The Fear of an Empty Nest Grows Stronger Each Day

I'm mourning the impending loss of one of the most significant roles in life

Sep 06, 2022

Prologue

Here I am with another post that’s far outside the wheelhouse for a newsletter about cryptocurrency and blockchain… I hope you’ll bear with me as I share why I’m writing it now.

My justification - if one were needed - is that whether we’re interested in cryptocurrency, bird-watching or scuba-diving, we’re all humans first and foremost.

We all experience joy and sorrow. We all have hopes and expectations, some that are met and many others that aren’t. We all go through relationships and phases in life that subject us to similar experiences.

Right now I remain actively interested in crypto, but my life is dominated by thoughts and feelings arising from something else - something that I’m certain many others are currently going through too:

My youngest child is about to leave home and go to university, and it’s tearing me up.

Maybe you’re facing the same, or something similar as your child embarks upon full-time schooling for the first time.

If so, this one’s for you. If you have answers, reassurances or ideas on the topic I long to hear them!

Here’s what went down when my elder daughter left home a few years back. It’s a time I remember vividly, but even thought it all turned out okay in the end, the memories provide surprisingly little comfort as I face into the same thing once again.

It was a sunny August afternoon in 2018

I put on my sunglasses and began saying my last goodbye to my eldest daughter at the entrance to our apartment building. She was 18 years old and the following day would be heading off to university in the Netherlands.

The sunglasses were part of my pathetic armoury, a vain bid to preserve a little dignity in front of my daughter, her younger sister and her mother — my ex-wife.

As I hugged my daughter tightly one last time, I broke.

I crumbled into embarrassing convulsions of tears, choking them back just enough that I might impart some final words of support, encouragement and wisdom before waving her off.

There had been many private rehearsals of that moment in the days before. What might I say to mark the occasion, this being the end of an era and all?

It felt like it needed something momentous, reassuring and reaffirming such was the gravity of the situation. I’d ended up with cracking voice and impending tears each time I’d rehearsed my speech in private — at least on those occasions there were no witnesses.

Hopefully the words that I spluttered, coupled with my physical demeanour conveyed at least part of my intended message — that she was loved, that I’d miss her and that no matter where she was I would always be there for her whenever I were needed.

I can’t recall what I said, only how I said it.

I’ve been blessed to enjoy a close and loving relationship with my daughters since their birth.

I was an active and hands-on dad when they were babies and relished the nighttime feeds and the endless treks around the neighbourhood, pushing them in the pram and later, chasing them on their bikes and scooters.

As they grew, I grew with them. In echoes of something my dear grandfather once said to me - “We grew up together”.

Their Mum and I divorced when the girls were just 6 and 3.

It might have threatened my bond with them. Instead, we resolved as parents that while our marriage was over, we each had a part to play in actively raising the kids we’d brought into the world together. We decided to co-parent them equally and for most of the years following divorce through to that point the girls had lived alternate weeks with their Mum and then with me, 50–50.

It hadn’t always been easy — there were just as many times of difficulty and discord as arise in any conventional family, but just as many good and happy times too. I’m certain that raising my kids for half the time as a single dad strengthened the intrinsic bond between the three of us.

For all the confidence I felt in my relationship with my daughter, that August day felt like the end of an era. Seeing her off felt like as great a loss as I’ve ever faced.

It seems ridiculous looking back on it. I knew I’d see her frequently between semesters, in the summers and so-on. At the time though I couldn’t see beyond the pain of the moment — the loss of my little girl. I was surrendering her into the world where she’d have to fend from herself, far out of the reach of my well-intentioned micromanagement of her life.

Memories of that day remain vivid.

Eventually we all settled into the new normal

There were complications of course - not least the global pandemic that dominated at least half of her time in the Netherlands. Barely a day passed without us speaking, and now that she’s graduated and home we see a lot more of each other again. But I still feel wistful for the past, when they were still kids and I felt more necessary, useful and wanted than I do now they’re grown up.

Within days, my younger daughter will follow her sister’s lead and head off for University.

I thought that the emotional effects of her departure might be dulled to some extent thanks to the way that second children follow in the slipstream of their older siblings. It wouldn’t mean that I cared any less but it might spare me from feeling some of the same painful feelings that I felt when her sister departed.

That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.

I’ve sold the apartment which served as our base when they were living with me. Gone with it are the many years of happy memories of the three of us living there, and latterly just the two of us after daughter number 1 shipped out into the world.

Seven years ago I remarried and have another home with my wife and two younger step-kids where I now live full-time. Our marriage was formed on the basis of my pre-existing commitment to raising my kids as I have. Living for alternate weeks with my daughters in a separate town was an accepted feature of our marital life, a facet of our unconventional blended family. In many ways I suspect it was a positive facet - absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

I enjoy not having to live out of a suitcase any more, now that I’m not moving between homes weekly. I love finally being able to live full-time with my wife and step-kids.

But I also worry. A lot.

Now that my kids are definitively grown-up and somehow gone, will I have to live with this sense of emptiness forever? They’re still my kids and I, their Dad of course - but it’s like there’s a gap within me that used to be filled by knowing I was needed by them?

I’m active in the lives of my step-kids too but that’s never been as involved or all-consuming as my role in my own kids’ lives has been. I’ve not sought to replace their own father who they love and see regularly. They love me too of course, and I, them. But it’s not the same, any more than I imagine that the same love or bond exists between my wife and my daughters.

I realise that my fears are typical of those faced by many parents dealing with a suddenly empty (or soon-to-be empty) nest. My role as a stay-at-home, work-at-home single father has been a hugely significant part of my own identity for my entire adulthood. The effects of losing this feel like they could be drastic if not well managed.

I ask myself if there are grounds to my fears?

Others tell me that I have no choice but to put my faith in my daughter and to trust in the upbringing that she’s had.

She’s consistently intelligent, polite, conscientious and loving. She can also be belligerent, prickly and self-centred as most teenagers are. For the most part we get along brilliantly and share laughs often. Just occasionally, we argue and fall-out over a trivial difference of opinion. It usually takes a night’s sleep for the dust to settle and our relationship to return to normal once again.

Each day featuring discord and disagreement feels like a day wasted from the precious bank of days I’ve spent with her over her childhood.

There is of course no option other than to accept things for what they are and to make the best of each and every moment, while trusting that she’ll manage whatever life throws at her.

I’m blessed that I’ve been actively involved in raising my girls as closely as I have — not in spite of, but enabled by my divorcing from their mother (and thanks to the cordial nature of that parting). The closeness of the parenting bond will hopefully evolve, just as it has with my eldest since she moved on.

There will always be a unique tie that exists between the three of us. We’re a team. A unit. A subset of our unusual family group, sharing a relationship that can’t be imitated or replaced.

I know that as they move on in life, they’ll continue to make me as proud as any dad can be of his offspring. They’ll be there for me as I’m there for them, no matter where they are.

In the meantime, I guess I have no choice but to ride the waves of emotion that keep crashing over me.

In my pragmatic moments I remember that I’ll be fine too.

I’ll evolve. I have the love and support of my wife and my family and the continued love of my daughters too (from a distance).

And after all, parenting is a role for life — just as my ex-wife and I committed to when we parted ways. It is ever-changing.

If you’re living in fear of the day when your child leaves home, or just the day when they start school or pass some other landmark, you have my sympathies.

We’ll get through this.

Interested in a similarly-non-crypto story? Check this out: