Posted on 02/21/2008 2:14:57 PM PST by blam
Empty Nest Syndrome May Not Be Bad After All, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2008) — One day they are crawling, the next day they are driving and then suddenly they aren’t kids anymore. As children reach adulthood, the parent-child relationship changes as parents learn to adapt to newly independent children. A new study by a University of Missouri professor explored the differences in how mothers and fathers interacted with their young adult children. She found there were few differences in the way mothers and fathers felt and that many of the changes were positive, despite the perception that mothers in particular fall apart and experience the so-called empty nest syndrome.
“As children age, direct caretaking and influence diminish, and children are often seen by their parents as peers with whom they are have continuing relationships,” said Christine Proulx, assistant professor of human development and family studies in the College of Human Environmental Sciences. “Although our between-families results suggest these patterns of change and continuity differ by parent and child gender, our within-family analyses suggest important similarities among mothers and fathers within the same family.”
Of most concern to the parents in the study were firstborns’ independence, time spent together and role patterns. The study found that generally fathers and mothers reported similar changes in the parent-child relationship during their child’s movements into young adulthood. Both fathers and mothers reported differences in independence/maturity of the child, closeness/openness in the relationship, contact/time spent together and changes in role pattern.
Another change reported by parents was relating more like peers and having more adult-like interactions with their young adult child than in prior years. Other parents reported acting more like a mentor and giving advice to their children rather than demands.
Some of the things that remained the same in the parent-child relationship were providing financial assistance and continuing to be a mentor to their young adult child. Few parents in the study reported changes in emotional support to the children.
“The within-family analysis suggests that mothers and fathers in the same families in our study rarely reported divergent experiences with their young adult sons and daughters,” Proulx said. “Overwhelmingly, the examination of mothers’ and fathers’ responses revealed similarities in mothers’ and fathers’ experiences as parents to their young adult child.”
The study interviewed 142 sets of parents with firstborn young adult sons and daughters and was published in the Journal of Family Issues.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.
DUH, I hope that they didn’t spend a lot of money doing this phoney study.
My daughter turned 17 today. I’m blah. On the bright side she wanted Season 2 of Hogan’s Heroes!
Just damn! I have grand children older than that, I'm ancient.
We love our daughters, but I must say we are enjoying the “empty nest”.
My son turned 40 today.
I JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET MINE EMPTY!!!!!!
My kid, and some friends, were home on a break from school.
His buddies said, “My parents get mad, cause I don’t spend enough time at home during breaks.”
My kid says, “My parent’s bought me a house, so I wouldn’t come home anymore.”
I blew beer out my nose.
Isn’t it amazing that humanity survived all this time without these kinds of studies? Do these people not have enough to do or are they just stupid? It would make more sense to study why the frizbee flys. Well...maybe not but it sounded good.
I was devastated when our youngest left in November for bootcamp....until my Husband reminded me how much fun we had BEFORE kids.
I wish my kids well, will answer the phone when they call etc.....
My daughter, the one in the Navy, turned 24 today.
The key for us is living in a rural area where there’s not much “life”. They went where they could get a “life”.
My youngest son turns 20 this week. Ahhhh, seems like just yesterday he was drooling all over my shoulder...
Downsize the nest as soon as possible. :-)
cant believe you married a bubblehead : )
I was stationed at Pearl Harbor Subase many moons ago. I also took Basic Electricity and Electronics in Orlando, surrounded by nukes. These guys are a whole different breed (I loved it by the way : ))
I cried everyday for months when my daughter left for boot camp. I told myself..it’s just two months. Then at graduation I realized that it’s a whole lot more than that!
I had to start grieving all over again. Tell your son THANKS
Everytime my hubby drives past a small apartment he looks at it longingly.......Our son, his very pregnant wife and soon the baby are all living there. UGH
My son will be getting out of the Navy at the end of the year he’s stationed in Japan so we don’t see him very often. He’ll be 25 when he comes home. His dad and I are quite looking forward to having him home again. (at least for awhile! lol!)
Get a vasectomy?
