This week on the Menopause Love Lounge, the conversation around empty nesting takes a much deeper turn.

What happens when motherhood starts to shift? When the kids grow up, move out, pull away emotionally, or simply stop needing you the same way they once did?

Andrea Knoche is joined by Laurie Gerber, Junie Moon, Dawn Wiggins, and Ozzie Osborne for one of the most vulnerable episodes yet as the ladies open up about identity loss, grief, freedom, parenting adult children, marriage shifts, emotional estrangement, and rediscovering purpose in midlife.

In one of the most emotional moments of the episode, Junie shares the heartbreaking story of her estrangement from her son and how she’s learned to hold both grief and joy at the same time.

The conversation also explores:

• Empty nest syndrome in midlife

• Motherhood and identity loss

• Estrangement between parents and adult children

• Mental health and family dynamics

• Midlife marriage and relationship changes

• Rediscovering yourself after raising kids

• Why self care and self motherhood matter in menopause

This episode is raw, funny, emotional, healing, and deeply relatable for any woman navigating changing family dynamics in midlife.

🕰️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Intro: When Motherhood Starts to Change

10:24 — Junie opens up about her son leaving home at 16

12:00 — “He left… and I never saw him again”

13:13 — Living with estrangement while rebuilding your life

16:18 — “We give birth to these kids, but we don’t own them”

17:55 — Junie reveals her son never gave her a reason

24:57 — Laurie on what children truly need from parents

33:29 — Andrea shares her empty nest and divorce journey

38:12 — Ozzie shares empty nest statistics & emotional impact

42:00 — “Freedom or Freak Out?” Empty Nest game begins

🔗 Links & Resources

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Stay connected with the Menopause Love Lounge:

▶ YouTube: @MenopauseLoveLounge

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Mentioned in this episode:

From Mrs to Ms Dating & Relationship Podcast

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Love At Any Age Podcast with Laurie Gerber

Feeling discouraged, “out of practice,” attracting the same men, losing hope, not trusting your choices, or feeling invisible in the dating world? Love at Any Age with Laurie Gerber is your weekly guide for navigating midlife dating: you’ll get emotional prep, tactical coaching, mindset shifts, proven dating tools, messaging help, and real stories from women just like you. If you’re a woman over 50 who’s done the work but still struggling with love, Love at Any Age is for you. This podcast speaks to women navigating dating after divorce, widowhood, or just a desire for a better partnership.

Okay, guys, for years, your life has revolved around carpools, school calendars, and being needed every single day. Then suddenly, house is quiet. Now, the empty nest can bring freedom, grief, identity loss, or all three of those things at once. So today, you are listening to the Menopause Love Lounge, where we're talking about what really happens when motherhood shifts in midlife and how women can reclaim purpose, passion, and of course themselves again.

So I'm being joined by the lovely ladies of the Menopause Love Lounge. How are you guys today?

Mmm.

Ooh, hi. I wish Karen was here. She needs to weigh in on this topic.

Yay!

Yay!

We're good.

I

know, I know. Well, Jason has her daughter living at home with her, I believe, right? So she might be looking at it a little bit different way, like was excited when she came back. came back, Laurie you're looking feisty in your red. I'm not sure.

Yeah.

Arrrr

Also, I feel like your hair is different. Did you get a haircut?

Okay, you love my shirt. That's what we were discussing. Yes, yes. I'm feeling zesty, but not empty nasty because I went shopping. I got my hair done and my kid is homesick. Yeah.

Hahahaha

Yes!

And your hair. And your hair.

Yeah.

you

ha ha ha!

Wow. Winning.

Hey, moming hard

today.

Hashtag winning.

Yes, I am having it all.

I love that. You are happy at all. So yeah, we're going to talk about some empty nest syndrome today. And we're all going to talk about the emotional whiplash of watching our children leave home, some coming back, some leaving again, then coming back and the unexpected identity questions that often surface from this afterwards. then Ozzie is going to share some stats with us in

Karen's absence today. And so we're gonna really enjoy that. And then of course we have our favorite legs wide open section where we're gonna play a really fun game. And so I'll tell you more about that shortly. Just have your paddles ready, ladies. All right, so let's dive in. Let's all talk about what this is like with the emptiness syndrome. Who wants to start? Ozzy, you just look start-ish today. Isha.

I'll start.

this.

artist.

Well, first of all, I don't like the term emptiness because I feel like there is a sense that, right, it's just a new beginning of something new. So emptiness doesn't work for me. ⁓ I'm looking at it as the next iteration, the next chapter. However, I do know that, first of all, I'm very close to it. I have a son who's 21 who went to college and now he's back. So now he's living with us.

No.

And then my younger one is graduating high school. And so the promise of the empty nest or the next iteration has changed because I thought I was preparing for it. And so think they're going to stay for a little longer. think I've made this nest quite comfortable for them. Fly away. But I do...

imminent.

Too comfortable there, please.

Hmm.

I can get in touch with a sense of the grief, right? Like I had a purpose for my children for so long and it started when they both entered high school, slowly and surely they no longer needed me. And so my role has shifted and I feel the grief in it. I do feel that there's that sense of they're gonna leave and how are they gonna do and the worry that comes with that and who will I be without

having that purpose, who will I be without driving them around? ⁓ They're adults and now what? And so I'm split. I go between, I love having them here and I also love the quiet, right? On the other end of that is this sense of elation for my house being quiet, me being able to walk around naked, being able to invite a gentleman over and just having the space to myself.

I have a pretty big house for myself. So it's both, right? ⁓ It might not be this year, but it's definitely coming as soon as they choose to find their own way. So that's where I'm at with Empty Nest.

Yeah.

Hmm.

So how do you prepare yourself for that? Or are you?

You know, it's just a lot of sitting with myself in the grief when it comes and it shows up. And it's also, ⁓ you know, preparing and getting excited about what's the next iteration, what's next for me, what's coming up, what are some things I could think of and getting creative with. Maybe I'll move to a different state. Maybe I'll move out of the country. So it's thinking about that and getting creative. Love that.

You're becoming, you're next to becoming.

Yeah, yeah.

your second spring.

My second spring.

So good. Dawn, what do you have for us? What's going on with you?

Yeah, you know, when I was preparing for this, what popped out of my fingers as I was typing was when my mom became an empty nester. So my parents got divorced. I think my junior or senior year of high school. And so so much of must have shifted for her at once. ⁓ But I think she was super relieved, which actually felt really painful for me. I think she probably had

Hmm

lost herself in an abusive marriage and whatever. She was always a working mom and all the things, right? And when I left, I think she was profoundly relieved. And then because they got divorced, then when I sprang back, it wasn't with her and you couldn't have paid me to go back to her house. I did go back to my dad's house for about a year after college. ⁓

Hmm.

it.

Yeah, I got my first full-time job and I lived there for a year before I got married. I got married very young, like very, very, very, very young. So yeah, that's what sort of jumped out to me was like my mom's, and I'm sure she was probably like perimetapausal, right? Was all the things we talk about here just overwhelmed and in the weeds. I have no desire to be an empty nester anytime soon. I still have an 11 year old daughter and I would still at 45 like to have another child. So we're gonna see how that goes.

because I actually just feel like as a parent, I just sort of in the last few years found my groove and I'm the most present parent I've ever been. And I'd like to be in this experience longer. And what also stands out to me about this, and I think about it all the time is the more independent, my very capable 11 year old daughter, you know, first born daughter things, right. Is thank God I love my husband and like him because there's just.

more space. We still can't walk around naked all the time, right? But that's like the thing that changes the most. feel like when you become a parent, it's like the walking around naked piece. But she was at a sleepover last night because that's a thing. like, gosh, just thank goodness I like him. And I think about all the women who are getting divorced or who are transitioning and maybe

Yes.

are with a partner who they don't enjoy. I think it's a very different ride depending on where you are in your relationship status also. I do watch my closest dearest friend whose boys, she's got two boys, similar to you Ozzie, and one is graduating from high school this year and then she just already is in all this grief all the time. All the time she's grieving things already. And we're gonna get together for a couple of days, we're gonna meet at the beach for a couple of days, which we have never done before.

Yeah.

I agree.

you

But it's like her boys don't need her as much and so now here she is and I think she's really panicking about it. So, yeah.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Can I make a confession

about walking around naked? Just as a little commercial break. I was with all my children this weekend and they make fun of me for being naked around them. They make fun of me for it. Not in a mean way, but they're like, why is mom always naked around us? And I'm fully nude.

Yes.

Yeah.

But you were naked with your children?

Like fully nude? Fully nude?

Yeah, like fully nude. And I realized that I have this like primal desire to be naked around my children in the sense of like, they're my babies. And I like to me, that's like a primal mothering instinct to be, I mean, I don't need them to be naked. It's not at all sexual. Okay, let me just say, but there's like, I'm the animal that created you and

Yeah. There's some resistance. Yeah.

you literally are of me, you came from me and you have access to all of me. It's weird, it's primal. what they were asking, they were, I had to ask myself, like, why do I like being, like, it's like, I don't want to wait and get dressed to go be with them. Like, I want to go be with them as soon as I possibly can. Like, it's weird. It's weird. It's weird.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

I love you.

Fascinating, yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

just love this. My goodness, you're amazing.

So I

also am naked in front of my child. Like if she's in our, she's in our room all the time. My husband is very modest though. Very, very, very, very modest. Yeah. She's a girl, right? He's a man. Yeah, but I have a daughter and she's still, she's only 11. So we're just starting to get to this point where she's like, she's modest behind the door. Right?

It's different, I think, for dads.

funny. I think it's so funny how there's all different times that it becomes odd or weird with our kids. And of course, depending on who they are too, I remember that very early on with my older son more than my younger one. I remember taking a bath with Hunter when he was probably like five or six and he was sitting down at my feet in the bath and I was just sitting there reading a magazine. He was playing with his toys and then there was silence and I put the magazine down and he was just like,

like with his mouth wide open just looking at my crotch like what and I'm like I'm gonna get out

Is that? Where's

your penis?

Bath time's over.

That was the first I was like, ⁓

you

that was weird. He was looking at that too intensely, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, that's when my bath stopped, when the look was there. I'm

Yeah...

like, okay, enough of this.

Yeah...

That's funny. So funny. Junie, why don't you share with us?

Wow.

Tricky.

This is all tapping into some stuff here, I gotta be honest with you, you know? ⁓ Cause mine was a mixed bag and ⁓ yeah, tears are gonna come. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. Cause ⁓ well, first of all, I never wanted kids. It was just not on the radar. And then I chose to have a child and had a very challenging child.

Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Hmm

Okay.

I anticipated that.

here we go.

Mm-hmm.

There was.

We're going to have cliff notes here and it's still going to be impactful. At least I hope so. ⁓ Suffice it to say he was supposed to do the typical high school thing and he chose to drop out really early on. again, long story short, he left my house way before I expected, know, a couple of years early. So I had no, you there's a saying, Jewish saying, we plan and God laughs, you know?

you

Hmm.

