New Research is on Our Side!
Barbara Rainey
 February 19
A friend sent me an article recently from the New York Times titled, “Your Nest Is Empty? Enjoy Each Other” by Tara Parker-Pope, January 19, 2009.
In the article, the author reports that empty nesters are happier in their marriages than they were when the children were home. And I agree. It’s been true for us (see my post “Like a Beautiful Old Building,” January 27, 2009). Ms. Parker-Pope writes:
The empty nest may not be such an unhappy place after all. Researchers at Berkeley tracked marital happiness among 72 women in the Mills Longitudinal Study, which has followed a group of Mills College alumnae for 50 years. The study is important because it tracks the first generation of women to juggle traditional family responsibilities with jobs in the work force.
In the empty-nest study, researchers compared the women’s marital happiness in their 40s, when many still had children at home; in their early 50s, when some had older children who had left home; and in their 60s, when virtually all had empty nests. At every point, the empty nesters scored higher on marital happiness than women with children still at home.
The finding mirrors that of a report presented last year at the American Psychological Association, tracking a dozen parents who were interviewed at the time of a child’s high school graduation and 10 years later. That small study also showed that a majority of parents scored higher on marital satisfaction after children had left home.
While the Berkeley researchers had hypothesized that the improvement in marital happiness came from couples spending more time together, the women in the same study reported spending just as much time with their partners whether the children were living at home or had moved out. But they said the quality of that time was better.
“There are fewer interruptions and less stress when kids are out of the house,” said Dr. Gorchoff, at Berkeley. “It wasn’t that they spent more time with each other after the children moved out. It’s the quality of time they spent with each other that improved.”
It’s always nice to see a study that confirms one’s experience. And it is great news for those approaching the empty nest with fear and anxiety to know that their hope of more marital fun in the future is not an unrealistic dream. | 
