The nest isn’t empty after children leave home

It was in 1991 that I first left my parents and went away for higher studies. Girls going to faraway places on their own was still an outlandish idea to the rustic minds in my native place, but having been lucky to have parents who were bold enough to break traditions, I set out to chase my future with immense gusto. I still remember the receding figure of my teary-eyed mother as the train pulled out of the railway platform. Three years later, my sister too followed suit, leaving my parents alone in a world that until then had largely revolved around us. The term ‘empty nest’ was as alien as Martian to us and we left quietly without much hullaballoo.

As years passed and the world leavened, children leaving their coops as soon as their dreams matured became commonplace, and ‘empty nest’ became a trending talk. It acquired a syndrome status that required therapists and techniques to contain its after-effects, and mothers, more than fathers, were more afflicted by it.

Parents realised that there was a cap on the time they could spend in their children’s company – 15 to 17 years. Anything above that was a bonus and eventually, they will be left to their own devices. Did they cope with the vacuous hole the children left behind in their wake? Some did, the others simply crumbled.

Those who did took it as an opportunity to get back on the saddle of their lives and galloped towards their pending aspirations. Fresh pastures opened in front of them, and they discovered new dimensions to their selves. They looked in the mirror and realised that the time to groom themselves started now. Resilience and adaptability were their mainstays, and they filled their nest with friends and new connections, dusted up the agendas they had put hold in the interest of the children and made a brand-new beginning. The children still consumed a colossal part of their mind space, but not their everyday routine. And it was liberating, although many went through pangs of guilt and refused to go public about their newfound freedom for fear of being judged.

The truth is parents don’t have to undergo the emotion of guilt or the undue weight of separation pangs from their children for two reasons. One, the children are going away to set up their citadels bolstered by the life lessons we have imparted to them; they are going to add glory to our legacies with their individual exploits and if one gives it a touch of philosophy, it is in their happiness and success that our fulfillment lies. It is a given.

Two, our duty as parents is to nurture them while they are saplings, and with time, allow them the space to grow their canopies. No doubt, letting go is easier said than done, but it is an irrefutable doctrine to peace and happiness. It is the inherent nature of humans to cling, to claim ownership and to possess that brings the agony and we could do well without it.

Parents will dote on their children forever, even if the latter become nomads of modern life and don’t return to their old lairs, but the seniors need not be servile to feelings of deprivation forever. They need not consign themselves to the belief that their lives are incomplete in the physical absence of their wards. Technology might have made it easier to be virtually part of each other’s lives on a moment-to-moment basis, but it would serve us well to remember that our children may not have the luxury of time to be at our beck and call as we desire. They are out there on a mission to make a mark.

They will miss our food, pampering and the ease of living in the nest, but they will learn to forego the privileges of a sheltered existence when their own diurnal commitments grow. When they stride out on their own, they seek to become their own masters, and it would be prudent on our part to step back proudly and watch them establish their own identities.

Accepting that “Your children are not your children; they are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself” (Kahlil Gibran) will help parents who still wallow in the Empty Nest Syndrome to view this transition more rationally. The sooner parents come to terms with it, the easier it gets to slip into a new course of life that will throw open possibilities of self-growth.

Knowing the ephemeral nature of existence; taking pride in our children’s accomplishments no matter how far they are from us; a readiness to redefine our lives in their absence; and making new, meaningful connections for the future can turn the empty nest into a beehive of activity. In other words, the nest cannot be empty because it now has you.

(Asha Iyer Kumar is a Dubai-based author and children’s writing coach.)

• Opinion