All the plans went out the window. ⁓ There was such a mixed thing of, yes, I get to have my life back on some level, to be really honest, and like freedom was always important to me. And I'm like, my gosh, I had just left my husband. I am starting fresh. I have my wings, but my kid was everything to me. So I remember this moment of purpose and lack thereof. It's like, I don't have to think about his vegan.

and then...

Appetite and what's in the fridge and I don't have to think I like I didn't have that that brain that had to be on all the time for my kid But the the tricky thing around this was yes He left and I was so excited for him for his new life and that again long story That's all I'll say but what happened was he left and he wrote me off and I never saw him again and So that's been a huge

focus. Yeah.

huge spiritual journey of acceptance and trusting that the universe is playing out the way it's to play out. on a spiritual note, I get it and I've gotten to a place where I can accept it mostly. And then there are moments that are just like the Easter bunny, you know, it's like, like all the stories, you know, the holidays and the things I did with him and, and those moments of not having it here anymore.

it can hurt, know, my mommy heart, my mommy heart hurts. And so while there was that transition of cool, I've launched him in a way that was different than I thought, but launched him and he is doing well, thank God he's doing well. ⁓ I didn't get to have that next stage of actually having him in my life. And so there's been this estrangement all these years.

Hmm.

So through his dad, I know he's fine ⁓ But there's it's bittersweet. So while I rebuilt my life There's always this piece this empty piece of I don't have my kid in any way ⁓ So I've really had to just build my life and my next chapter and that's why I do the work I do Especially with women that are starting over whether it's with empty nesting or whether it's divorce. It's like how do I

Yeah.

Have my extraordinary life because my life matters and that's why I it's like I have the p sadly I have the phd in in loss around my kid ⁓ and what it's like to actually wake up happy And have those moments of sadness and be able to hold both because I hold both on a regular basis. So That's the cliff notes Yeah

both end.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, and how old is he,

Wow.

Juni? Or how old is he now?

I realized he's going to be 30 this year. Yeah, he left at 16. Yeah.

Wow.

Bye.

And did he,

can we ask questions? Like this is obviously very sensitive and this is new information for me anyway. I don't know if for everybody, but.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. gosh, I'm sorry.

I really thought you guys knew. Sorry. Yeah. No, you can ask me anything.

⁓ Did he go live with his dad at that time or on his own?

No, it's going to sound crazy, but I knew he'd be fine on his own. He was more put together than most adults. So he took off. It was in the middle of Sandy. We just had the hurricane. We had no electricity. Everything was a mess. ⁓ He took off with his dad, who he hadn't spoken to in a year and a half. So there was a theme there. His dad took him down to Miami. He already had a job set up for himself down in Miami and moved to Miami on his own at 16, all by himself. But he did fine.

Yeah, that's... yeah.

Wow.

Wow,

and he continued to

wow.

do fine, built his own business, built his own life. He stopped having support from us since he was 11 years old, didn't want our money, cooked his own food, washed his own clothes. He was built a certain way. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Wow, interesting. And

how, I mean, I know this is more than a five minute answer, but how did you, how did you make your piece with that?

Yeah.

It's been a journey. mean, the first few years were unbelievably torturous because that space, talking about an emptiness, was like there was a huge gap in my life. I'm building my life, but there's like, what the fuck? Where's my kid? Like nothing. So, hey, look, I do the shadow work. This is what I do. So I don't just do it with my clients. I do my own work.

That's a big empty nest. Yeah.

Hmm.

So I mean, I was doing my own work with mentors of my own, trauma therapists. So I did a lot of the psychological, emotional healing with people, but I really leaned into my spiritual path. And I remember going to this one-stop song with my mentor and my spiritual guide years ago. I kind of laid out what was going on and it was kind of a simple answer, but it was profound. was like, we give birth to these kids, but we don't own them.

Mm-hmm.

Thank

We our job is to take care of them and give them the opportunities and if they stay they stay if they don't they don't but my life Matters for me to throw my life away because of what happened would be such a disservice to me and to all that is so ⁓ So it's been a dance. And so, you know, there were many many years. I couldn't even have this conversation, you know

⁓ I can talk about it and there are moments, you know, like last week I was talking to dawn and I was just like I'm in my grief This is a hard week because I had some grief that I had some loss last week and so loss can tap into loss Yeah. Yeah. So anything that's there it was like I'm feeling it, you know, so ⁓ So my spiritual my spirituality my belief that all really is in service to us and that he is being taken care of no matter what is going on ⁓ and

It opens it. Yeah.

the story I tell myself and the meaning I give to it. And Ozzy too was in my court last week. Ozzy was there, you know, listening to some of the stuff I was going through. I'm really, I work that muscle of what's the meaning I'm giving to the fact that my son doesn't talk to me. That's just a fact. My son doesn't talk to me. I can make it, he's on his own and he's making a great life and he doesn't need me. I gave him strong wings. How awesome. Or I can give the meaning of, you know, he's

fucked up, he's mentally ill, he needs medicine, which is probably all true. But anyway, you know, it's like, where, where am I gonna land, you know?

Did

he give you a reason or did he never give you a reason?

Never gave me a reason. He just never talked to me again. Yeah. And that's why I have my stories. I didn't give him the dog, which was my dog. know, like, he going to double down on that? Maybe. He's borderline. He's got issues. So where did he draw the line? What did he decide? I don't know. I don't want to say I'll never know, but I don't know. All I know is he's had some stories that he shared with his dad that are just not true. They're just not true.

one. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's where it's like, exactly, exactly. So fact, not fact, what he's remembering, what I'm remembering. I do my best to just stay right here the best I can and watch the meaning I give to it.

but they're true to him.

