\n<\/p>\n
People ask me all the time if parenting gets easier.<\/span><\/p>\n I usually tell them the truth: no, it just gets different.<\/span><\/p>\n When you first have a baby, the task of parenting is actually pretty simple. You have one job: keep the baby alive. Not too much later, you add safe. Shortly thereafter, you work on healthy. At the start, that\u2019s basically it\u2014alive, safe, healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n Then, over time, things get more complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n We \u2013 as good parents \u2013 start adding things to the list. We want our kids to be kind. Smart. Responsible. Confident. Resilient. Maybe a little athletic. Maybe a little artistic. Definitely polite in front of other adults.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of those values are thoughtful. Some are inherited. Some are driven by anxiety. Most of them, if we\u2019re honest, are at least a little made up.<\/span><\/p>\n And somewhere along the way, our children start making up their own list.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s when parenting shifts again.<\/span><\/p>\n In my experience, raising young adults is harder than raising young children\u2014mostly because of the jobs we don\u2019t have anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re not in charge in the same way. We can\u2019t control outcomes. We can\u2019t monitor every influence. We can\u2019t script the timing of their becoming.<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s where things get\u2026 different.<\/span><\/p>\n We tend to think of major parenting transitions as something that happens at the beginning\u2014when we bring a baby home. But there\u2019s another transition that deserves just as much attention: not bringing baby home, but letting adult children go.<\/span><\/p>\n Empty nesting is often framed as loss\u2014grief, silence, absence. And it can include all of that. But it may be more accurate to see it as a second major parenting transition\u2014a relational reorganization.<\/span><\/p>\n The children are still yours. The marriage is still there. But the roles and rhythms have changed.<\/span><\/p>\n And that shift can be surprisingly disorienting.<\/span><\/p>\n My wife and I are in that transition now. Both of our daughters launched this past year\u2014one into work after college, the other into a gap year of travel and study. Watching them move into adulthood has been exhilarating, humbling, and even a little disturbing.<\/span><\/p>\n So yes, we\u2019re \u201cempty nesting,\u201d though I\u2019ve never loved the phrase. It sounds passive, as if something has simply been taken. Birds push their young out to learn to fly. That hasn\u2019t been our experience. We didn\u2019t push\u2014we loosened our grip. And if I\u2019m honest, the idea that we ever had a grip in the first place is a bit comical.<\/span><\/p>\n That may be where early and later parenting rhyme.<\/span><\/p>\n This is also where the Gottmans\u2019 research in Bringing Baby Home becomes surprisingly relevant. Their work shows that couples don\u2019t struggle simply because they\u2019ve had a baby\u2014they struggle because everything changes at once: roles, expectations, identity, time, and connection.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s striking is how similar that disruption feels on the other side of parenting.<\/span><\/p>\n When a baby arrives, couples often ask, How do we stay connected while everything is changing?<\/span><\/p>\n When children leave, the question returns in a quieter form: What is our connection now that everything has changed?<\/span><\/p>\n Gottman research highlights how important it is for couples to talk openly about roles, expectations, stress, and connection. Trouble often comes not just from exhaustion, but from assumptions: Who is doing what? What happened to us? How do we stay close while everything is changing?<\/span><\/p>\n Those same questions can quietly return when the kids leave home.<\/span><\/p>\n If parenting was the shared project for twenty years, what happens when the project changes? If your time and energy revolved around children, what happens when the calendar opens? If your sense of purpose was organized around raising kids, what takes its place?<\/span><\/p>\n For some couples, the answer feels like relief. For others, it feels like silence.<\/span><\/p>\n In my therapy office where \u201cempty nesting\u201d often shows up as a presenting problem, it usually sounds something like this: \u201cSo\u2026 now what are we gonna do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes it comes out as a joke. Sometimes with a shrug. Sometimes one partner says it and the other one looks at me like, Please don\u2019t make me answer that.<\/span><\/p>\n And every once in a while, it lands with a thud.<\/span><\/p>\n Because it\u2019s not really about schedules or hobbies. It\u2019s about identity.<\/span><\/p>\n Who are we now that the kids don\u2019t need us in the same way? What kind of marriage do we actually have? Are we friends? Do we like each other? Is there anything here besides logistics and a long history together?<\/span><\/p>\n The empty nest doesn\u2019t create brand new problems. It just turns the volume up on the ones that were already there\u2014and easier to ignore when life was loud.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s why Gottman\u2019s emphasis on friendship and turning toward matters here. In a full house, bids for connection get buried under logistics. In a quiet house, they become easier to hear\u2014or easier to notice the absence of.