Ladies, We Need To Talk - How to deal with an empty nest

0:00Hi, I'm Alicia Simmons. And I'm Lee Boucher. As historians, we've spent years digging into the lives of people who have changed history, for better or for worse. So naturally, we are extremely qualified to gossip about them. And because they're dead, they can't sue. In our podcast, we sift through Australia's most notable and notorious characters, giving you our unfiltered takes. Search the Dead Can't Sue podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. This was it. This is the last one leaving and I was just like, how am I going to feel this void? No one really seemed to talk about the grief of empty nesting. When it comes to motherhood, we're set up to give and give and give and then when that loss happens, we're not expected to grieve it.

0:57Becoming a mum is one of the most profound life shocks that a woman can experience. It's a complete up-ending of everything you used to have, free time, breasts that were private property, a highly strong pelvic floor, and the ability to just pop out of the house any time you want. Motherhood takes all that away, but it gives back too. You're at the centre of someone's world. You're needed. You're the comfort and warm heart, the care...

1:25and softness, you're the discipline and therapist and hug dealer. If you're lucky, you're a great big number one person in the life of someone you absolutely adore. So when your kids grow up and decide to leave the nest, it's a victory because you raised them right, right? But it's a major part of your identity that also ups and leaves. And what? You meant to be okay with that?

1:51Recalibrating who you are and what to do with all this free time is, at best, confronting. For some women it might be bingo, booze and bliss, but for others it's a freefall of an existential cliff. And for whatever reason, we don't really talk about the agony involved. I'm Umi Steins and ladies...

2:17We need to talk about overcoming the grief of the empty nest. With the younger one going overseas, I just knew he'd love it. But at the same time, I'm like, this is going to kill me. Meet Felice. She's 64 and lives in Melbourne's outer suburbs. She's a medical researcher and her two sons are smart and accomplished. But when her second son left home at 26, she was devout. She was all on her own. And...

2:56I was just like, how am I going to feel this void? How am I going to be able to feel this space that these two young men have left? And Felice, what kinds of things did you love about them and delight in them when they were little? Oh God, all the funny things that little boys do and all the naughty things that little boys do as well. They just did silly stuff all the time, joking around, cooking together, going out for a bushwalk.

3:24As the boys grew into young men, the silliness didn't stop and it was the company and everyday hangs that mattered. They're funny. They've got a wicked sense of humour, both of them. Like they play pranks on you all the time. As they got older, those serious conversations about what was going on in their lives. We'd go for long walks and they'd be talking to me and it was just the sound of their voice, the musicality of their language. It doesn't really matter what they're saying, it's just they're there.

3:50Apart from the occasional floor-drobe situation, Felicia's sons grew into great housemates. The relationship changed from mother-son to friend and companion as they got further into their 20s. They're very independent, getting their own groceries, like making their own way into town, sorting themselves out. And did you like being around younger people? Of course.

4:12They're great. All the quirky language that they use, you stay up to date, you stay current and you kind of understand what's going on around you. For years, Felice and her sons lived side by side in their little family share house, making dinner and solving the world's problems. There was a time where Felice thought it would never end, especially with her eldest. He and I are very close and he would say, I'm going to live with you until forever.

4:40I'm like, oh, whatever. That's probably a bit weird to other people. But I'm like, yeah, that's fine. I don't care. I don't mind. And you can stay as long as you're like, I was never somebody who wanted my kids to leave home in a hurry. But when he developed a relationship with a girl in town and before, you know, like within a couple of weeks he was gone and like, oh my God, what happened? What happened to living with me forever?

5:03That was around three years ago when her eldest was 27. And while that was a shock, the real hit came the next year when her other son spread his wings and also flew the nest. Now everyone's gone and the house is empty and so physically it felt heavy. The paradox of grieving your kids leaving home is that you've spent years teaching them how to do it, how to be independent and head out into the world.

5:34You know, you've got two healthy young men that are living their best lives. Who wouldn't want that? But boy, just the thought of them not being close by was really tough. Really, really tough. Yeah.