You are,

yeah, I just admire your process through it so much. ⁓ Just so, so, so much. And I think your story right here in this now moment on this podcast matters so much because this phenomenon of estrangement, I feel like has ⁓ just taken our culture by storm. And it became very, very popular, I think, to cut ties with parents, too much so. ⁓ But I...

admire so much your ability to hold your own space and to claim your own life. And it's beautiful to be able to say like, this is how he's finding his own window of tolerance, right? Like for him, this is how he's managing his window of tolerance with his own emotional regulation, nervous system regulation. And that's so sad, but what an ultimate gift as a mom to not

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

collapse. I'm sure you have collapsed, right? But to not stay collapsed and to not drop into blame or bitterness either. And yeah, and to just sort of admire him from a distance and to not not make that into anything other than that. That is real hardcore moming right there.

Mm-hmm. All right.

Yeah, thank you

for that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And

That's where I hang my hat. Yes. ⁓

that speaks to all the work. Yeah, it speaks to all the work that you've done, right? Like I think it's okay if you sat in bitterness for a moment, but then what I'm hearing from what you're sharing is that you get yourself back on track, right? It's this phenomenon that I often look at with human experience of, right? Again, I always say it's the both end, right? It's the humaness-ness that just wants, like when I hear your story, my heart just aches.

Yeah.

But then there's also the other aspect of the knowing, right? Like the spiritual knowing of they don't belong to us. And then there's also sadness in that. Like they don't belong to us, like, I understand. like, right, so it's like this push-pull with that polarity of both.

Yeah.

But

there's a soul tie, right? No, they don't belong to us, but there is a soul tie. And that's the ache of like, I don't have a great relationship with my mom at all. ⁓ That ache, it's just like, there's some things that are never restored on the human level, right? On the spiritual level, sure. But, ⁓ and I think, you know, the same between mothers and their children, like, I don't know, there's a soul tie. And I think maybe I'm being naive, but there's always a human ache.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yep, either way.

Always. Always.

I think so. Yeah, I think so. And

again, the yes and it's like I really I'm so grateful that I've through the work I've done to be able to hold both that I can really have the most amazing, extraordinary, love filled life and be able to go out, you know, and that's why this work that I've that the journey I've taken with as Dawn knows all the loss I've had since I was a kid has helped me.

Yeah.

move toward the work I do to be able to hold the hard spaces for my clients that are in that pain and be able to go yes and and and be able to withstand that without getting pulled in or not being able to even offer them what's next you know because there is a next

Yeah, Credibility. Yeah.

And I wanted,

yeah, and I want to underscore something here just for our listeners, because it does seem sometimes that some souls have like really grief marked journeys. and you're, yeah, and yours really is right. And you just hear people who like, seems like everybody in their family has died or, know, there really are some journeys that are just so profoundly grief filled and yours is one of them. And it's what makes you.

you

Yeah, I signed up for that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

being with you, holding this space with you, you know, just so remarkable. Yeah.

Thank

you, thank you. Thanks for listening, thanks for seeing. ⁓ And I'm glad that I felt able to share it here. Because as you said, Oprah just did a whole thing on this phenomenon of estrangement. And the worst thing is feeling like you did something wrong or you're alone. And there's a lot of moving pieces. But at the end of the day, ouch, can we have a conversation and can we heal?

Thanks for sharing that with you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Strangement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

on the flip side of that, right? Like on the other side of it, I've tried to have infinite conversations with my mom and they just don't go well. Like it just doesn't. And so we found something, I don't know that we agree that what we're doing is working, but ⁓ you know, we spend holidays together. She comes to visit to be part of my, you know, and I, my kid FaceTimes are all the time and it's not easy for me, but I, I really believe it's the right thing to do to maintain some level of relationship. ⁓ As much as I can.

do and not lose myself. And I wish more people could do that.

Yeah, yeah, and sometimes they can't or can't yet. And that's where we need to have that acceptance and surrender. Yeah.

Sometimes they can't.

Yeah. I mean,

I've tried to, when I was younger, I tried with my mom and it just, I just came to a conclusion that there's just, there's no, with borderline, right? She's also there. It's really hard to maintain a relationship with her. And so I just decided for my own health, my own being, for my family, that it was wise as to keep the distance. My heart is always open.

Mmm.

And every time it's been open, it's just not. There's just so much resistance or so many, I wish I had that, let's figure out a way to make it work, right? My kids have never met my mom. And that's sad for me, because they don't have that. But then on the flip side of that, well then they also don't get the crazy part of ⁓ that experience, right? So it's.

noise.

you

Right, right, it's, yeah.

Right?

If they choose to have a relationship with her down the line, then it's their choice. I never held them from that. never not shared information about her, yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

We just

kicked this empty nest syndrome to a whole nother level. ⁓

Whoa, you're sweet.

holding level.

⁓

Laurie, see you your hand there a few times.

I want to ask you what you think of this idea. I teach my clients that kids need three things from a parent. Number one, to be seen and known. Number two, unconditional love. And number three, for you to model a great life, which is in regards to usually ⁓

I really hear from you, Juni, just I'm still reflecting on your story, that you have managed to do that from afar, which is really freaking profound.

Mm-hmm.

When my head hits the pillow at night, and I could have said this from the very beginning, I know I was a great mom and I hit the marks. ⁓ I stepped up and I did the work and I was a phenomenal mom. And that's, it's good to know. Was I perfect? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In fact, I want to share something with you. Rebecca from ⁓ Menno Sleep, our sponsor.

