Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, September 21st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. We’re going to talk today about the reality that sets in when the nest empties out.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. I’m just sitting here doing the math; it’s been six years, right? Six years since you guys became empty nesters?
Barbara: That’s right.
Bob: Are you still trying to figure it out?
(Laughter)
Bob: You’re kind of silent there.
Dennis: I told you…
Barbara: I guess I’m a little slow on the math.
Dennis: No, that’s not so, I’m just trying to realize when it was when you and I finally determined we were empty nesters.
Bob: So there was this process you’re saying.
Dennis: Yes, I think there was, I think it took us two or three years to come out of, how many years of childbearing, and child rearing?
Barbara: I don’t know, a lot.
Dennis: Twenty-eight, I think.
Barbara: I think so.
Dennis: I think over twenty-eight years.
Barbara: Yes, it doesn’t happen automatically.
Dennis: No, I mean it was,
Barbara: A transition.
Dennis: It was all hands on deck raising children and it took us awhile to get out of the mindset and to finally realize, you know what, we can kind of enjoy each other now and focus on one another. It hadn’t been that we weren’t doing that before, but when you’re tending to children, there’s no question, they drain you.
Bob: Our listeners are obviously aware that your wife, Barbara Rainey, is joining us today. Good to have you hear.
Barbara: Thank you, Bob.
Bob: We are going to be hearing a message that you and your friend Susan Yates did talking about empty nest issues, but I need to start by saying we got a very nice note from one of our FamilyLife Today donors, who wrote to say, “I’ve been reading Barbara’s empty nest book, I was encouraged to hear about your daughter who rebelled, to find out that we are not alone. Barbara is so right, we just need to choose our words carefully and to pray, pray, pray. God is faithful and he cares about our children more than we do. Thank you.”
I imagine you’ve heard from a lot of folks who have read the book, who have written you personally to say, thanks for capturing in this book what we’ve been living through and couldn’t put words to.
Barbara: Yes, we’ve had great feedback from women who’ve read the book; because they understand by reading it that we get it because we’ve been there and we’ve felt those things and were trying to help them know that they’re not alone.
Dennis: When Barbara and Susan wrote the book, they didn’t offer a pie in the sky type of picture of the empty nest. They painted it flaws, blemishes, warts and all because it’s a process that isn’t necessarily neat and tidy as you raise children who become adults.
What this lady is referring to there, Bob, is she just appreciates somebody being authentic and real, and I just want to say to this donor, this partner in ministry. Thank you for being a part of this ministry. You know, I was thinking when you read that Bob, David when he went to war had his mighty men,
Bob: Right.
Dennis: Well, we have a group that supports this broadcast and the ministries of FamilyLife they’re not just mighty men, they’re mighty men and mighty women. And they’re mighty because they care about, I believe, the oldest institution in the world, the most powerful institution in the world, and they’re investing in a ministry that’s doing good. That’s bringing good to marriages and families and bringing hope to people in a culture that frankly is trying to undermine and do evil to families. I just want to say thanks to those of you who are donors to FamilyLife. You’re needed, you’re appreciated and God bless you and your legacy.
Bob: I agree thanks. Barbara, you and your co-author Susan Yates had an opportunity to speak to a number of women I think it was in Dallas, right?
Barbara: Yes.
Bob: You spoke on the subject of the empty nest and this was a number of months ago but we’re going to give our listeners an opportunity to hear what you and Susan shared with those women. We’ll just dive right in. Here are Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates talking about the issues women face as they face the empty nest.
Barbara: Susan and I have discovered on this journey that all of us are asking the same questions and they boil down to four questions. The first one is; am I the only one who feels this way? I remember thinking that and feeling that after my youngest left and it’s a very common emotion for us in the empty nest. Most empty nesters feel that they are the only one. One of the big ones for us, for both of us, was loneliness. Because the house is empty and its quiet and we’re not used to that.
Susan: Well one of the things that we have found in talking to many women is that this season is very complex and it’s really diverse. It’s just plain messy and you know when we were mothers of young children we went through many of the similar challenges, learning to share, back talk, potty training, but it had sort of a beginning and an ending. Then as we hit the teen years, we went through similar challenges, but you get to the empty nest and it’s just messier, it hits us at different times; it hit both Barbara and me at different times.
I remember when it hit me, I have a vivid picture. Our kids all married young, they graduated from college in a period of seven years, and most of them got married right after college. So, I never had a chance to really adjust to the empty nest, because as our third child was graduating from high school to go off to the university, our first child was getting married within a week period of time. I was overwhelmed, so it wasn’t for me until our last daughter one of the twins got married, our twins got married within six weeks of each other. So that was a crazy summer.
Barbara: And they’re girls.
(Laughter)
Susan: And they’re girls, and I remember the day after Libby’s wedding, she was the last to marry, going up to the girls room that they’d grown up in, that they’d shared their whole life. Susie and her husband who had been married for six weeks were packing up the U-Haul to empty everything else that was left in the room.
As I stood in the room, I looked around at the walls and there were lines where the pictures had hung, there were pieces of little scraps of paper, but otherwise the room was bare. And as that truck pulled out of the driveway with my last child off to her new life, I just sort of dissolved into tears and crumpled on the floor.
As I looked at these bare walls, I noticed that the closet door was ajar and on the floor of the closet, I saw a rumpled old, blue prom dress. It seemed out of place. It was all alone. It was not needed anymore; in a way was out of style. And as I looked at that prom dress, I thought that’s just how I feel, I’m not needed anymore, I’m a little out of style.
I remember just sobbing, and so for me that was a real, oh me, this really is the empty nest as all of my children were finally married. Well, all of us will experience different things as we hit the empty nest. And as Barbara and Dennis experienced the beginnings of the empty nest they experienced it with some real heartache.
Barbara: Yes. We did. As we began the empty nest season, we were in a season of suffering as parents. One of our daughters chose to rebel. She became the prodigal. And she rebelled in some pretty serious, life-altering ways and we had sort of been dealing with some of her issues through high school and we were doing everything that we could think of to help her.
We spent her senior year watching other families do proms, and graduation ceremonies and all these wonderful senior activities and we were wondering where our daughter was. Where was she spending the night? Who was she living with tonight? It was such a time of heartache and loss for us, when it should be a joyous, wonderful season of life.
So we were in a very vulnerable place in our marriage and in our family because of this great suffering that we were experiencing. We went through that season and there were two things that were very important for us. One was a small group of friends and it was just really a couple of couples who stood with us and prayed for us.
The second thing that really got me through that season of life was God’s word. Nothing else seemed stable in my life except God’s word. And we found that there are other women who enter the empty nest with really difficult adjustments. It may not be a prodigal, it may be like my friend, Connie, who as she was preparing to take her youngest to college, of the summer before her youngest left, she found out that she had cancer.
Or maybe a friend of ours named Sue, who realized as her child left that her parents needed full time care. She went from having a houseful of children, she got them off and her parents moved in, because all of a sudden they needed full time care. Or Carolyn who entered the empty nest and had a grandchild who had to come and live with them for a time. Or Lisa whose husband left at the same time as her son left. Or Cindy who has a handicapped son and Mary who wants to know how do I relate to my ex, we’ve been divorced for years now how do I relate to him now that the kids are gone, because it changes the dynamics of that relationship.
So, Susan and I have learned that all of us are going to enter the empty nest with many variables and many of us will enter the empty nest with different kinds of heartache at different stages in that journey.
Susan: One of the main things that we’ve found as we’ve talked to other women in this. We’ve been honest with each other is how lonely we are. You know for many of us when we were mothers of young children we were desperate to be with another mother of young children just so we could complete a sentence because we felt like our brain had fried. We sought out other women and we went to women’s groups and MOPS groups and had play dates.
But then what happens often is you hit those teen years you find that you put your girlfriend relationships on hold a little bit because you want to savor those years with your teenagers. Well in our book we talk quite a bit about this and we also give several keys to how to begin to reconnect with other girlfriends, I’m going to give you three of them.
