Vibrant Nation

Sharing stories, starting conversations

When I was in high school, I had two of those inspiring teachers that people sometimes talk about. They said to me, "You know, you're a really good writer. You should become a journalist. You should think about working for the high school newspaper." These words from two adults that I admired and respected really set me on a path. Teenagers are so vulnerable and open to suggestion; I sometimes wonder, "If they had said I was good at cooking, would I have ended up a baker?" As it is, I've been a journalist for all of my adult life, with some forays into other things that interested me, like fiction and cookbooks.

This is what has sustained my work all along: the desire to talk to people. My daughter says that if you spend five minutes with me, you'll end up telling me your life story, which she means as a great compliment. I like to hear what other people have to say and I like to share what people have to say with readers who might not otherwise have access to that information. I love the notion of trying to share a story with readers, of trying to start a conversation, if you will.

Stories from the empty nest

One of the reasons I loved working on The Empty Nest anthology is that it enabled me to have a conversation with 30 other writers without ever leaving my desk. We had our own little community of parents who were going through very similar and very different experiences. I don't like the stereotype of the woman over 50 who's sitting in an empty house, tearing her hair, wondering what to do next. It's outdated and limiting to women. So, finding contributing writers, I tried to cast as wide a net as I could. I tried really hard to find a range of experiences so that there was no kind of family that wasn't represented in the book.

In my book, there are writers who had five children and have an empty nest. There are writers with only children who had an empty nest. There are nests that refill. Some of the stories, particularly in this economy, were surprising and interesting to me: adult children who come home essentially because they have to. There are some heartbreaking stories too. We have to remember that on some level the empty nest is a luxury. Not all of us are so lucky as to watch our children march off to some wonderful college and have an exciting life.

The heart of the empty nest

The empty nest is a very complicated phenomenon and it doesn't end when the kids leave home. It's really a process. My daughter is now finishing her sophomore year in college and I can say for a certainty that it's not a question of full and then empty--it's full and then different! I wanted to get at the heart of this experience--how people felt about their empty nest and how they dealt with those feelings.

The empty nest feels huge because our children are literally moving out of the family home, but it's only one of many transitions that we'll go through as parents. My older friends tell me: Just wait for the wedding, wait for the grandchildren! So, I think this is probably the first big opportunity for us to get our act together as parents. I hope that an ancillary benefit to all of these essays is that people really turn around and look at their kids and take a breath--and try to appreciate the moments that we have together.

What advice do you have for a friend who is dreading her empty nest? Follow this link to share your tips--you may win a FREE COPY of Karen's new book!