5:48When you say that I can just feel my own son and how he is on me all the time, I used to say I'm a tree and he's a koala because he was just on me all the time. And even now, I feel it and I guess it's a physical sensation, isn't it? It's really physical sensation and you can still remember all the echoes, all the laughing, all the tears, the stories, look out in the backyard and think, oh, that's where we played badminton or that's where I'd go and lie down next to him and we'd have long chats. Were you surprised about the depth of your emotions? No, I wasn't surprised because, well, I do all these other things and kept myself really busy with work and all the rest of it. There's never been anything that's been more important or more grounding than my kids. They gave me a sense of purpose that hasn't been replaced. It's not dissimilar to someone who might be made redundant from a job that they loved. This is Dr Victoria Miller, but you can call her Tori.

6:48She's a clinical psychologist and helps women navigate life after the kids leave home. Dr Tori says our roles in the world define who we are, so it is a big deal when that role changes. And when the child leaves, the community tends to go with them. And the female parent tends to be considerably invested. There are societal pressures around the mother having the more significant role when it comes to caretaking.

7:17and a lot of our identities then wrapped up in that role. And so then when that is removed, it can leave a great sense of emptiness. We've all heard stories of couples getting divorced suddenly once the kids have left home. Dr Tori reckons this transition from family unit to just the two of you can lay bare some critical crunch points in your romantic relationship.

7:42One of the big risks as relationships go on, long-term relationships, is that we can get out of practice in investing in the relationship and in the friendship. And the growth of the couple and the intimacy of the couple can be so stalled, because so much is being redirected into the kids. And so then sometimes that can be a real shock when the kids are suddenly gone and you're kind of in a house with this person going, who are you? You're left wondering not only who your partner is and who you are after all this time, but who you are.

8:11together. So it can put a lot of pressure in terms of communicating, intimacy, understanding one another, knowing what each other likes. And then sometimes I think what it also reveals is cracks that were there in the relationship that perhaps weren't seen because the kids were protecting you from seeing that. And it can be really hard for couples to find one another again.

8:34Doctor Tori, can I share my mum's perspective? So when she left her mother's nest, her brother stayed behind and took care of mum. And so there's always been multiple generations. And I've seen this with her sisters is that the sisters would marry and then live with the husband's family. And so there was never an empty nest in a lot of these families and these households that I used to spend time in as a child. Is that something that is protective for the people involved?

9:02I do think that there's something to be said in Western cultures. If I think about, you know, I'm Anglo Aussie, there was a really clear line in the sand that, you know, that when I hit 18, I was gone, you know, but I see it in my husband's family. My husband is Greek and I can see the protective nature of the culture that is wrapped around my mother-in-law in particular, partly because my husband and his sister moved out of home a lot later.

9:31and so her role as mum has continued. But also there's a lot more coming back to home than there is, I think, in some of the Western cultures in terms of that staying connected with family, routine dinners, some of the traditions that keep that connection alive that really keep families connected in a way that Western culture I don't think is as good at.

9:53So the concept of an empty nest isn't intrinsic across all cultures. But if you're born into a system where the children are expected to leave, and they do, even a lifetime of prep can't shield you from the shock of it. And Dr Tori says it's important to acknowledge the depth of feeling. That experience of suddenly someone being absent in the house of someone that you are used to seeing almost every day and that suddenly their bedroom is empty or their belongings are gone or their sound doesn't echo through the halls anymore. Grief actually affects every system in our body. It affects our brains, our immune system, it affects our nervous system and we often underestimate just how hard-hitting loss can be.

10:45It was like I'd had an arm simmered or something like that. It was just so painful. Ladies, meet Janet. She's an author and copywriter in Sydney. She wrote a book called Empty Next after the grief of her only child leaving home knocked her on her arse. Janet and her son had a very strong bond.

11:04would be able to have a chat about pretty much anything actually. He makes me laugh like nobody else on the planet. My husband would ask him to get something from the fridge and he would just walk ridiculously slowly, just one foot after the other. And I would just be killing myself laughing. And then he went and got engaged at 21. I know, how dare you. That's pretty young. What was that like for you? How did you react to that? Oh, I was thrilled. She's a great girl and they were beautiful together. So...

11:33I was really, really happy. I just hadn't really thought through the idea that he was actually going to leave. Janet's son was living at home when he got engaged. It was 2020, the start of the COVID pandemic. And the rules about how many people could gather for a wedding were quickly changing. So I suggested to them, look, why don't you do it tomorrow? Just do it. And they did.

11:57He rushed the wedding to fit in with COVID rules. What a headfuck. I know. But that must have been incredibly emotional. Oh, yeah. I mean, I still get emotional like I'm tearing up now. Yeah. It was so joyful, though. It was fantastic. But afterwards. Well, tell me about that. Take a moment. It was just so painful. It was like I wasn't ready.

