I want to start by saying that none of our five children are sleeping in our basement or anywhere in our home. Teresa and I are now officially empty nesters. But I do want to make the point we were never really in a big hurry for them to move out. We enjoy having the kids around.
Our children followed what is likely a common model for growing up. They moved out of the house to attend post-secondary education, although that didn't really make me feel that they had moved out permanently. They were home for holidays and weekends to visit. They were home for summer break or the semester of their co-op term. They still had "their" bedroom and lots (and lots) of their stuff at the house. We always looked forward to the time, short or long, that they were back living at "home".
It wasn't until our oldest son, Sean, moved to Vancouver and our second son, Patrick, got married that I felt things were really changing. Both of these moves were definitely more permanent. They would now have a place of their own. Sean of course could not visit regularly given he was in Vancouver. Patrick came to visit but did not stay at our house. He returned to his home, a condo in Toronto. We reconfigured the bedroom that Sean and Patrick shared and "their" room really no longer existed at the house (although the paint and Toronto Maple Leaf/Montreal Canadien wallpaper are still the same). Slowly but surely our other three children moved out eventually getting Teresa and me to our current empty-nester status.
I recognize that our children have grown up, are successful and independent. Of course, that is what Teresa and I wanted for them, but we still miss them. The last job I had before retiring required me to travel often with the company's sales reps. The rep for Northern California was a young guy who was just starting their family (they had a 2-year-old and a baby on the way). Given we spent a lot of time together we had lots of opportunities to discuss a variety of topics (he was a Rush Limbaugh listening, Trump-supporting Republican so I tried not to get into too many political discussions). He was telling me one evening that he had worked for a sales manager that had older children a similar age to mine. Apparently, this individual told his kids as they were moving out of his house, that they were entitled to one call home for help. After that, they were on their own. The sales rep asked me where I stood on this idea. I told him I thought it was crazy and that Teresa and I were the polar opposite. We have always encouraged our children when they were living at home to ask us anything. To talk about anything. This certainly did not change when they moved out of the house. I would say Teresa and I fear the opposite, that our children in their effort to be independent (a good thing) would not want to ask us for any help or advice. I think that saying "your children never stop being your children" hits how we feel. Our kids have grown up to be independent, successful, well-balanced individuals and obviously, our relationship with them has changed as they have grown older. But they will always be our kids and we would do anything for them.
Recently, Kevin our third son was asked to travel to the US on business. His company required that he complete a 14-day quarantine before returning to the office for work. At the time Kevin was sharing a small home with a friend and we thought it would be easier if he quarantined at our house. He agreed and he literally lived in our basement! Although we largely kept apart, he joined us for meals. It was great having him home again and I thoroughly enjoyed the two weeks of seeing him every day.
Certainly, the pandemic has made us very aware that the thing we miss most is family. Video calls just don't do it for us, particularly for such a long period of time. We not only miss seeing our children more frequently but our extended family too. We are hoping that sometime soon during 2021 things will be back to some kind of normal and we can get together again.
In the meantime, our children are always welcome to sleep in our basement.
Let me know any comments or thoughts at thethirdperiod.ca@gmail.com
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