abasket - good question. I think it depends on the person. I went back to work part time when my kids were in middle school and HS. Gradually increased hours and am full time now. Working has been very good for me. I am not particularly domestic, don’t have a lot of time consuming hobbies (do read a lot and like walking and yoga), am burned out on volunteering from the SAHM days and most of my friends work.
I do sometimes wish I had more time off to do some of the things that walking home mentions.
Next fall I plan to read all 71+ pages of this thread!
Well, I always worked full time. My problem 8 years ago after D. went to college was to fill the time AFTER work and 2 hours of exersize. I found 3 hobbies (time consuming!) and now have no problem except there is always a question what do I want to do at the moment when I do not need to finish my work in after work hours, as it has been a busy and very fullfiling year at work last year. The result of busy year is more vacation days this year, could not take them all last year. So timely as D. graduates this year, we will attend her graduation and have a family reunion there. I do not like traveling. We go to NYC every year though to visit with the S’s family, we stay there for about 1 week, I hate NYC. We also go for 2 week vacation, usually in Caribbean, we do not visit any places though, outgrew any desire to visit and see new places long time ago, we just enjoy staying on the beach. I am trying hard to go back to reading, but found this to be very unfullfilling activity, frustrated with it, no enjoyment like it used to be some 50 years ago. Finished one book on my recent vacation and thinking why I even started reading it, have no idea.
I love reading. I read a ton. I love the library, because if you get 50 or 100 or even 200 pages into the book and don’t want to finish it, no one will report you. 
Hi even though your thread comment is 2.5 months old I just read it @lab317 and I have a question for anyone with kids who live at home or come home to criticize. …where is it written that we as good parents have to just accept it? I have 4 Teens (3 still at home)…i am regularly reminding them dad and I are alpha and it isn’t their place or their job to make us miserable or crazy by bombarding us with criticisms. It’s rude
Is anyone wondering what it’s going to be like having our students home for the summer? When mine come home for break I’m willing to pamper them, so to speak, but for the summer I expect them to help around the house, etc. plus, it’s hard for me to sleep until they are home when they are here, even though I don’t worry about where they are in the wee hours at school.
“Is anyone wondering what it’s going to be like having our students home for the summer?”
- I do not do anything around the house / yard. My H. does not do it either. We hire help for everything and my cooking cannot be even called cooking, it is more like “fixing” and not even every day. No, I do not make a kid to do anything, more so that she spends most of her time with her friends anyway. But she did not have summers off for awhile being in Grad. school. She comes home frequently on her breaks and I make sure that we do not do anything at all while she is there. I even take few 1/2 days of vacation, time with her is very precious, she will not be here for the most of her next 4 years - she will start her residency in July. Sometime she loves to “fix” some dish with me, but this is much more for fun than any necessity. We always end up having fun doing something together, like she likes me to help her packing, she knows I am good at it, I have been teaching her how to fold, but I guess, it is more a talent than a skill and let’s face it, neither my H., nor my D. has it, my S. got it from me though.
She never criticised us for anything, she keeps on saying that she loves to be at home.
@abasket, you asked if SAHMs do worse as empty nesters. I don’t know of studies about this, but my belief is yes for the following reason.I wrote this much earlier in this thread (so pardon the repetition), but a very wise friend of mine says that mental health comes from three things – community, meaning and structure. If someone is missing one of the three, he/she is likely fine. If the person is missing two, he/she is likely to have a problem and if he/she is missing three, depression is reasonably likely.
Here’s the problem: SAHMs typically get a lot of their meaning in life from raising their kids, form their community from school or hockey / soccer or other kid-related organization as they make friends with the parents of their kids’ classmates or activity-related peers, and develop their daily structure from the kids’ schedules (drop the kids off at school; run errands, pick up at school and schlep to after-school activities, dinner, help with homework, …). HS kids wean us from some of the structure, but when the youngest kid heads off to school, many SAHMs lose meaning, structure, and over time the community devolves as many were friends of convenience rather than deep friends. As a result, they are probably more prone to sadness and depression when the youngest leaves than a parent with a job and a well-developed community separate from school. My sense is that this is a tendency, not a forgone conclusion as lots of other factors matter as well, but on average, I suspect that SAHMs have it worse when the nest empties.