12:26for it and it was sudden there were just reminders of him everywhere it was like super happy but then when the dust settled just looking around going hey he'll never be here again yeah really hit me and Janet was that unexpected yes I was completely shocked by my own reaction so he moved out the next day how did the grief of him leaving affect you in everyday life well I was a bit shocked that it really was a lingering grief. You'd expect it to be kind of like a momentary thing or a day or two but you know like it kept going and there'd be little reminders around the area where we lived going past his school or a playground. These are little things that kept popping up and kept making me feel really sad. Yeah. And you know my husband seemed fine actually and no one really seemed to talk about the grief of empty nesting.

13:20Which, to me, was strange, because when you first have a child, there's so much information. It's overload from pumpkin puree to poos and all of that stuff. But empty initially, it's kind of nothing. That feeling of your son ditching you for his girlfriend is common in mother-son relationships. Janet was also missing the feeling of being useful that she had when her son was living at home.

13:46This sounds a bit ridiculous, but I used to make him lunch every day to take to uni because I didn't want him eating junk. I think my role in the world felt like it had lost a role. There was a bit of a hole there where that role used to be. Colleagues would come up to me at work and say, hey, how's it going? And I'd just wave them away and say, please, please, don't ask. And I'd start crying.

14:11This is Felice from Melbourne again, our mum of two adult sons who rudely abandoned her to pursue their hopes and dreams. Felice is not a crier. The one time she remembers crying in her adult life was when her sister died. But after her sons left, she was knocking around in an empty house and bursting into tears all the time. I couldn't stop it. I felt really dysfunctional for a while.

14:37I was so pathetic, you know. I definitely wouldn't use that word to describe you. I think that's just having some emotions. Oh, yeah, it's full on. And I guess because I don't have a partner as well, I felt guilty. I'm like, have I relied on them too much? Have I been somebody that kind of made them a substitute for this? You come home, no one's there. No one's there. No one's there to say, hey, how was your day? It's not the highlights. It's all the mundane stuff that kind of makes up the matrix of your day.

15:06And of your world? Losing those little moments of intimacy was heartbreaking for Felice, but she had been preparing for this for years. She'd purposely set herself up to be busy at this time in her life. So on top of work, she'd been chipping away at a master's degree and a PhD. I thought, I'm going to study. I'm going to make sure I get myself into a position where I will always have something to do even when they leave. But after the kids left home, everything was less fun.

15:36less shiny, less enjoyable. It felt like this is not how I thought it would feel to achieve these things. It's just not the same because the people that I would share this with in my physical space aren't physically there. But all the things that would have made me really excited and happy or give me a real buzz before when they were there is sort of dampened down. They're still important, they still matter but they just don't have the same resonance and the same vibrancy. Living on her own without her boys also made Felice feel old. And I'd never felt old before and I hated that feeling because I'm like generally really fit and healthy and very active in my life. It just really impacted my identity.

16:27Feeling old is scary. It means we're closer to death and decline and decay. That's something clinical psychologist Dr Tori Miller says comes up when you've officially got no kids living at home. There's a certain age and stage attached. We are all trying to manage our own death anxiety that one day we will die. That's a terror. That's terror.

16:50Yeah. I like you naming it death anxiety because I never hear people talking about it, but I am afraid to die. Well, we don't talk about it. We don't. We bury ourselves in work and we buy shiny things and we invest in skincare and we try to pretend like time isn't moving on, but it is. These markers definitely are complicated by the fact that they highlight that we're aging.

17:17And life is short, but we've got to keep living after our kids leave. And even if, for you, that's a long way off, it's good to put in the groundwork now. We need to remember who we are outside of being a mum, what our passions are and what gets us excited. Earlier in the episode, Dr Tori spoke about how important it is to let yourself grieve and have grace for all the feelings.

17:43She also recommends looking after your earthly flesh vessel your meat sack your humble human body Sleeping when you need to receiving help from other people and asking for support and talking about feelings and Doing things like slowly kind of getting back out into the world and experimenting with new ways of living What could you do if you find yourself feeling resentment or feeling hurt that your kid has left home sit with it first because I think sometimes our temptation is to sprayed at the person who's hurt us. And I think that it was really good advice to not do that.