You still are. You still are.

Yeah.

So she's a dietician, she knows supplements, she knows stuff. And we were at a retreat many years ago and I was having one of those emotional things. It was like 10 years ago. And ⁓ she came over to me and I said, are you a nutritionist? I think you should change your job because this is what she said to me when I told her what was going on with my son, Matthew. And I said, he always has to have a bad guy. He always has to have an enemy.

You

right now I'm the enemy. I'm the one that he puts all his intense anger toward. And I was sharing and she said, well, maybe that's your job because you're the safest person to hold it. And in that moment, like it was like, in that moment, I thought I could do that. I could do that. I could be that enemy for my son if he needs that. That's now my new job for my son.

you

Hmm.

It lifted all the, yeah, it lifted so much of it because now it's like, ⁓ okay, I'm able to give him this because all the other people aren't safe to him. But I was always the safest person. So yeah, I hit the marks. I feel great about who I am and what I've brought. I still do the healing work. I'm grateful for you and Dawn and the remedies and all those things. And it sucks.

At the end of the day, I don't have my kid and I don't get to hear his day to day crazy or the ups the downs or whatever. But I kind of have him in a box. You know, it's like like the lid's kind of open. But overall, my life is so full and there's a sliver that I was like, yeah, it's still there. There's still that like like you said, Ozzy, it's like there's there's still something there or or Don, I don't remember. But but it's like there's always a little something there and my heart just loves. That's it.

My heart just loves and I really don't have anger. I just want him to be well and he is overall. So I've done my job. He has a life. He's married. He's got dogs. He's good. You know, he's good. Yeah. Yeah.

beautiful.

Amen.

These are good things. I just want to

add that I think the mental health piece is a piece that people need to hear and talk about and understand that whereas we would love for our parents to give us being seen, unconditional love and role modeling a great life, most people can't do that for anybody, no matter how much they love them and certainly not with a mental illness. And so,

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I just, we have to just include that, but the there's, and like I think Dawn, you're sort of saying is like, my mother has special needs, right? And so we make accommodations and some of our children have special needs and we make accommodations. And Junie, you echo something I literally just said. It's so interesting. I was just with my mother and my daughter who compete for my attention. And I was just saying, you know, my daughter, I also have an 11 year old daughter and she is

Yes.

so mean to me. Like, so mean to me sometimes. Often, I'm gonna go ahead and say. And I've just come to the conclusion that I'm the one she feels safest with and that I am the sacrificial whatever that is, the scapegoat, that takes the sins away, that takes the pain away, and I can handle it. I can metabolize it as long as I don't take it personally or believe it. I actually can hold that rage, anger, confusion, blame.

There you go.

Hatred sometimes, know, all of the things that get aimed at me because that is her expressing herself and unsuppressing her feelings and with someone who she knows is gonna love her unconditionally, because I do. And so you reminded me of that with what you said.

Yeah.

Wow. And what a gift to give to your daughter to be that where she can throw that at you, but you know your truth so you can hold it. know? Call me, babe. Call me.

Yeah.

Remind me. Remind me because I get it. It really feels it really

Thank

feels like a whack-a-mole like she pounds me down and I pop back up. She pounds me. It's it's a lot sometimes. Yeah.

I hear you. hear you. hear you. Yeah.

Mm.

The more we know our truth and the more we have our tools and thank goodness we all have so many great tools. It helps. It's not, you know, full proof. It helps.

Yeah.

100%.

And that's the reason I'm able to find the space that I have. It's sort of this unfortunate trickle down of mental illness, right? Because of whatever brand of mental illness my parents have. I don't want to claim this for myself. This is not what I'm doing, right? But I'm just sort of trying to convey an idea that it created a certain amount of mental illness within me. And I had to recover from that mental illness to have the capacity to stay grounded and to stay available on some level and to facilitate my daughter being available, right? But it did require me to take

a lot of responsibility for the things that I had to recover from. my life is better because I did so. So like my life is better because I did so. And I don't want to be angry or bitter. Like there's no way to live. Doesn't feel good.

No,

Right,

exactly. Our life matters. Yeah, yeah. Andrea, did we hear from you yet about your kids?

that's a bigger ouch. That's a bigger ouch. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, what's your empty nest

situation? Well, I did not explain my nest, but should I? So I just just just it was a whole other topic, but I have a 23 year old launched in the world, which is a pleasure, pleasure to watch. I have a 21 year old about to graduate from college and I have this 11 year old still at home. And that is because I was scared shitless of an empty nest like.

Well, I wasn't sure if Laurie was fully done, but go for it. Go for it. ⁓

She facilitated a whole other branch of the podcast.

pretty consciously waited to the very last minute where it looked like I was gonna start to free up and then started all over again on purpose. Like even had a miscarriage and went again to make sure I was going to have a child in my household at least until I could have made, I'm like planning a two or three year gap before becoming a grandmother. Like very.

⁓ wow.

core to my identity to mother or children as well as to be a business person. Like it just they're like these competing and complimentary tracks. Like I've got my mom and my dad and you know they both had both and both valued both a lot. And so I'm trying to have it all here and I don't know if I ever will have. I'm not sure if I ever will have an empty nest. I would like to try it for a few years but

Yeah. ⁓

No, no, let's

not like because I'll just slot right in there. Y'all know I had a miscarriage last year and Laurie mothered me minute to minute to minute to minute to minute through it. It was profound. Like so the amount to which you identify as a mother is helps plug a hole in my heart.

Thank you.

Mmm, it was good.

Good, good, good.

