Dr. phil. Adelheid Müller-Lissner
Dr phil. Adelheid Müller-Lissner is a journalist and author. She studied education and philosophy, among other things, and in her books “Grandchildren! A Guide for Grandparents” and “Empty Nest. When the children move out” deal with drastic biographical events. She interviewed scientists and numerous people affected.
When the nest, the home, is empty because the children or the child has moved out, a lot changes. What is your advice to parents who are now living as a couple at home again?
If you have lived under one roof as a family with children for years, that is a significant biographical turning point. It is therefore advisable to consciously experience it as a couple and to communicate about it, instead of avoiding each other bashfully during this time. In an evaluation of statistics from the "Generations and Gender Survey" in 2010, the sociologists Thomas Klein and Ingmar Rapp from the University of Heidelberg, Germany showed that shortly after this point in time, the divorce rate (which is actually lower for parents than for childless couples) increases significantly. Ingmar Rapp told me: "One reason that children keep marriages together is that it is not so easy to raise a child alone."
Among the couples who stay together afterwards, there is also the phenomenon of the "second honeymoon" after the children have moved out! The chance to do this arises when you do things together that might bring you back to the early days: pick up hobbies again, plan trips, or just often go to a restaurant as a couple where the children didn’t like the menu. It is also very important to reconquer the living environment. Maybe the children's room can be turned into a study with a sofa bed for visits from children or friends. Planning together is fun and connects.
When parents have many children, does it become easier to say goodbye over time? Do you become more experienced when teh next child moves out?
As with all things in life, this can certainly be “practiced”. Class trips and longer stays abroad for the children are also suitable for this. Actually, for every single child it is a "farewell in installments" that begins on the first day of kindergarten, or even with the toddler’s first steps out of the room in which the parents are. However, all parents only become aware of the full implications of the “Empty Nest” when the last child moves out. A psychotherapist also told me that in some cases there is a “favorite child” whose departure is particularly painful for the mother or father.
Is it advisable to make arrangements with children about future family routines, or should one wait and see how the new situation turns out?
This is of course quite different from person to person. In principle, however, parents should realize that moving out means something completely different for the adult children than for themselves: the young adults start their independent lives, which is exciting and challenging. And it has priority first. In most cases I would therefore advocate waiting and empathic accompaniment (not control!). Proposals can then be based on this. And you can always show that as a mother or father you are “there” and can help. In the family chat you can contact each other quickly and easily. And then, after a while, suggest doing things together, including going on trips together
Many parents feel a sense of emptiness and fear of the future when the children move out and about this new phase of life. Who suffers more, mothers or fathers?
When the term "Empty Nest Syndrome" emerged in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, psychiatrists and psychotherapists first observed the mothers whose children went to college after graduating from high school: women who were not employed and now felt an emptiness because their usual "life purpose" was missing. In quite a few cases, psychiatric drugs used without real medical need have been the "solution" ("mother's little helper" in the 1966 Rolling Stones song). However, this was later viewed critically: firstly, because some women might actually have other psychological problems, such as real depression, which were only “put off” on the children moving out. Secondly, and above all, because ideas about the role of women changed and because they became more and more employed. As early as 1971, the American sociologists Donald Spence and Thomas Lonner from the University of San Francisco had stated that there was a deficit in the upbringing of women: they had not been prepared for the fact that the active parenting phase in the two-child family, given the high life expectancy, is short. The problem is not the empty nest, but the "empty woman", wrote the psychotherapist Rose Oliver in 1977.
This has now changed radically: most women have a job (albeit often part-time) when their children leave home. Now the fathers are increasingly coming into focus. They seem to suffer differently than the mothers. "Many fathers are surprised by their feelings," says the Swiss developmental psychologist Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello. Because family responsibilities are often unequally distributed in the generation whose children are leaving the parental home today, fathers tend to see a “gilded”, idyllic picture of family life, which they mourn after the children have moved out: they often haven’t changed diapers , settled the children's disputes, ran the household, attended parents' evenings. In contrast to women, they are not so happy about the professional and private freedom that arises in the new phase of life. And many find it difficult to keep in touch with the children at a distance. But it will be exciting to see how the next generation reacts to the children moving out: couples who have fairly shared childcare and securing the family's financial framework. After the active family phase, will there also be more equality in the reaction to the "Empty Nest"?
There are more and more single parents, mostly women as "single moms". Is the “Empty Nest Syndrome” more severe in them than in parents in a couple relationship?
There's no general answer to that, but the general trend is this: Especially when single parents only care for one child, a kind of "couple relationship" often develops between mother/father and child. The "separation" after the child has moved out can then be perceived as very cruel, as described by the journalist Silke Burmester in her book "Mother Blues". In principle, however, all parents must learn that parental love wants their children to grow up and become independent. So it is fundamentally different from love in a romantic relationship. On the one hand, single parents have a harder time realizing this. On the other hand, however, they have often built up a solid social environment for their upbringing on which they can draw. Since they are in a situation that they usually did not "choose" at the beginning, they are usually also particularly reflective. That also helps in this situation.
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