This vacation house thing is a by-product of Empty Nest Syndrome…or is it?

Abstract
A combined clinical and field investigation studied the effects of the empty-nest phase of parenthood on morale and activity level. Data from the clinical study were obtained from two psychotherapy groups conducted for mid-life women, and the field data were obtained from a 5-yr longitudinal study of life stages. Results indicated an increase in morale during the unfolding of the empty nest and suggested that the so-called "crisis" of the empty nest may be more myth than reality.


When my oldest son (Eli) left home for college, Ellen got her first taste of empty nest life and didn’t like it one bit. And that only turned increasingly bitter for her when our younger son (Will) went off too-- and when Eli moved to CA, it became for her more like a sour stomach. Understandable of course, she being the mom and the one who tended to the home fires for 20 years and was there for practically every twist and turn in our boy’s lives. For me it was less dramatic. I missed having them around and spicing up the atmosphere with their testosterone fueled energy and intensity, but the subsequent peace and quiet after they left wasn’t entirely unappealing. We both remained busy with work and personal interests and started seeing friends more often for dinner and assorted social activities. And let’s face it…it’s not like we didn’t see it coming. Don’t we want our kids to go out and find their own way? Don’t we want them to explore and expand their horizons? Don’t we want to stop cooking, cleaning and providing for their basic needs and encourage them to cultivate their own designs for living? Didn’t we raise them to leave? I know I did, or at least tried to. Yeah, you miss them…but face it, when they were living at home they were sleeping all the hours you were awake and vice-versa. Days would go by and I wouldn’t see either one of them except for the 15 second 3 o’clock in the morning “Hey, I’m home” mumble as they stumbled into bed after another night of revelry amongst their equally nocturnal birds of a feather. For my part, I can say that “empty nest” doesn’t connote a crisis of any great magnitude at all and seems to me to be just another way to attach an anxiety producing name to something in order to add it to the list of syndromes and conditions needed to fuel the fear that promotes consumption of commercially profitable remedies. I don’t even think Mommy and Daddy birds get empty nest syndrome and they own rights to the name.

Interesting to me that this blog is becoming more and more about what’s interesting to me.

And I’m becoming less and less interested in whether any of it is interesting to anyone else.

But I can’t see any other way of proceeding while retaining any enthusiasm for the effort.

I could cut and paste the e-mails going back and forth between we Drifters…but I tried that before and I’m convinced it wasn’t particularly compelling reading.

One of Elmore Leonard’s rules for good writing is:
Leave out the parts people tend to skip.

…like a first-person digression about empty nest syndrome?

Jose Reyes copped out when he took himself out of final game to secure batting title…but I still love him.

I have 10 more minutes of lunch-time to think of a few more things to add here.

Now I have 5 minutes.

3….2….1….bye.