And to your point on, again, I've been, and to your question, Andrea, like, what do you do to prepare? You work on your fucking marriage. That's what you do to prepare, because there really will be a day, pretty soon, when my 11-year-old is off on her own and my adult children aren't probably living on their own with or without my grandchildren, and we will just have each other. And I am investing heavily in still liking him at that moment. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that. That's a

good move. It's a move. Yes.

It is. I'm a long-term planner, as you know. I like

spreadsheets. Andrea, to you, my dear.

Well, feel like mine has been a bit of the whiplash of like gone and back and gone and back. And I say that because, I got divorced in 2017 and I lived in Texas at the time. And so when we got divorced, my ex-husband didn't really want it and it was my decision to do it. And we were still very close, him and I. were talking about divorce, but still like, hey, do you want to see a movie? So it was very confusing. I think it was very confusing for everybody.

So when we decided to sell the house, my ex-husband was like, I'm just gonna take the kids and go to California because both of them were in the entertainment business at the time. We were going back and forth for auditions and things anyways, so it just made sense. But it didn't make sense at the time for me to go as well. So I stayed back. I worked on selling the house for two years. I just worked on myself and being a part and...

You know, I really ⁓ struggled with it. And then sometimes I didn't, you know, I felt I felt the freedom of it for sure. Like, wow, they're not even in the same state as me right now, you know. And at the time that would make my older one, he was, I think, 20 and my younger one, Grant, was 15. So old enough, I felt to be OK and gone, you know. But, you know, I would hear rumors from like.

friends and, well, maybe not friends, but from the baseball team and stuff like that that were like, can't believe she's been away from her kids like that. ⁓ So for me, I would come out to California once a month. I'd stay for a week. I'd stay with them and just really get my fill that way. And so that worked for me at the time until eventually I knew that I wanted to just be closer to them. So with that said, then I moved to California, but by that time they were already kind of branching out.

And I remember though at first they were still staying with my ex-husband and when I would come to visit, I felt a lot of envy at that time that he had them in the house with him. He had to take my son places and I was definitely just the visitor coming in. And so that was difficult. ⁓ And then when I moved here, that's when I said they kind of branched out. And even more so now, my older son got married this past year. He just bought a house last month here in California and

Mm.

and I'm very close with them. And so every step of it has been like this, ⁓ know, you get close and then he moved to the next area, And so that's been really difficult. ⁓ I even relate a lot of that emptiness to him getting married and what that felt like losing, you know, not losing my son, but not being the most important woman in his life anymore. And so that was, you know, that was very difficult. So it's been

Hmm.

this process of all of it. And although I've been like alone and not and alone and not, I do enjoy being alone. Now at times I very much enjoy just not having to answer anybody, not, having to make dinners or change the TV or having to even eat dinner myself if I don't want to, you know, I have some cookies instead and that's okay. And so it's, well, it's been good. It's, you know, I don't know. It's hard to explain because I don't

Bittersweet.

Yeah, I don't feel like it's been this total ⁓ hole in me because they've been gone because I do see them a lot. My older son, especially since my mom passed away in December, he's taken over that role of calling me every day. And it's been great. It's usually either on his way to the gym or on his way to get food, but I will take it. And so it's just, every day I get a call from him and we just talk about.

everything, whatever is going on. And so I'm fully up to date in their lives. I go on tour with my younger son. So I get that fulfillment there and I get the time to myself. So I think it's a win-win right now. That's how I feel. ⁓ wow. Well, that was amazing.

Good place to be. Good place to be.

Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Whew, we unpacked a lot.

Yeah, a lot of life here, a

lot of life here. families, kids, it's a lot.

Yeah,

it is a lot. right, we're gonna do it. Yeah, and that's what it is. And I think we covered a lot of them here because we have so many different areas of people going through different things in their lives. And it is a tough time for everybody right now in the world we're going through. So I think it's really great to hear what all of you had to say and all of your experiences. So thank you for sharing.

messy human experiences.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

So we definitely need to lighten it up a little bit. We're gonna jump in shortly to some legs wide open, but before we get to that, we're gonna check in with Ozzy and kind of find out how it is out there for others. You have a few stats for us?

Just a few. We'll start with

that there are studies that estimate that about 25 to 30 % of parents experience significant emotional distress when their children leave their home.

⁓ Interesting.

How do you

think we'd agree.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nificant

distress. Yeah, no, that's maybe but like, I would want to overlay that with attachment styles. Like what is the data on that? Like the generations primary attachment style, right? And I'm sure attachment styles shift. Like I'm sure there's like a, you know, a pendulum or an undulation. If you're on YouTube and making this. But yeah, anyone who has a more avoidant

Mmm.

I'm sorry.

It's undulating.

or even a disorganized attachment style is not gonna feel significant distress when their kid leaves a nest. They're just not, you know?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. True.

Yeah, good point.

Interesting.

Very true. So next ⁓ stat or actually a research that's actually showing that mothers often report stronger feelings of identity loss than fathers, particularly if much of their identity has centered around caregiving, which makes sense, right? That is the role. However, I'd be curious to see because I feel like those roles have shifted a bit.

Yeah.

Big stand-alone

moms, especially.

and by 2026, I see a lot of fathers at our home with their kids and raising their kids at home, right? So I'm curious if that...