The first one is simply pray, God make me a good friend to others. Ask God to lead you to one or two other women who would become soul sisters, who would be of encouragement to you.
And then secondly, take the first step. Actually right down a list of three to five women that you would like to get to know at a deeper level. Call them up, ask them to go for a walk or meet you at Starbucks for coffee.
A third key is to simply be persistent. Say you didn’t really click with that girl you went for a walk with or you had a hard time sort of conversing at Starbucks. Simply call up another one. Keep going, keep taking the initiative and God in time will bring to you a girlfriend. But it’s scary, isn’t it? It’s scary to take that first step.
So our first question is really to give us each a little bit of relief. Our first question is; Am I the only one who feels this way? And the answer is most definitely, no.
Barbara: The second question that is on your outline is what is happening to my relationships? You know as we enter the empty nest and we sort of have been feeling this as our kids become teenagers, but our relationships are changing. We’ve learned that our marriages are in different places. My marriage was very different as we approached the empty nest than it was when we began our marriage, we were two very different people after twenty-five, thirty years than we were when we started.
So the key word for this is, renegotiate. All of us are going to have to renegotiate our relationships. First our marriage has to be renegotiated and redefined. Secondly, our relationships with our kids have to be renegotiated and redefined because they are now becoming their own person.
Susan: You know as Barbara mentioned, she and Dennis had adjustments as they went into this season, and so did Johnny and I. But we have also discovered that most women do and that’s one of the big things we fear. I want to read to you just from two different scenarios that perhaps you can relate to from a chapter that we did on how do I relate to my husband now? These are two stories that are true.
Bess and Gary couldn’t wait for the empty nest. Raising their kids had been tough. They’d had different approaches to discipline, they had struggled on a tight budget, and they postponed many of their dreams in order to be with their kids. Now the last one was leaving and they felt they’d done the best they could. Finally they were about to be free from the daily stresses of parenting. They were excited. They couldn’t wait for it to be just us, again.
Shelly’s situation was just the opposite; she poured her life into her kids. They had come first, now as the last child got ready to leave she was scared, really scared. I don’t even feel like I know my husband. I haven’t been alone with him since I was 26.
(Laughter)
Our whole life has revolved around the kids, now what will we talk about at the dinner table, what we will do on weekends. I don’t even know if I have the energy left to put into this relationship and I don’t know if I want to. Two very realistic pictures of what we face in this new season.
Well as Johnny and I walked into the empty nest, I needed to be aware that I could put undue pressure on my husband, that’s one trap I could fall in. On the other end of the spectrum, I could easily fall into this trap. Well, now that the children are gone, he’s just going to work longer at the office. He’s going to take on more projects and I’ll just get involved in more of the things I’m involved in. We’ll just get busier and busier and we’ll pass in the night when it’s convenient. And I realized that was equally as dangerous because I could become emotionally disengaged and that would only leave to isolation.
So it was really helpful to me to recognize these two extremes, but you know not only does our marriage need to be renegotiated, but also our relationship with our adult children is going to change. Picture with me for a moment a seesaw you know how when you were little you get on a seesaw with a friend and part of the fun of the seesaw was one of you had to move in who was a little bit heavier and the lighter one had to move out so you could balance in mid-air.
Keep that picture in mind for a minute, because I think as mom’s we have two tendencies as we release our adult children. On one end of the seesaw is the helicopter parent and on the other end of the seesaw is the hands-off parent. Now the helicopter parent is the parent that is perhaps a little too involved with her child. She’s on the phone, did you get to class on time, what are you going to wear, and what are your plans for the weekend, and oh, are you eating right? And tell me who your friends are? The child may be on the phone throughout the day dumping on mom which gets mom all upset and five minutes after the child has dumped, she’s fine and mom is leveled for the rest of the day. It’s very easy for us to micromanage our children from a distance. That’s the role of the helicopter parent.
The hands-off parent on the other hand is one that says, out of sight, out of mind, sort of. I’ve raised this child to be independent. They need to know that I have confidence in them. I am not going to call them as a friend of mine who just sent her first off to college this year, said we’re not allowed to call them for the first three weeks. Now she is a chronic hands-off parent. Doesn’t know his class schedule, doesn’t know who his friends are, and wants to give him space so that he can become his own man.