18:20And also to understand the complexities of being a parent is that sometimes the nature of attachment is that we can feel really rejected when our child doesn't need us or chooses an independent pathway. And I think that that is a really big part of adjusting to being a parent of an adult child. There's a real temptation, I think, to pick up the phone and be like, oh, you're finally answering the phone, are you?

18:48You needed something. You want me to do your laundry? You only go when you need me. Yeah, what do you need? You need money? I mean, it could be hard not to, and I really understand where parents are coming from when they do that. But I think the thing that they're worth trying to remember is that part of what happens when we parent our kids is that they internalize us.

19:11And that part of the reason that they're able to move out into the world is because they have internalised our wisdom and our voice and our knowledge. And they're often thinking, what would mum say? What would mum do about this? And we are still very much alive in their world. It's just not represented in the same way with that sort of everyday contact. It took time to figure out our new relationship. Here's Janet from Sydney again.

19:37After her son got married and moved out of home the next day, she'd struggled with the shift in her role from lunch maker and close confidant to empty nester. His wife is really, really smart and funny. So we discovered that the four of us, my husband and I and those two, would have really great chats together, have dinner together and lots of laughs. And occasionally I would go for a walk with him and we'd chat. But it took a while to figure out, actually, for me.

20:06As Janet was reforming a different kind of relationship with her son and his wife, she had more emotional space for the man who was still at home. It's a time that I've found to refocus on my husband. Just really enriching that relationship, I think, is super important. It's taken time. Yeah, yeah, okay. Because our interests are really different, but yeah, we get along really well now. Oh, that's so lovely. That is really lovely. I know that grandkids...

20:35into the picture. Yeah. So was your son having kids something that helped replace or repair that grief? Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Did it make your role evolve? Yes, absolutely. It's just a role that I absolutely love and cherish. I mean, kids, young kids are just hilarious and fabulous, you know. But they're also really hard work and you're thrilled when you can give them back, as you probably know. As Janet embraced the change of role from mother to grandmother, For Lees, our medical researcher from Melbourne found a different way to steer herself onto a new path. I made the decision to sell my house mainly because I don't want to be around all those ghosts. She's bought a place to live that's closer to the city and set herself up for fun. I think surrounding myself with more activity, being around people more.

21:27It'll be so much better for me and I'll be able to forge my way forward independently and not kind of live in the past like that. Yeah. Police, what's helped you move forward from that feeling of loss? I love my work. So I get really excited about that. Things that would bore other people to death, like writing journal articles and doing research, just getting out and doing stuff and connecting with people and finding my way and making plans. If your mind's kind of stuck, just keep your body moving. I think it's really, really important.

21:56Felice is militant about regularly getting the exercise that keeps her sane. She runs every day. She's also excited about travel plans. She's getting to a good place. I'm still in the process of finding who I am now that I'm not mum in that sense and trying to find my worth, really. What advice would you give to another mum who's really dealing with her grief?

22:24about being an empty Nesta right now. Gosh well I'd say celebrate what you've achieved because what you've achieved is extraordinary. You've raised human beings to be functional and get out there in the world which is brilliant and it's a life's work but you owe it to yourself to find joy and purpose. It can feel very difficult and also be kind and allow yourself to grieve.

22:52you know life is just so precious isn't it? It's so precious and it's so sure and you know when you think about the time you've had with your children that flies and before you know it they're gone but it's the same with your own life. You've got this limited time in the world so I really do want to make the most of it and I do want to contribute but at the same time experience joy because we're entitled to it you know.

23:18As a mum of four, I do crave an empty nest when the only farts I have to smell are my own. But at the same time, I know that this Make a Human Grow a Friend project that I have been diligently working on for more than 24 years is one of the funnest, silliest and most financially draining endeavours that unprotected sex could ever possibly have led me to.

23:41Maybe the message here isn't just for those facing down this big life change so much as it is for all of us. Live life like you matter. And remind yourself that this is your one wild and precious life. And if you're jettisoning your baby birds out of your nests like garbage from a spaceship, ask yourself this. Who are you when your obligations are to you, yourself, alone?

24:12This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gadigal, Moenina and Durawal people. Ladies, we need to talk is mixed by Anne-Marie De Bettencore. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein and Sarah Mashman. Our supervising producer is Emma Morris and our executive producer is Tamar Kranswick. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.