Rebuilding the Nest

For women in their forties, children leaving home are also a time of mixed emotions. On one hand we may have trouble believing they're really old enough to be capable of being on their own, how can they not need us anymore? We may think back with poignancy to when they were small, helpless, and utterly dependent on us. One woman I know used a supermarket analogy. "When my babies were out of diapers, I'd walk down the aisle and say, 'I don't need those anymore.' Then I walked down the aisle with the sanitary supplies and Midol, and I realized that my daughters needed that but I wouldn't for much longer, and soon they'd leave home and I wouldn't buy these things for them anymore. What aisle do I head for next?"

Leaving home is a major milestone in the series of steps children take toward independence, each one poignant in its own way. I remember my husband's puzzlement when I tearfully told him our oldest son, then six, had lost his first perfect little baby tooth. "Well, isn't that supposed to happen?" he asked cautiously. "But you don't understand," I remember saying, almost in anguish. "He's not a baby anymore."

When young men and women who were babies only the blink of an eye ago leave home, we inherit a cavernous feeling somewhere in our hearts, even if we do look forward to the additional freedom. If your children are going out into the world, I suggest you have your own graduation of sorts to mark this significant time in your career as a mother:

- Start by acknowledging the feelings you have about this change in your life, whether it is a sense of loss or relief, or a mixture of both. Whether they strike out for a college across the country or for the next town to live in an apartment, it's still a big change not to see your children daily, and you can expect to miss them, even if your relationship with them has been stormy at times.

- Review your strengths as a parent. Think about the qualities, knowledge, and traditions your children are taking out into the world that you gave them. Much of what they will become will reflect your importance in their life.

- Take time to consider the ways you want to continue to act as your children's mentor after they leave home.

- Talk to other women whose children have left home, and take comfort in hearing about what it was like for them. When my oldest son was getting ready to leave home for the first time, my dear friend Nancy provided me with such solace. Her oldest was already out in the world, and she gently reminded me that children do come back, for holidays, for advice, for companionship on different terms. "A child leaving home isn't an event but a process," she said, sensible words that sustained me through a time of strong and mixed emotions.

- Have a discussion with your spouse about this change in your lives. He may share some of your feelings about seeing a child become an adult, and recollections about all you've both learned through parenthood can be mutually reassuring.

- Most important, decide on what you would like to gain from this change in your life: more solitude for yourself, additional time with your spouse, a different dynamic with the child who has left home, or a change in your relationship with other children who are still at home are all possibilities.