Jane 
There is a strange thing that happens when your children grow up. Nobody needs you at 4pm anymore.
Nobody needs collecting. Nobody needs feeding immediately because they are apparently STARVING despite having eaten three hours earlier. Nobody suddenly remembers at 9pm that they need a Roman costume for school tomorrow.
You spent years dreaming about having more time then you get it. And sometimes you don’t quite know what to do with it.
The empty nest isn’t only about missing your children
We often talk about empty nest syndrome as though it is simply about missing the physical presence of our children. Of course, that’s part of it. You miss the noise, the conversations, the mess created by the shoes abandoned in ridiculous places. Even the irritation of asking somebody for the fifth time to put a plate in the dishwasher.
But I think something deeper happens too.
We miss being needed.
For years, motherhood gives our lives a structure that we barely notice while we’re living it. There are the school runs, meals, homework, appointments, activities, birthdays, worries, emergencies and endless pieces of life administration.
Our children’s lives become woven through our own and then, gradually, that changes. They become independent. They make their own decisions. They build relationships and careers. They have places to go that don’t involve us.
While this is exactly what we raised them to do it doesn’t stop the emotional hurt.
This is where my Anchor Theory comes in
I’ve been thinking about the idea of an anchor in motherhood.
For many years, our children are one of the strongest anchors in our lives. They don’t necessarily define everything about us, but they give our days rhythm, responsibility and purpose.
Then the anchor begins to lift.
The child hasn’t disappeared. The love certainly hasn’t disappeared.
But the role has changed.
And I think this is where some mothers experience what I call the drift.
You are no longer anchored in quite the same place, but you haven’t yet discovered what will anchor the next stage of your life.
The Drift
The Drift might look surprisingly ordinary. You might find yourself scrolling more. You might feel restless even though there is nothing obviously wrong. You might become disproportionately excited when your child phones. You might fill the diary because an empty week feels uncomfortable.
Or you might look around one morning and think: ‘What exactly am I supposed to be doing now?’
That doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a life and it certainly doesn’t mean you want your 23-year-old to move back home and start leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor again.
It simply means that a structure which existed for decades has changed. We shouldn’t be surprised if it takes us a little while to adjust.
Don’t replace the child. Build another anchor.
This is the important part of Anchor Theory.
The answer isn’t to find something to distract yourself until your children visit. Nor is it to cling more tightly to them because we are frightened of becoming less important in their lives.
We need anchors of our own.
Your new anchor might be work. It might be creativity. It might be friendships.
It could be travelling, studying, starting a business, getting stronger, volunteering, writing, mentoring, campaigning or finally doing something you’ve been quietly thinking about for twenty years.
And you don’t need to identify one enormous purpose. Perhaps that’s far too much pressure. Start smaller.
Ask yourself:
‘What makes me feel connected to my own life?‘
That is a very different question from asking what keeps me busy.
Motherhood hasn’t ended
This is something I feel strongly about. The empty nest doesn’t make us former mothers. Our children still need us. They just need us differently.
Perhaps one of the hardest transitions in motherhood is moving from manager to witness.
We cannot organise every outcome. We cannot protect them from every mistake.
Sometimes our job is simply to stand nearby, love them and allow them to build their own lives. While they are doing that, perhaps we have some building of our own to do.
What anchors you now?
So this week I want to leave you with one question.
Not:
What am I going to do with all this spare time?
But:
What will anchor me in this next chapter of my life?
You don’t need the answer immediately. Sometimes there is a period between one anchor lifting and another taking hold. That uncomfortable space is not necessarily emptiness. It might simply be transition.
And perhaps the empty nest isn’t asking us to stop being mothers at all.
Perhaps it is asking us to remember that we were women before our children arrived and we are still women now that they are building lives of their own.
Our children are beginning their next chapter.
We are allowed to begin ours too.