Well,

I have sample size one to give you some feedback. My husband is very much parent, like on duty. I would say we have some non-traditional gender roles. ⁓ He makes her lunch. He does a lot of the moming. He does a lot of field trips. I don't like doing field trips. ⁓ So he's really engaged. And I think

He's totally on board with us having another kid, but he also could have gone the other way. He would have been totally satisfied to like have a second spring.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And by the way, women who tend to be more in their feminine core tend to have, well, most women actually, I would say, tend to identify, their identity is tied to connection. their role as a mother is a lot stronger, I think, than men. Men is purpose, right? Whereas women is connection. So it's an interesting research. ⁓

The next one is midlife transitions, including menopause, career shifts, and changing relationships often occur at the same time children leave home, amplifying emotional impact. Make sense? Make sense. And the last one is longitudinal... Wow, longitudinal studies. That's a tongue twister.

Why? It does.

Makes sense.

Our turn, our time.

Yeah.

shows that many women experience increased life satisfaction within a few years as they rediscover personal goals and independence. So I think we eventually get there. We eventually get there. We learn to get to feel satisfied, right? Like we learn to pivot and embrace life. Yeah.

you

Interesting.

⁓

Interesting.

Yeah.

thing.

Yeah, it takes a minute. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Those are good stats. Really good. Yeah. She pulled those for us. Yeah. There's so many things to think about with all of the empty nested, like how it affects marriages and partnerships once the children are gone and how you have to redirect. just like Laurie said, really make an effort to take care of your marriage or your relationship now so that it is stable and steady when you move forward, because that hits you, right?

That's it. Thank you, Karen.

Yeah.

See, did.

Mm-hmm.

like a brick wall when you don't see it coming. So that's a fun, fun thing. Well, all right, let's open it up as we would say, legs wide open to our fun little game we have today. Today, you guys, it's called freedom or freak out. Okay, and no, this is gonna be a good one. We got our paddles. So freedom is gonna be thumbs up, freak out is thumbs down.

yeah.

Woof!

Mmm.

you

All right,

I'm gonna give you a couple of scenarios and you're just gonna kinda let me know in the empty nest situation how you would react to this. right? Number one, walking past your child's empty room at night. Is that freedom? Are you looking at it going, woo hoo? Or are you like, ⁓ freaking out a little? This is right in the beginning. Yeah, I think it's a little like me and I'm saying a lot, Laurie, you're freaking out.

Okay.

It's both, it's both for me.

Well,

I just, you know, I'm a working mom, so the night, like bedtime is my time. So I'm not gonna be freaking out while I'm working during the day, but you just look out for me around six and seven o'clock at night, all right, y'all? Just a prediction.

Yeah.

Thank you.

There it is.

Try

walking by a room of a boy that has really stinky shoes and socks. On the one hand, you're like, I miss him. But on the other hand, you take a nice sniff and you're like...

Freedom.

there will be relief.

There will be relief. I love what happens to the surfaces of my house when the number of children reduces. It's quite nice.

Yeah.

All right, cooking dinner and realizing no one's expecting you to. Is that freedom? We're out. We're all.

Pure freedom.

I

Pure freedom.

already don't cook dinner. I already don't cook dinner because it's too much pressure. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot. So like,

I already don't cook dinner.

And that's

interesting with you both, with your 11 year olds. That's interesting. ⁓

Who's cooking dinner in this group? yeah, no. We have husbands.

I cook dinner.

We hired husbands for this. We chose wisely. Okay.

Well, need to go to that employment

office and hire one for myself.

you

Listen, I'm happy to help meal plan. I'm happy to help execute. I clean, right? I wash a lot of dishes. I load and unload the dishwasher. I clean, I clean, I clean. I do the laundry. Like I do a lot of housework, but planning and executing, like planning dinner and like initiating the execution. I'm just sliding out of my work day where I've done emotional labor all day. Like I have decision fatigue. I don't know. I need something mindless, not something where I have to like calculate and make sure.

Here's a go.

I do a lot of thinking.

Not me.

You won't do that.

Very complicated. Dinner's complicated. Fuck

And it comes around so often and it's done every day.

every day.

Yeah, three

it.

a day. It's a lot of work.

How? How dare it?

Well, and, and this is just interesting. I am I'm a creature of food habits. So like, if it were just me, I would just eat the same things every day over and over and over again. You can't do that for a family like. Yeah.

Yes, it is.

⁓

Interesting. Okay. Your grocery bill is suddenly dropping. Yeah, I'm sure Ozzie's like, ⁓ it's pretty good thumbs up there, I'd say.

⁓ my God.

⁓ my God, cannot wait, cannot wait. I'm waiting for my therapy bills to go down.

that was a biggie. Yeah. Big time.

Hahaha!

How many years? my God. Okay.

Oh my god.

All right. Booking a trip without checking anyone else's schedule. Meaning that is that freedom or freak out? wait. Don is this because you love the Disney Cruise and you feel like you can't do it without your daughter?

Ugh.

⁓ no, that's good.

Will that ever happen? ⁓ my god, so excited. She wants to go on trips with her baby. Yeah,

We need, Don, I'm surprised because I'm surprised.

Dawn is sad.

it like I think that like family vacations are some of my favorite days of my life like of my life. Yeah, so like, yeah, yeah, no, I don't love leaving my people like my daughter and I are going on a girl's trip this weekend with a girlfriend and like we're leaving my husband home that never happens but and I don't love it. I will love it. But like I don't love it. Like I'm in. Yeah, I'm a little anxious to attach right like my people.

yeah, true.

Yeah. ⁓ and so we have our retreat, sorry to say.

Hmm.

Wow.

You

who weren't there.

She likes her people.

⁓

Aww, so sweet.

that's exciting though. All right. this is one's a little sad. The family group chat going quiet. Never happened.

Thank

⁓

⁓ fuck that, never.

