probably a good idea, for example, for parents to be very clear about what their expectations are about how often the teenager must make contact, he said, and to establish that not answering a parent’s call is not an option.

“The adolescent needs to know what’s expected of them, and how they’re supposed to use this technology that has crept into our lives,” he said.

Credit:http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/what-cellphone-calls-say-about-parent-teenager-relations/?ref=health

Worry

This is from an email my brother forwarded to me in 2006. I don’t know who the author is, but I like it.

Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, "It's their life," and feel nothing?
 

 When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my son's head. I asked, "When do you stop worrying?" The nurse said,
 "When they get out of the accident stage." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.
 

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted the class, and was headed for a career making license plates. As if to read my mind, a teacher said, "Don't worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back, relax, and enjoy them." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.
 

When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open. A friend said, "They're trying to find themselves. Don't worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying.  They'll be adults." My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.
 

By the time I was 50, I was sick and tired of being vulnerable. I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle. There was nothing I could do about it. My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

I continued to anguish over their failures, be tormented by their frustrations, and absorbed in their disappointments.  My friends said that when my kids got married I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my mother's warm smile and her occasional, "You look pale. Are you all right?  Call me the minute you get home. Are you depressed about something?"

Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown? Is concern a curse or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life?
 

One of my children became quite irritable recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've been calling for 3 days, and no one answered I was worried." I smiled a warm smile.

The torch has been passed.

8/5/2009 My Troubled Teen Part II con't

The only way I can explain how I felt at the moment is the scene that flashed in my mind, like a movie camera that was focused on me suddenly pans way out and I’m tiny and alone, a mere dot in the universe. Who is prepared for this? How do you reconcile that you’ve been an involved, attentive mother for 15 years, and this is going on right under your nose and you have been the last one to know? You, who was an 8th grade teacher and trained to look for the signs? Who do you tell? Will they still be your friend, still respect you? Will your family still love your daughter when they find out what she’s done? Will they allow her in their house?

7/24/10 My Troubled Teen (con't)

One morning, my boyfriend of nine years began yelling at my daughter, and I, who had been told to stay out of all matters between them, couldn’t stand it anymore. I insisted that he stop that instant or we were through. He wouldn’t, didn’t think he had to, and actually thought that he had the right. It was my boiling point. It was too much and I didn’t want my daughter to suffer anymore. I made a decision on the spot to leave, to move out and take my children with me.

In a very short amount of time, I had packed, arranged for movers, and was gone. My older daughter went along with it, but she was angry about the disruption. But I couldn’t leave her behind. We’ve been out of that living arrangement for more than a year, and we’ve been through even more than I ever thought, and there have been many revelations.

7/21/2009 My Troubled Teen Con't

At best, she had a marginal relationship with her father at the time. Unbeknownst to me, she had been plotting this for some time, even picking fights with me so I would be desperate to send her there. Nevertheless, I allowed it and off she went in March of 2007, in the last quarter of seventh grade. It was one of the most heartbreaking days of my entire life, worse than any funeral I’ve been to. Because it was so emotionally and scholastically disruptive, the deal was that she had to stay until the end of middle school and then could decide whether she would attend high school in our state or his. I made up contracts and she and both parents signed it.

It turned out to be both the worst and most educational experience of her life. She learned that she loved her father, but had very little respect for him. He couldn’t cut it as a parent and vacillated between neglecting her and hitting her out of anger. I could understand the getting angry at her part – even the wanting to hit her part – but I certainly would never lay a hand on her. In short, by the tenth month away from home, she was done. She called me the night before Valentine’s Day in 2008, crying and begging to come home. Right away. That second. I was taken aback, as she barely ever called, texted, or emailed me that whole time. I was a veritable stalker, but she kept her distance. I even visited her at the six-month mark, and she hardly talked to me.

I had to make sure she was sure about it, and that she wasn’t being emotional or affected by PMS. She just told me she couldn’t take the bad treatment anymore and she needed me, needed her mommy, and even missed me. She also told me that the reason she didn’t reveal this before was that she felt embarrassed and like a failure, that what she wanted to accomplish was never going to happen.