THE EMPTY NEST STRADDLE—3 TRUTHS ABOUT LIVING BETWEEN HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO WHEN PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS | EP. 247
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins.
If you've ever felt like you're stuck between holding on and letting go with your big kid, like you're still responsible for them, but no longer in control, this episode is for you. Today, I'm going to share three truths about why the stage of motherhood feels so confusing and emotionally exhausting, and more importantly, how to navigate it with more confidence and peace. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend. It is so fascinating to me how my perception of the empty nest has changed so much over the 20 plus years since I became a mom.
When my boys were little, the empty nest felt really far off. Although intellectually, of course, I knew that one day they'd leave home. It was almost impossible to imagine what that would actually feel like when you're in the trenches of raising little kids.
And if I'm honest, there may even have been a part of me that thought, someday, it'll be nice to have a little time to myself again. But here's the thing. When I actually started to have more of that time to myself, long before my kids went to college, it didn't feel the way I thought it would.
Because what I didn't expect was that this transition doesn't happen all at once. It doesn't start the day your child leaves for college. It starts much earlier, as your kids grow up and become more independent, long before they really seem capable of being on their own.
You start to feel this uncomfortable pull, like you're in two places at once. On the one hand, you're still very much a mom, responsible for helping your kids be safe, happy, and successful. And on the other hand, you start to realize that you're supposed to start letting go.
And no one really tells you how to do that. It's like you start experiencing the empty nest long before the nest is actually empty. My youngest is now a freshman in college, and my oldest is a junior.
So technically, I am an empty nester. But if I'm being honest, it doesn't feel the way I thought it would. In April alone, I went to Philadelphia to have dinner with one son.
And the next weekend, I rented a VRBO in Pennsylvania to watch my youngest play rugby and celebrate his birthday. And I've also ordered him t-shirts to bring up to Vermont later this month so he can run a fundraiser for type 1 diabetes. So I'm still very much connected and involved in their lives.
I'll also say that although my boys aren't living at home, my mind hasn't stopped thinking about them. I still worry about them. If they call or they need something, I drop everything.
I'm still on call, waiting in the wings, just in case they need me, even though they often don't. My texts go unanswered a lot of the times, and they don't always pick up when I call. And yes, there have absolutely been moments when I've watched their little icon moving on Find My iPhone, and I've felt a sense of relief.
Proof of life. But then there are also those moments when I'm home alone, not connected with my sons, not talking to them, and the house feels too quiet. We have much more space than we need all of a sudden.
Their rooms feel empty, and I miss them. So here's what I've come to realize. Even now, I feel like I'm straddling two realities.
One where I'm still very much a mom in the trenches, and another where my role is changing in ways I don't always fully understand or know how to grapple with. And the truth is, this isn't just something I've felt since they left for college. I remember noticing it as early as middle school, but it became even more intense for me during high school, especially when my oldest was a sophomore.
I was still really involved in his day-to-day life, checking his grades, managing his schedule. And looking back, I can see how much I was trying to hold on, and at times how hard that made everything for both of us. Because the truth is, my need to hold on didn't always make things better.
In fact, more often than not, it just made me feel more anxious and frustrated. And I'll admit, it also sometimes kept me from showing up as the mom I actually wanted to be. Because I learned so much with my oldest, it feels like navigating this with my younger son has felt different.
But I wouldn't say it's been easy. Because this tension doesn't go away. Because every kid is different.
And as they grow up and experience different things, all of a sudden you find yourself facing a new challenge that you don't know how to navigate. And this tension doesn't go away when your kids leave home. If anything, it just changes shape.
There's still this constant push and pull. Do you hold on or do you let go? You feel needed, but also feel left out. You want to protect them, but you also know you can't control their choices.
And I know I'm not alone in this. This experience, this in-between space, is something I call the emptiness straddle. It's not just a moment in time when your child leaves home.
It's a long season of transition, sometimes years, where you're caught between two realities. In one, you're still very much a mom. You're the person they call when something goes wrong.