Never had

one. All good. ⁓

Yeah, my kid is too,

like we don't, my kid's too young still, so I don't, I don't know. Stay tuned.

Yeah.

Everyone's a

jerk on my family chat, but I still love it. And I would miss it if it was gone.

Mine goes silent a lot. You know what I do? I do that emoji. says, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller, or question mark, question mark, question mark. And they're like, ugh, she's so annoying.

I do that one too. Yeah.

I just doesn't. have my

Here she is again.

two sons, my daughter-in-law, my ex-husband, the five of us, and we're going on the family feud. Let me tell you, I've been waiting on that one. That'd be a good one. All right. Turning your child's bedroom into something for you. Freedom? that's freedom. Yeah, I'm with you,

cute. my gosh, can't wait to see that. I'm sure you are.

Please do. That would be a good one.

Fun.

I tried that.

I'm going here, man. I'm going here.

I believe in it

philosophically, but emotionally I don't like it.

You can't handle it. Dawn's like, no, she looks like she's going to cry.

I mean, meanwhile,

Just

get a bigger house! Like, I- like-

off, this off. Yeah, exactly. Have enough rooms for everybody.

But

for me, when he left, it was exciting. I thought it was the new chapter from which it was. So I knew he wasn't really going to come back. I knew he was doing his thing. So I was excited for him. just didn't see it coming. There was no way I saw it coming. So I was happy to transform and make a whole new life for myself. And then it was the rest.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, if

promise they're never coming back, then it's a different story.

AHHHH

They can't promise that. They can't

Yeah,

promise that,

yeah.

Lauren. But I was going to turn my son's room into a gym and then I was like, yeah, no, but where my heart goes is like, but where is he going to, like if he has no other home to come home to and I want him to have his space in my home because he doesn't have that in his dad's. So I wanted to have that here for him. So I can't. Plus it stinks.

Alright.

Yeah.

Hmm

Yeah. That makes sense. Done.

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Yeah

Having weekend.

It can't be anything else besides a shoe repository.

HAHAHAHA

That's what it is now forever, till the house. Yes.

⁓ Forever. All right. Happy

Hey, yeah.

weekends with absolutely no plans. It's a freedom freaking out. ⁓ yeah.

I love those.

What even is that? I've never heard of that.

do that because

I really did love doing things with him. He loved to go to the zoo, so we went to the zoo. We did things together. We had a lot of fun together. He left at a very young age, so we were doing a lot of the fun things. So mixed, movies, mixed, you know. Yeah.

Yeah.

mixed. ⁓

next

Yeah,

your child.

if you gave

me a weekend to myself now, I would feel confused or like weird. Like there would be a very literal ⁓ neurochemical event, right? It wouldn't feel comfortable, but there is something about, you know that hour at night after everybody, the kid is in bed, you know, and I have like an hour that I like, I just own it. It's It's like really good hour.

Me too.

It's nice.

It's nice.

So like if you expand that to a weekend, imagine. ⁓ I do think it would feel odd for a while though, really odd. Yeah.

All right, and what about your partner suddenly wanting more of your time and attention? Do we like that? Laurie.

I don't have an answer because it didn't exist, but I'll say yes to more time with my partner.

Would you want it now? Yeah. ⁓

I know, you guys know I already have a lot of time with my partner, because we designed that. you know, there's just, yeah, there's just not, yeah, yeah. I don't need more at the moment, but let's see what happens when I actually have an empty nest. I might absolutely be the partner that does that. We shall see.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love that.

And you all know I don't have a partner yet.

Yeah, she's looking for her gym guy. Yeah.

It's kind of exciting. It's

kind of exciting. Very interesting. Okay, last one. The first holiday that doesn't feel the same. That is ⁓ hard. That is definitely hard. That's interesting. Do you guys think that empty nesting is harder on moms than dads? I know we talked about it a little bit, but just these little scenarios, do you think it's harder for them?

Yeah.

Mm-mm, mm-mm.

That was a hard one. That was hard. Yeah.

That's a hard one.

That's so hard.

parenting. Like whoever's the most acclimated to the thing that changes.

Yeah. Would you go back

I think it-

to the chaos if you could? Like if you were all gone and then would you take it back if you could? Like that.

I think it's-

asked me postmenopausal I wonder if the answer is different but you know I was diagnosed infertile for a lot of years and holidays were hard then too ⁓

That's right.

Mm-mm.

Yeah. Interesting. Wow.

I love it. All right. Well, that was good. That was interesting to see how you guys were responding to that one. All right. Are you listeners? Are you navigating the empty nest right now or are you preparing for it? We would love to hear your story here on Menopause Love Lounge. You can send us a DM or a voice note about what the transition has been like for you and your experience might be featured in a future episode. We would love to talk about it on here.

Good game.

So thank you guys for revealing all of the things that you did. Juni, I know that was not easy for you, so thank you so much for sharing your story on that. And it sounds like we are all just such great moms. We really are. And I love that. And it comes out in each and every one of us. So very exciting. Anything else to add, ladies, before we sign off from the lounge today?

Yeah, thank you, Julie.

Thank

you.

you

We will always be moming.

I know it's the best. That's the best. All right.

And I'm

just gonna add one thing, which is to be a great mom, we need to know how to mother ourselves. Because if we're not taking good care of ourselves, what do we have? We're gonna be empty and drained. you know, that's an important piece.

Yes. Yes.

Amen. Amen.

Yeah, great

point. I love that. Thank you for sharing. All right, you guys, that is it for the ladies of the Love Lounge this week. We will see you guys next week. Have a great one. Bye.

100%.

Bye!