What to do with your empty nest: Real Estate Rights
Once your child leaves the nest, it’s time to reconsider your property. Next, here are three tips:
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Jamie Delaney didn’t know what to expect when he became the empty Nestor in 2023. She quit her full-time job 12 years ago as a professor of child psychology to stay home with her two children. When her youngest went to college in Florida, Delaney said she was lonely.
She moved from Pittsburgh to Houston, where her husband works. He divides time between the two cities. Delaney tried to settle into a new life in Houston without a packed schedule of shuffling children to after-school activities and various doctor appointments. She missed the day.
“I dropped my career to be a parent,” said Delaney, 58. “And all of a sudden, my full-time job, I don’t have any more.”
However, Delaney’s empty Nestor phase didn’t last long.
Her 20-year-old daughter suffers from an autoimmune disease that flares up in her first year of college, Delaney said. At first everything looked amazing. “She joined the sorority. She was really happy. She liked her roommates.” But by the start of the second semester, Delaney said her daughter’s physical health was “in the process of getting worse.” It became clear that she would need to go home to Pittsburgh in order for her to get closer to the doctor.
So Delaney also returned to Pittsburgh, so she was able to have her mother and daughter together.
“I’m like raising a child again,” Delaney said.
“Empty Nesting Syndrome” was coined in the early 1900s and described a sense of loss and loneliness. Over the past few decades, some parents have embraced the empty Nester lifestyle and focused on reconnecting as couples after years of child rearing. However, with the rise in mental health challenges between high cost of living and student loan debt, and other barriers that prevent teens and young adults and some adult children from starting their own lives, it is becoming more common to ensure that parents’ empty nest stages do not slow, shorten, or even occur at all.
More than half of young adults ages 18 to 24 live with their parents, census data shows. That includes college students who live at home during the semester. And, according to an analysis by the government’s PEW Research Centre, nearly half of people ages 18 to 29 live with their parents, almost half of adults living with their parents.
Kari Cardinale, Chief Content Manager and Partner at Modern Elder Academy, is an online school that features workshops and destination retreats for midlife students, and said that some parents don’t actually talk about the final stages of parenting that feel like their home. Gen X was raised to believe that when their children were 18 years old, they were single-minded.
“The world has changed,” she said.
Families are more emotionally connected than previous generations, fostering better, healthier family relationships, Cardinal said. On the other hand, she finds that some adult children have mostly online friendships and difficult to develop non-family relationships.
“The kids are staying for so long now,” Delaney said. She also has a friend who has an adult child at home. These are clever and capable young people, she said, but for middle class and wealthy families, “homes have become a very comfortable place.”
“I think parenting is completely different to my generation,” Delaney said.
Does mom have more trouble with empty nests than dad?
Gender has long been played in the stereotypes of the empty Nester, Cardinal said. It wasn’t a massive truth, she said, but it was a huge transition for her mother.
Suzanne Stavert, 64, focused on children for 23 years before becoming a Nestor of the Sky 10 years ago.
“It was really tough,” she said. “I really felt lost.”
Currently, Stavert is a podcaster and travel writer who promotes the joys of nesting in the sky. She began writing about her experiences as a Nestor of the Sky and said she found an online community that had transformed into her second career. Since finding a passion for travel, Stavert has encouraged other sky nesting players to go out and find adventures too.
Lisa Stephen, a psychologist and wellness coach with a focus on motherhood, said mothers still carry the weight of caregiving and parent-child relationships primarily. She suggests that it takes time for the youngest child to leave the house. Plan what that life stage will look like.
“There’s nothing wrong with crying and missing the kids and hoping you can go back in time,” Stephen said. “There’s nothing wrong with being deeply saddened, and it’s sad for many. For most, I say it.”
It’s a big transition for the father too. Now, especially, Cardinal said that men play a prominent role in raising their children “in a way that their father probably doesn’t.”
Eric Scheve, a 54-year-old father of Cincinnati, Ohio, said he and his wife are equal partners in parenting to their two current children. He says he spoke to his friends about the fun activities they are doing as empty nests, but when it comes to expressing his sadness from the loss of his child, he finds it comfortable to talk about it with his wife.