We live in a great neighborhood, leasing a cool house and happy empty nester's....all is well.....
“I wish my kids well, will answer the phone when they call etc.....”
ROFMLAO!
I don’t know...my kids are so much fun now that they are young adults, I really miss having them around.
congrats! You still have the “college summer” experience as well as the Senior year. My oldest son is in his first year of college and we miss him, but he is doing well and he keeps in touch fairly well. We’ve made a point of seeing him about once a month while he was getting settled in.
I'm with you there! Our youngest is 18, and getting ready to go off to college in the Fall. We've homeschooled him the last couple of years, and it has been such fun having him around. And when our other three, an older daughter and son home from college, and another older son who lives near Boston, and works in the city, but we only see every few months, were all here at Christmas, they had such a good time together!
That being said, hubby is planning to embark on a new career doing consulting, and not having any kids at home leaves us free to travel together, if the job requires it. We're looking forward to this new time in our lives!
Mine turned 18 this month, got her first car last year, hell bent on moving out this summer, college this fall.
Very proud though. She is independent and smart as a whip. Mine wanted the first season of Star Trek for her birthday.
college transition is something else - I was in the Army for 5 yrs before school, so I had a different experience.
But, of the kids my son gradueated HS with, they seem to be dropping out of college like flies.
It is an eye opener.
Yeah, yeah. Caller ID....it's the kids. We'll call them later. LOL
Sounds familiar. How I got a wife actually.
“Isn’t it amazing that humanity survived all this time without these kinds of studies? Do these people not have enough to do or are they just stupid? It would make more sense to study why the frizbee flys. Well...maybe not but it sounded good.”
My wife and I call these studies the “DUH” studies. The outcome was about as predictable as the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
17 was a difficult year with our sons.
They started becoming human and my wife and I smarter as they go into their 20’s.
We’ve been empty nesting since December. I had some trepidation before, because my daughter and I are very close. But, I love it. We’re having a great time.
“We love our daughters, but I must say we are enjoying the “empty nest”.
We have been enjoying it for 21 years as of next month, but who is counting.
We enjoy their day visits and overnights. We love our grandkids and their visits without parents, but we enjoy our life after they go home.
We didn’t have the Failure to Launch with our sons. They were ready to leave home, and we were happy for them.
.......A new study by a University of Missouri professor explored the differences in how mothers and fathers interacted with their young adult children. She found there were few differences in the way mothers and fathers felt and that many of the changes were positive, despite the perception that mothers in particular fall apart and experience the so-called empty nest syndrome.
LOL! My mother would say, "Jis cuz you're wearin' long pants now don't mean you can give me any sas. I'm still your mother and don't you forget it! I don't care how old you are!"
She was still saying stuff like that when she was 90 years old.
'course she was an 'ol "country gal" from a different generation. Independent ain't the word to describe her. She "invented" it.
LOL
God Rest Her Buoyant Soul
(Dad would just say,"Son you should've learned by now not to rile up your mama." lol)
Lock the fridge. Lock the garage, so that it isn’t a refuge. Disconnect all phone/DSL connections to their room. No food, no fun, they’ll think of moving in with friends.
Worked for my Dad with my brother.
I dearly love my children but, at 60, we're ready to be alone with each other and catch up on some things we missed in each other. Our oldest has his own family, our second son is in business with two other guys and doing well and our youngest, my little girl, is just making some serious decisions. I'm proud of all of them.
That's why we have our cabin. We sold the old barn a long time ago and bought a town home and a lake cabin. I have to say I love the cabin in the summer time. The kids bring their friend and my oldest's kids, my grand kids, running around. It gets hectic but we both love it. There's laughter and love and such good times. The two younger ones drop by the house regularly and I love to see them. The oldest lives in Indiana (we live in Minnesota and our cabin is in Wisconsin) so we see his family a little less regularly but when we do it is so wonderful.
We've paid for the boy's college education and all we have now is another college education for my princess and, of course, a wedding, then we're done.
Oh yea, we can "trip the light fantastic (and I ain't talkin' about dancin') any time we want. Makes you feel like newly weds.
God gave us teenagers so we wouldn’t mind them leaving the house when they get older.
A couple we know is struggling with the empty nest. Their son went to college a couple of years ago, but with their daughter now in college this year, they seem to be “lost.” The father especially says he is having a hard time. He and the daughter were best buddies, I guess. They used to go to several of her basketball games each week when she was in high school. The mother told me that they miss her more than she misses them.
They saw her during her holiday break, which ended mid-January. They are coming to visit her this weekend. And they’ll see her next month for spring break. Is this healthy? I don’t know, because I don’t have kids. I’m just a curious observer.
“We love our daughters, but I must say we are enjoying the “empty nest”.
You are very lucky. I hate my almost empty nest. Both my girls are on their now and my son 25 yr. old is still home. I dread the day he gets his own place. I will be stuck with the old, ball and chain vegan, environmentalist, libertarian hubby. Woe is me.
i don’t think there is a thing wrong with being close to your kids. our oldest left for college in Sept. She is a three hour plane ride away from us in Dallas, TX, we live in NoVA. We have been able to see her every 6 weeks or so. We went for parents weekend in Oct. She came home for Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. My 13 yr old and i just went down to visit her this past weekend and then she will be home for spring break [actually meeting us in CA for a few days before coming home] and then my husband has to be in Dallas for business at the beginning of April so he will see her for the weekend before coming home and then she will be home for the summer in Mid-May. We have two others still at home. we are a very closeknit family, and i make no apology for wanting to visit her and have her come home : )
Ha. I thought "I" was the only "meanie" in the world. :)
My daughter moved home with my 2 grandkids after her divorce....and quickly fell back into the "teen" phase of her life. For over 2 years we battled about her not having a job, no motivation and not helping around the house.
The last straw was being told "I owed her because she was my kid"....I blocked the long-distance on the phone, quit buying groceries, locked the computer and took the satellite card with me to work each day. She was out in 1 week.
Now.....she's very successful and working for a large law firm, has her own place and the kids are doing great. There were times we had to help her out, but it was minimal and moving home was never an option. She tells me now...that she'd never haved tried as hard as she did if I hadn't pushed. We're good friends today...but it was touch and go for awhile. :)
those are good ideas, thanks!!!!
LOVE IT!!!!!
Abigail, my oldest daughter is finishing her senior year of college and will graduate in May. I talk to her several times a day (she calls while walking to and from campus) and I spent last weekend with her alone, leaving my husband and son here so we could have a girls weekend.
She is 525 miles away, which equates to a 9+ hour drive, so I can't just visit anytime I would like to.
I agree with xsmommy - there is nothing wrong with being close to your children and missing them when they are away. If I was too clingy and made life miserable for her, then it would be wrong. I'm glad she wants to talk to me and glad she misses her Father and brother. She has a full life with her friends and activities, but loves her family too.
Whomever said it was bad?
there’s nothing wrong about being close to your kids...
and there’s nothing wrong about them being close to each
other too! yesterday was our youngest’s 7th birthday. her
13 yr old brother helped her learn how to ride her new
scooter around the house. our 18 yr old, his roommate and
his girlfriend all called her from college to sing “happy
birthday” to her. she loved it so much she put them on
speaker phone so we could all hear them singing.
Hogan's Heroes?...sweet!
She's going to be quite the catch for a lucky young man some day.
It must not have worked since they were at your house, drinking your beer, and probably surfing on your internet connection. Or was he just engaging in braggadocio to impress his friends with BS?
Hey, what ever happened to your buddy Argh?
My Hubby was a knuckle dragging TM who taught in Orlando. He then became a Chief and went LDO.
He knows all too well what it's like to be around nukes. He doesn't get them and would rather not.
He's been in for 24 years now and the Navy has changed so much. My Son will adjust to the changes and loss of some traditions (Chiefs initiation being one) but my "crusty old squid" longs for the old days.
My Husband remembers what it was like to be a new young sailor but even as proud as he is, he misses our boy more than me sometimes. Especially this last football season.
"How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?"
He married a supermodel and became her sex slave.
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