Ronna Benjamin
The term “Empty Nest” or “Empty Nester” is commonly used to define the time in a parents’ life when all one’s children have left their childhood residence and have moved out of their home, leaving it empty of children. (As in, “I dropped off the last kid at college, and now I’m an Empty Nester.”)
But when that time comes, when the kids are gone- when they are off on their own- to college- to jobs- to a new spouse and lives of their own–many of us don’t feel “empty.” We feel great. We feel energized. We feel happy and proud that our children are independent and no longer relying on us in the way that they did when they were young. We have earned and love our freedom. Freedom to focus on ourselves, freedom to do something different.
Many of our readers here at betterafter50.com felt that defining the time of our lives when the we are free to live our lives and focus on ourselves was not adequately represented by the term “Empty Nester”. The term evoked a sadness and a sense of worthlessness that we just didn’t feel. That the definition of “Empty Nest” no longer worked for our rich lives at midlife, when we are not retiring….but reinventing. So here at BA50, we ran a contest to better define the empty nest: What Is A Better Name For the Empty Nest?:
We are proud to say, we got a lot of great responses when we asked for help in re-defining the empty nest. But the best of all, by vote of our readers….. FREE BIRDS. Suzanne C tells us that we are Free Birds because “The nest is empty to allow us the freedom to be and do whatever we desire!” And we agree!
Congratulations to Suzanne C who won our contest: What Is A Better Name For the Empty Nest?
Now let’s GO FOR IT, Free Birds!