<\/span><\/p>\n Do we know how to be together without a problem to solve? Do we know how to share delight? Do we make small bids and respond to them? Can we sit in the same room without distraction and feel companioned rather than exposed?<\/span><\/p>\n Those aren\u2019t empty nest questions. They\u2019re relationship questions. But the empty nest brings them into focus.<\/span><\/p>\n My wife and I got a glimpse of that this fall on a trip to London and Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n Not because of anything extraordinary we did. Because of what wasn\u2019t happening.<\/span><\/p>\n No one needed anything from us.<\/span><\/p>\n There were no logistics to manage, no schedules to coordinate, no one to check in on. Just the two of us, walking, talking, noticing.<\/span><\/p>\n At one point we stopped along the Seine to listen to a street orchestra playing pop songs. We stood there longer than we normally would have. Not because the music was so incredible, but because we could.<\/span><\/p>\n And somewhere in all that space, something subtle shifted.<\/span><\/p>\n We started talking differently. Slower. With more curiosity. Less like two people running a household and more like two people getting to know each other again.<\/span><\/p>\n What surprised me was that we also felt closer to our daughters\u2014not as kids, but as adults. We found ourselves imagining the places shaping them, the worlds they were discovering. And without trying to, we expanded a bit ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Parenting adult children may involve less managing and more witnessing. Less directing and more becoming.<\/span><\/p>\n That shift isn\u2019t easy. It asks us to exchange authority for influence, and influence for relationship\u2014to move from manager to consultant. From \u201cHere\u2019s what you should do\u201d to \u201cI\u2019m here if you want me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It requires restraint and trust. It means tolerating decisions we wouldn\u2019t make and timelines we wouldn\u2019t choose.<\/span><\/p>\n It also asks something of couples. Can we accept influence from each other about what this season means? Can we stay allied when our children\u2019s choices stir up our own anxieties or disappointments?<\/span><\/p>\n The work is no longer to keep our children close in the same ways. The work is to remain connected while closeness changes shape.<\/span><\/p>\n I keep coming back to this: my children no longer need to be brought home. They need to be sent. Or at least released.<\/span><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean detachment. It means making room for them to discover themselves\u2014even when that process is inconvenient or unsettling. Love changes form. Good parenting changes form. The nest was never meant to be permanent.<\/span><\/p>\n And yet, letting go isn\u2019t the same as disappearing. Part of the work now is to be good stewards of the home itself\u2014not just the physical space, but the emotional one\u2014so that if and when our children return, or bring others with them, they come back to something alive, safe, and healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n This is where shared meaning becomes essential. If parenting provided built-in meaning for years, this season invites a new question: What are we building now?<\/span><\/p>\n Not just trips or schedules, but something deeper. What rituals are ours now? What conversations have we been postponing? What parts of ourselves went dormant while we were raising children?<\/span><\/p>\n In my better moments, I hear \u201cNow what are we gonna do?\u201d differently. There\u2019s a lift at the end of the question. Less like emptiness. More like possibility.<\/span><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t erase grief. There is longing. There are moments when the quiet feels too quiet. But there can also be curiosity, rediscovery, and new tenderness between partners learning to see each other again.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s the invitation: not to go back to who you were before kids, but to move forward as who you\u2019ve become.<\/span><\/p>\n As parents we\u2019ve settled back into our original priorities: alive, safe, healthy.<\/span> At the beginning of parenting, that\u2019s the job.<\/span><\/p>\n But maybe it was never just the job of raising children. Maybe it\u2019s the work of relationships\u2014at every stage.<\/span><\/p>\n To create a family where people feel alive, where there is enough safety to grow and risk becoming, and where there is enough health to hold both connection and change.<\/span><\/p>\n The logistics look different now. The house is quieter. The roles are less defined. But the work isn\u2019t over. If anything, it\u2019s more intentional\u2014and less scripted. The task becomes to keep making a home that welcomes, to build a marriage that can hold both grief and joy, and to loosen our grip without losing our love.<\/span><\/p>\n The transition to parenthood asks couples to become a family while staying connected. The transition to parenting adult children asks something just as difficult: to remain a family while allowing everyone\u2014including ourselves\u2014to change.<\/span><\/p>\n One small way to begin is to turn toward each other on purpose\u2014to check in, to name what\u2019s hard alongside what\u2019s good, and to protect simple rituals that remind you you\u2019re still a team.<\/span><\/p>\n That is no small task. But then again, neither was the first one.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/span>Not as a finish line\u2014but as a compass.<\/span><\/p>\n