This month, thousands of teens across the country are leaving home to start college for the first time. And while college freshmen have to worry about everything from getting along with a new roommate to surviving that Econ 101 lecture, the difficult transition that parents go through simultaneously is just as challenging — and talked about far less.
Melissa Shultz details her experience of leaving her youngest son at college and what came next for her in her new book, From Mom To Me Again: How I Survived My First Empty-Nest Year And Reinvented The Rest Of My Life. Shultz believes it is a parenting issue that deserves more attention.
She writes: "I had just taken my youngest son, Nicolas, to college in New York City halfway across the country. My oldest son, Alexander, was already in school on the opposite coast in Los Angeles, about to begin his junior year. Though my heart was full — after all, they were both on their way to achieving their dreams, it was also broken.
I'd been demoted from the best, most fulfilling, most challenging round-the-clock job I'd ever had to a lesser, still undefined role in my children's lives. It's not as if I didn't know it was coming; I just never imagined I could feel this wonderful and horrible at the same time."
According to Shultz: "A lot of women choose not to deal with the idea of their child moving out until the day comes. And even after the move, they busy themselves with all kind[s] of things to avoid being home. Then the rains come."
A big part of surviving the feeling of loss that comes with an empty nest is to start dealing with its inevitability as early as high school. Shultz shared with LittleThings her top tips for weathering the big life change.
1. Don't wait until the day you're dropping your child off at college to think about the transition.
"High school is the right time to start thinking about the transition," Shultz says. "If you do it then, you'll be in a better position once [your kids] do leave to keep moving forward in your life. It's not that you're not going to be impacted saying goodbye to someone you've been parenting for 18 years, but you'll be ahead of the game if you start shifting earlier from the active parenting stage to parenting that is focused on mentorship and friendship."
2. Give yourself permission to think about yourself for a change.
"This is something both career and stay-at-home parents have to think about," Shultz advises. "For those stay-at-home parents, you might want to think about volunteering. And if you have a career, but are working in a job you haven’t loved, but are doing it for financial reasons, now is the time to think about what would make you happy in the workforce to keep yourself going forward."
3. Take inventory of your marriage.
"Really start to take stock of your marriage if you're in a partnership," Shultz says. "This is the perfect time to start to talk about what your goals and dreams are. This can be as easy as starting to go on dates with just your partner. And make it a point to not just talk about your children, which is so easy to fall into. Make it a point to have fun and flirt."
4. It won't be easy, and that's OK.
“I was the parent who thought I was not going to be so sad when my kids left,” Shultz says. “I felt I was prepared, I knew it was coming, I’m a busy person, so I was surprised by how hard it hit me. I had the realization that this was a part of my life [being a mom] that I had looked forward to so much, and now I’ve said goodbye to my youngest. And yes, wow, fantastic, but what struck me was that all of those moments were now behind me.”
5. You're not alone.
"You're not alone, and what you are feeling is genuine," Shultz wants parents to remember. "Give yourself time to go through this transition — it's a process — and don't feel badly for your emotions. Some people are devastated, some people are somewhere in the middle. Don't judge others, and most importantly don't judge yourself. You can work through this and heal. Keep moving forward and think about how wonderful it will be to take some time to nurture yourself."
From Mom To Me Again by Melissa T. Shultz is available on Amazon.