Let me quickly say that both the helicopter parent and the hands-off parent love their child. They want that child to be secure. So in our book we talk in greater detail about these two tendencies and give several practical helps on how you can seek to balance that seesaw. Our first two questions are, what is happening to me, am I the only one who feels this way. And secondly, what is happening to my relationships.
Barbara: Yes, there are two words that I want you to remember. The first one is, intentional. Become intentional in your marriage relationship and in key friendships. The second word that is key is flexible. Become flexible in your relationship with your children because it’s changing. You need to adjust to what your child needs and to find out the best way to relate to your child. So become intentional, and become flexible.
Bob: Well we’ve been listening to Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates addressing a number of moms, most of whom either were just into the empty nest or headed in that direction. I imagine you saw a lot of heads nodding as you spoke that night.
Barbara: Yes, we did and we got some great feedback. But the story that I remember the most was a young Asian woman who came up and I could tell by looking at her she wasn’t an empty nester. I started talking to her and she’s got three young kids and she said I wanted to come hear what you had to say and get your book because I want to understand what my mom’s going through.
I was just so taken back that this young woman cared enough about her mother to want to understand where her mother was in life. I was so impressed; I still am impressed that she was willing to do that because she’s the only one in there who wasn’t an empty nester or about to be. Most of the women had teenagers or kids who were already gone, so I was impressed.
Dennis: You know this would be a good Christmas gift.
Barbara: It would be a great Christmas gift or birthday, all kinds of things.
Dennis: I’ll never forget when we were meeting together with some of our friends and all ladies about the same age and we asked them, ok, tell us the most important things you’ve learned as a couple about
Barbara: Yes, we were about to go in the empty nest and these women were all ahead of us, they and their husbands.
Dennis: Yes, and there were these blank looks on their faces. We haven’t talked about it, what do you mean you and Dennis are talking about it.
Barbara: We haven’t learned anything.
Dennis: What are you learning? It just points out the need that husbands and wives really need to own this and talk about it together.
Bob: In fact at the end of each chapter in the book you’ve got questions and one of the questions at the end of chapter 5 is set aside a date to begin discussing your expectations of each other in this new season. Also plan for some times of fun for just the two of you, and if you’re highly motivated, begin to talk together about your vision for the future, about what mission you might want to work on as a couple.
You really are in this book, you and Susan together, mentoring women as they approach the on-set of the empty nest and as they enter in to those early years because this is a significant life transition for somebody who for at least almost two decades has been functioning in the role of mother. Now, that part of her job is about to change in a pretty dramatic way.
And we’ve got copies of the book, Barbara and Susan’s Guide to the Empty Nest in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. Let me encourage our listeners, you may be right in the middle of this, or it may be that it’s still a few years off for you, get a copy of Barbara and Susan’s book so that you can be spiritually and emotionally prepared for the empty nest when it arrives or so you can navigate the experience if this is where you are right now.
Again, go to FamilyLifeToday.com there’s more information about the book on our website or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY, that’s 1-800-358-6329 and our team can make arrangements to have a copy of Barbara and Susan’s book sent to you.
You know we want to make sure we are careful to say thank you on a regular basis to those of you who help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. Programs like ours that you hear on this station are all listener supported which means that if we don’t hear from folks like you who listen to this program then well in some cases we have to make the difficult decision to no longer be heard on that local station. So it’s very important for us to hear from folks who listen. Just drop us a note and let us know that you are listening and if you are able to help support the ministry we appreciate that as well.
This month, if you can support FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount we’d like to send you a CD that features one of the messages you can hear at the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference. Dr. Crawford Loritts talks about God’s plan for marriage. Genesis 2:24, leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh with your mate and receiving your mate as God’s perfect gift for you.
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Now tomorrow we’re going to continue to look at the transition a woman makes when her children leave home. We will hear part two of Barbara and Susan’s message on adjusting to the empty nest tomorrow. Hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
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