If that is the diagnosis, the prescription is find an area/activity that seems meaningful to you (literacy, hunger, art, politics, …), build a community (possibly around that area/activity) and create a structure for yourself. For some, organized religion provides community, meaning and structure. Employment provides structure and often instant community but may or may not provide a sense of meaning (it does for me but doesn’t for everyone). I work beyond full-time but always try to create one pro bono project per year for myself that draws on my talents/skills to keep me in touch with higher order meaning (I’m not one for organized religion).
Our youngest graduated in January and both kids are in grad school on different coasts. We try to see them as often as they/we can, which isn’t that often. But, we are thrilled to watch them mature and become responsible adults pursuing things that they love. For example, we just spent the weekend on the other coast and our son showed us around his new university and we could see how excited he is about what he is studying. We were pleased to hear that, in addition to the extremely intense level of work he is doing in his program, he is playing basketball two hours a day (and look to be in fabulous shape) and, while he doesn’t have a GF, has a nice set of friends and goes out on two dates a weekend (he doesn’t get a lot of sleep). We were both so pleased to see him doing so well and building a strong foundation for his future. Both kids still call for advice and help (me for practical things about life and for life strategy; my wife for emotional things). But the nest is permanently empty and we are thinking about replacing our current house with something a little more compact and energy-efficient.
Why SAHMs can’t join the work force and rid themselves of all the “lows” that are created by having way too much time on their hands?
We’re gonna be a mess that first couple days when both of our kids are out of the house next fall.
Same here…and one of mine will be 1/2 way around the world!
Well, it gets easier when you plan the next visit or the next time they come home. We made it a point no matter where in the world they went for longer than a couple of months to visit them if they were abroad or working.
That community, meaning, structure theory is quite interesting! I can see it being valid for many people.
@rumrunner and @claremontm, can you take an exciting trip after dropping your youngest off?. This might be the first of the adventures you and spouse are going to have together now that the nest is empty.
I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that my husband and I took a trip directly from dropping off our youngest at college. We went to Montreal which was just a couple of hours from his college. That was the perfect antidote because it gave me something to look forward to immediately after the goodbye. When we got home a week later, we found out our basement had flooded, so there was another few days of distraction!
We did a week long bicycle trip after we dropped off our youngest at college.
I agree with the community, meaning, structure theory. I had a full-time career then I went to part-time, then to fully retired. I feel I am in a holding pattern right now, with an empty nest, but DH has not yet retired. My 88-year-old father needs very little from me right now. My DH and father keep suggesting I need a hobby, but I think the community, meaning, structure is a better way to approach it. Still looking.
Unfortunatly it’s not always easy to get back into the workforce. I was able to do it some years ago after 10 years out, but some of my friends haven’t been employed for pay in 20-25 years. And a lot of places don’t want to hire people over 40.
wifey keeps talking about Montreal but she never renews her passport
Community, Meaning, Structure makes so much sense. I like that and speaks volumes about all sorts of depression or blues. I have always worked, lucky to be on a reduced schedule. My youngest hadn’t left home yet, but I have found myself a bit lost when I come home. Reduced lack of structure and meaning. I don’t get it from work, and the kids seem incredibly independent of me.
@shawbridge - community, structure and meaning.
This makes so much sense!
I am imminently facing an empty nest. The youngest is leaving for college in 6 weeks and he will rarely be home from this point on. I do have one child still at home, but she has just finised her Masters (last exam this weekend) and will then beging studying for her CPA. So, while she is at home, she’s not home all that much due to work and school.
For the past 20 plus years, I"ve been homeschooling so my life has been filled with a tremendous amount of community, stucture and meaning. Now, most of that is gone (now that I’m no longer homeschooling).
At this point, I don’t know what I will do next. I"ve been pondering it for a few years now and no bright ideas have surfaced yet.