“It feels like it’s time to spread this transitional experience for everyone,” Cardinal said, adding that parents’ ranges are experiencing pain when leaving the house as well as children.
Partners can help each other feel supported during the transition to empty nest, Stephen said. However, it is not fair to ask adult children to help relieve that sadness and loss.
Parents turned the nestafocus on romance, healthy vacant
Still many parents have successfully transitioned to the empty Nester stage and love it. Andrew Distefano, 59, said he was a nester in the sky for 10 years. Both of his children are in their 30s and work as software engineers.
He and his wife were married young and soon had children, he said. Now Distefano says they’re making up for the lost time. The empty Nester Stage gave them the opportunity to “reestablish our connection as a couple.” They now have time to focus on their health by doing more exercise and taking longer walks.
Distefano in Philadelphia has noticed “big changes” in her neighborhood over the past decade, with more adult children coming home, finding that their families live in multifamilies for financial reasons, and establishing a stronger sense of community.
“When I talk to our nies and nephews and a lot of the younger generations, I realize how difficult it can be to start a career and start a family,” he said. “The financial pressure and impact that younger generations have – it was really easy for us 30 years ago.”
According to Scheve, the “empty” part of the empty nest is true. However, he and his wife, Paola Capelari, 53, are trying their best to fill that emptiness with a new adventure, check things out from their bucket list and post pictures of the completed tasks on social media. They also recently started a blog.
Shave said he is enjoying the opportunity to lean a little more romance and “date” his wife again.
“This is our chance, right?” Shave said. “Because no one knows what life will bring.”
“They’re still like pay.” Set boundaries with adult children.
Scheve and Cappellari don’t worry about their kids coming home. But they are prepared for it and consider them a “safety net” for adult children if something is to happen financially or healthily. They know that not all parents have the means to help their grown children. A recent survey on Savings.com shows that half of parents with adult children send money regularly, with an average support per adult child being $1,474 a month.
The key is setting boundaries, said Cardinal. Adult children should not expect their parents to cook, clean, or do the laundry. Having an open and honest conversation as a family can help reduce tension and give more autonomy to young people in their homes.
It may be difficult for mothers and fathers to shift parenting, she said, but moving into more friend-like relationships leads to better life compatibility.
The bigger social push is normalising that adult children are going home, Stephen said. Cardinal agrees.
“There are a lot of judgements from society that if, somehow, your child comes home, it’s bad,” Cardinal said. “It’s a kind of system failure.
That’s not true, both Cardinal and Stephen said. Still, a 2024 study from the Pew Research Center found that over 70% of young adults’ parents said their child’s success and failure are reflected in parenting. Nearly 60% say they have helped their children financially over the past year.
Sometimes living together is not an option. Adult children with mental health challenges also need support, but parents find themselves setting boundaries for their health and safety.
Sheryl Hermansen, 59, of Campbell, California, said she and her husband were “technically empty nests.” But “they’re still like pay, like pay,” she says, and no one “really completely released.”
“We’re empty. They don’t live with us,” she said. “But we still help them a lot.”
She and her husband remarried when their son was 10, she said, and now her son and two stairs are in their 30s. Their teen years have been “very turbulent,” with all three facing mental health challenges ranging from substance use disorders to bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.
If she didn’t financially support the adult child, Hermansen said, “They wouldn’t make it.”
“We’re not fully prepared” and uncertain progress
A year after her daughter got home, Delaney said they still live together in Pittsburgh. Delaney schedules the appointment of her daughter’s doctor and helps her plan her schedule for her online classes. Her daughter takes part-time college classes while living at home.
Delaney said it’s good to have her home. But if she could choose the ideal situation for an adult daughter, “I would definitely choose a healthy, happy, highly functional college student.”
For Delaney, it was one uncertainty after the next.
“I think we weren’t completely ready when they were gone, but then we weren’t completely ready,” Delaney said. “And I’m really unsure which one is gone and what it will look like.”
Madeline Mitchell’s role in covering women and caregiving economy at USA Today is supported by partnership with An extremely important venture and Journalism Funding Partner. Funders do not provide editor input. You reach Madeline with memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ x.