You're the one keeping track of things, keeping tabs of the mental checklists of where they should be and what they should be doing next. You're still thinking about them, planning for them, caring about how their life is unfolding. You still feel responsible.
But then, in the very same day, you're faced with the reality that they're becoming independent. They ignore your advice and make decisions you wouldn't make. They don't always respond to your texts.
And day by day, they're building a life that doesn't revolve around you anymore. And you start to realize that you're not in control. And I say this with so much love because I truly believe that it's not control we really want.
What we really want is safety. We want to know that everything's going to be okay. But we stop being able to hold on to that reassurance.
So you're holding two completely different experiences at once. I'm still needed, and yet my kid is subtly and sometimes not so subtly telling me they don't need me. I feel responsible, and I actually don't have control.
In my heart, I am deeply connected to my child. And sometimes I feel like I'm completely left out of their life. And the hardest part is there's no clear line between these two realities.
It's not like one day you're fully in charge, and the next day you're not. No one hands you a rulebook where you realize at age 17 and a half you're supposed to hand over the wheel and tell them good luck. Instead, it's this constant back and forth.
And because there's no clear boundary, your brain keeps trying to figure out, what am I supposed to do here? Am I supposed to step in? Or am I supposed to step back? Do I set a boundary and hold the line? Or do I just let this go? There very often is not a clear answer. And that's the part that no one really prepares you for. We tend to think of the empty nest as this moment, this one clean transition where a kid leaves home, and then you adjust.
But that's not how it works. This transition starts much earlier. It can begin in middle school, when they start pulling away just a little bit, spending more time on their phone, or having secrets that they don't include you in.
And then this intensifies in high school, when the stakes feel a lot higher in terms of what they have to do to be ready for their next step. And yet they want to be independent long before they look ready. And the transition continues into college and even afterwards, where you're no longer involved in their day-to-day life, but you're still deeply connected to everything they're going through.
And so this in-between feeling isn't a phase that just lasts a few months. It's a long season. And the circumstances can look different depending on the ages and stages of your kids.
But the emotional experience is surprisingly the same. You're constantly adjusting to a role that is changing all of the time, with no clear roadmap. And what I want you to hear is, if this feels hard and confusing and emotional, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.
It's just a sign that you are in the middle of this transition. This is what it feels like to love your kids and let them go at the same time. And once you really understand that, you can start to approach the stage of motherhood differently.
Because here's what I've come to see. This experience, this push and pull, it's not just messy. It's actually predictable.
And there are a few things happening inside of us that make this so much harder than it needs to be. In fact, today I want to share three truths that I've learned about the emptiness straddle that have completely changed how I understand and approach the stage of motherhood. The first is that you are not in one role anymore.
And that might sound simple based on everything I've shared up to this point. But when you really see it, it explains so much of why this feels hard. Because for so many years, your role as a mom was very clear.
You were in charge. You were the one making the decisions, setting the rules, guiding your kids' behavior. Your job was to be responsible for them.
But then, slowly that starts to change. But it doesn't change all at once. It doesn't change in the same way for all of our kids.
It's not like someone flips a switch and suddenly you're no longer responsible. It is much messier than that. Because you're still obviously your kid's mom.
And you still care just as much as you always have. You're still invested in their choices and their happiness. You're no longer in control of the outcome.
They're making their own decisions. They're choosing how they spend their time and how much effort they put into what they're doing. They're deciding whether or not to take your advice.
And this is where you start to feel tension. Because part of you is still operating from your old role. The one where you step in and take control.
The one where you make sure things go the way they're supposed to go. But another part of you knows that they need space. They need to learn from their own experiences and even from their own mistakes.
But because you've operated from the old role, the responsible role, for so long, it's not comfortable to just let them fail. Or face consequences that could be life-changing. At times, you even see them making choices where they're somehow not facing consequences yet.
And so they don't seem to be learning. And so then we feel like we have to teach them before it's too late. I remember this so clearly with my older son.
In high school, when he was a sophomore, I was still checking his grades. I was still very involved in how he was spending his time. I was constantly thinking about college and what I thought he needed to do to be successful.
And if I'm really honest, I can see now how much I was still operating from that old role. I was still trying to make sure things went a certain way. I was trying to guide the outcomes for my son.
And what I learned the hard way is that holding on that tightly didn't actually create the result I wanted. It just created more tension between us. And it definitely just made me more anxious and frustrated.
This stage of motherhood isn't hard because you're doing something wrong. It's that you're trying to operate in a role that is actively changing. And when you don't recognize that, it is so easy to default back to what's familiar.
That old role where you hold on a little tighter. Try to make things go the way you think they should go. Because that's what feels comfortable.
That's what your brain knows how to do. In fact, it's what you've practiced for 15 or 20 years. So frankly, it's a habit.
But when you begin to see that your role is evolving, you can start to approach this stage in a different way. Instead of defaulting to answering the question, how do I get this to go the way I want? You can start to ask yourself, what does being a mom look like at this stage? Right now, with my big kid. And exploring that question opens up space for your big kid to grow.
And honestly, for you to grow too. Because this isn't just about them becoming more independent. It's about you becoming the next version of yourself as a mom.
And that's not something we've been taught to do. Which is why all of this feels so uncomfortable. And this brings me to the second truth of the emptiness straddle.
And that is that your brain is going to fight this transition every step of the way. And that is not because something has gone wrong. But truly because of how your brain is wired.
My friend, your brain is designed to keep you safe. And the way it does that is by seeking certainty, safety, and a clear sense of identity. It wants to know what's going to happen.
How to make sure things go well. And your role in all of it. And in this stage of motherhood, all three of those things feel completely up in the air.
There is no clear roadmap. Instead, you're figuring it out as you go. And your brain does not like that.
And what the human brain is wired to do is solve for that discomfort. It tries to create certainty where there isn't any. It creates the urge to hold onto control.
Your mind is desperately trying to make sense of what you're feeling. And this is where those mindset traps come in. And they're not random.
They're actually your brain's solutions to this uncertainty. They're just not solutions that actually help you. And I see so many of these traps come up for us moms in this stage of motherhood.
I see it in my own life as well as for my clients. And I've done a whole series in this podcast on these mindset traps individually. But I'll briefly mention three here.
The first mindset trap we fall into is the illusion of control. This is the belief that you have the power to influence the outcome for your big kid. And that you can make sure everything is going to be okay.
And look, this comes from such a loving place. Of course, you want your child to be safe, happy, and successful. But because this path is so uncertain, we hold onto control as a way to create certainty.
But this is an illusion. Because we don't have control. And when we run up against the reality of that, we find ourselves stuck in anxiety and frustration.
Which often leads us to grab onto more control. The second mindset trap we fall into is emotional reasoning. This is when your brain says, if I feel this way, it must mean something's wrong.
So you feel anxious, and your brain interprets that as something isn't okay, I need to fix this. And look, sometimes it's true. Our fear is a signal that's worth paying attention to.
But often, your anxiety is simply a function of the uncertainty you're facing. You're watching someone you love step into their own life. And that often looks really messy.
And on top of that, you don't have the same level of control that you used to. So fear actually makes perfect sense. But that feeling also doesn't necessarily mean something has gone wrong.
And when you're stuck in the trap of emotional reasoning, it's hard to see that reality. The third trap is one many of us know very well, and that's catastrophizing. When our minds ruminate in the worst case scenarios.
My friends, so many of us moms fall into this one. Something doesn't go the way you think it should, and your mind jumps to the future. If they don't figure this out now, it's going to be really bad later.
You worry that their behavior now is never going to resolve itself. You worry that it's going to impact their future. And when your mind does this, you're not just dealing with what's happening right now.
You're carrying the weight of every possible future outcome. Believe it or not, your brain falls into these traps because it's trying to protect you. It's trying to help you avoid danger, both now and in the future.
But the problem is, instead of actually being helpful, these traps just create more anxiety and pressure to hold on, and even to try to control what's happening with your big kid. When you put these three traps together, you can start to see a pattern. Something must be wrong.
Therefore, I need to do something about it. And I have the power to prevent this. And when you find yourself doing everything you can, and still not being able to create that safety and certainty that you really want, you find yourself back in that place.
Something must be wrong. And so the cycle repeats over and over. And my friend, this is why this stage of motherhood often feels so hard and exhausting.
Because no matter how much you step in or try to fix things, you never actually get the certainty you're looking for. You never actually feel in control. The third and final truth of the emptiness straddle is that the real work of this stage of motherhood isn't learning how to let go of your big kid.
It's learning how to trust yourself. I think so many of us focus on trying to create trust in our kids. We want to trust that they'll make good decisions.
We want to trust that they're going to be okay and that everything will work out for them. But the really hard truth is that kind of trust is hard to come by when you can't predict the future and you're no longer the one in control of how things turn out. That's why I've learned that the only way to feel more grounded and confident in this messy stage of motherhood is by building trust in yourself to handle whatever comes.
It's trusting yourself to know when to step in and when to step back without second-guessing every decision. It's trusting that you can feel the discomfort of not knowing without needing to fix it right away. Honestly, it's even trusting that you're doing your best even when it doesn't always turn out the way you hope.
The thing is, when you don't trust yourself in this way, that's when your mind desperately reaches for certainty and control, falling into those mindset traps to find safety and reassurance that everything will be okay. But when you build self-trust, you realize you don't need to know exactly what's going to happen. You stop needing to control everything that's happening because you trust that no matter what happens, you will be okay.
You'll know how to respond how you want to support your child and even how you will support yourself. And look, none of this means that you stop feeling anxious or frustrated at times. And clearly, you will never stop caring about your child.
All of this is part of being human. It's part of life, part of loving your kids. But when you learn how to trust yourself, those painful emotions don't send you into a downward spiral or into a frantic attempt to fix or control what's happening.
Instead, these emotions become something you can experience and allow without reacting or making them mean something has gone wrong. Self-trust is making the best decision you can even when there isn't a clear answer. It looks like trusting that your child will struggle and they will have to figure it out.
I think sometimes we tell ourselves that the struggle shouldn't be there, that somehow we've let them down if they struggle. But what if the struggle is simply part of their journey and you get to be there to love them and support them through it? Just imagine the power of being able to do that without losing yourself in the process. My friend, this stage of motherhood, the emptiness straddle, is messy.
And I honestly believe there is no one right way to navigate it. But the solution isn't necessarily found in getting your kids to behave a certain way or by finally finding certainty about what's going to happen next. The solution is truly in building a deeper trust in yourself.
Because when you trust yourself, you stop riding the emotional rollercoaster of every text and every choice, every mistake, and you start showing up in a way that actually feels aligned with the kind of mom you want to be. This is the work I do with my clients inside of Mom 2.0. Because it's one thing to hear all of this and think, okay, all of this makes sense. But it's something else entirely to actually live into it, to catch yourself in those moments when your mind starts spinning, to recognize that pull to control, and to consistently respond in a way that feels grounded and intentional.
This, my friend, is actually a skill. And it's a skill that no one ever taught us, but you can learn. And I've seen it over and over again with the moms that I work with.
Moms who come into the program feeling anxious and frustrated, constantly questioning themselves. And within a few weeks, something starts to change. And their kids don't suddenly change, but they change.
They begin to feel more confident and more at peace in the uncertainty. And this changes everything about how they show up in their relationships, in their parenting, and in their lives. So if you're listening to all of this and thinking, this is exactly how I feel, I want you to know that you don't have to navigate this alone.
My friend, you have spent years learning how to be the mom your kids needed. And now, this is your next opportunity to become the mom you want to be. Not by letting go of everything that matters, but by learning how to hold on to what truly does.
You have more power than you think, my friend. And you are so much more capable of navigating this than your brain wants you to believe. Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
