I’m already experiencing this. My son has asked not to come on the family holiday as he wants to go away with and spend time with his friends. It’s sad. Very sad but this is his life now. It was never enough time with him. 18 years is too short!
something else to prepare for - don't assume they will come home for every holiday, my daughter and her friends have stayed in London most of the year - I thought she's only be gone for 10 weeks at a time - heartbreaking but also reassuring that she is happy.
Reading this made me emotional! I met my first-love-first-boyfriend the week after I finished my A Level exams, and basically moved to his family’s house in Cornwall for the summer, leaving my parents alone in Buckinghamshire. It was supposed to be for a fortnight but I think I stayed five or six weeks. I came home a few days before leaving for Uni, packed my rucksack and suitcase and left. It didn’t cross my mind for a second at the time, how that might have felt for them. It only occurred to me when I experienced a ‘vanishing summer’ with (or rather without!) my stepdaughter. I’m going to read this column out to my Mum!
Aghhhh I can see this coming and my two are just 16 and 14. What I am really struggling with though is not the sadness (yet?) but the worry. I worry about them all the time whenever they are out of the house - partly because they’re often mountain biking or surfing or cycling in our crazy west country roads ... but also just an inbuilt anxiety that ‘something will happen to them’. I’ve found this transition from having small children where I had quite a bit of control over what they did and how, to teenagers leading their own independent lives really difficult. Does the worry every stop?? I can’t imagine how I will feel when they leave home completely!!
Oh no. I have twins and felt that unravelling today already (at 14) as they skipped off to school camp. I was looking forward to a bit of p&q but did feel a bit emotional in the car on the way home . It's going to be over in one go in four years after 27 years of children at home. Hopefully one of my step kids will oblige me with a grandchild to ease that time.
OMG I'm in tears. I'm a reader from Germany and still have some time "left" with my eldest, but I can feel it coming and you've put it into words so perfectly! I feel that not many friends (also mums!) can fully relate, but it's exactly all of this that I will be so desperately missing!
Jun 20, 2022·edited Jun 20, 2022Liked by Lorraine Candy
I was so ‘not prepared’ for the last summer or empty nest. I stupidly thought that as I worked the emptying wouldn’t affect me as my time would be occupied as normal with work - how wrong, very very wrong. I ‘thought’ empty nest would only impact my friends who had been working hard in the home raising a family. I didn’t do anything at all to prepare for the grief that hit me like a sledgehammer. It’s been a rollercoaster but I’m now getting my head around it all. It’s not easy and don’t underestimate the impact this stage of life can have on you, no matter how ‘together’ you think you are!
I’m already experiencing this. My son has asked not to come on the family holiday as he wants to go away with and spend time with his friends. It’s sad. Very sad but this is his life now. It was never enough time with him. 18 years is too short!
something else to prepare for - don't assume they will come home for every holiday, my daughter and her friends have stayed in London most of the year - I thought she's only be gone for 10 weeks at a time - heartbreaking but also reassuring that she is happy.
Reading this made me emotional! I met my first-love-first-boyfriend the week after I finished my A Level exams, and basically moved to his family’s house in Cornwall for the summer, leaving my parents alone in Buckinghamshire. It was supposed to be for a fortnight but I think I stayed five or six weeks. I came home a few days before leaving for Uni, packed my rucksack and suitcase and left. It didn’t cross my mind for a second at the time, how that might have felt for them. It only occurred to me when I experienced a ‘vanishing summer’ with (or rather without!) my stepdaughter. I’m going to read this column out to my Mum!
Aghhhh I can see this coming and my two are just 16 and 14. What I am really struggling with though is not the sadness (yet?) but the worry. I worry about them all the time whenever they are out of the house - partly because they’re often mountain biking or surfing or cycling in our crazy west country roads ... but also just an inbuilt anxiety that ‘something will happen to them’. I’ve found this transition from having small children where I had quite a bit of control over what they did and how, to teenagers leading their own independent lives really difficult. Does the worry every stop?? I can’t imagine how I will feel when they leave home completely!!
Oh no. I have twins and felt that unravelling today already (at 14) as they skipped off to school camp. I was looking forward to a bit of p&q but did feel a bit emotional in the car on the way home . It's going to be over in one go in four years after 27 years of children at home. Hopefully one of my step kids will oblige me with a grandchild to ease that time.
OMG I'm in tears. I'm a reader from Germany and still have some time "left" with my eldest, but I can feel it coming and you've put it into words so perfectly! I feel that not many friends (also mums!) can fully relate, but it's exactly all of this that I will be so desperately missing!
I was so ‘not prepared’ for the last summer or empty nest. I stupidly thought that as I worked the emptying wouldn’t affect me as my time would be occupied as normal with work - how wrong, very very wrong. I ‘thought’ empty nest would only impact my friends who had been working hard in the home raising a family. I didn’t do anything at all to prepare for the grief that hit me like a sledgehammer. It’s been a rollercoaster but I’m now getting my head around it all. It’s not easy and don’t underestimate the impact this stage of life can have on you, no matter how ‘together’ you think you are!