The pink painted walls and the pink dream catcher behind Anna and Alexander suggest that it was once a girl’s room. In the corner is a white steel chair with a large plush panda bear perched on it.
Her daughter left the house two years ago, and at the age of 25 she moved into her first apartment of her own. The family – who once ate at the table with four people – has shrunk. Now there are only Anna and Alexander.
“It’s funny,” says Alexander. “When you come into your daughter’s room and there’s nobody there. The house became emptier when our two daughters moved – and it became quieter. ”
Learn to let go
It’s an up and down, says Anna. Sometimes it hurts more again, then she can cope with it quite well. “It is also nice as a mother to see how the daughters pack their lives.”
“When our two daughters moved, the house became emptier and it became quieter.”
But this emptiness and the pain when the children are fully fledged … In the 1960s, American sociologists came up with a term for it: the empty nest syndrome. This begins after the last child has moved out and lasts one and a half to two years. It is typical when parents feel alone, they feel sadness and pain.
It’s a long process
Others specified the phenomenon further. For example Georgios Papastefanou. He speaks of the “pre-empty nest” when the replacement process begins at home. The “Partial Empty Nest” kicks in when the children study nearby and come home at the weekend, and the “Post Empty Nest” when the children have moved out completely.
“Children don’t leave their parents overnight, it’s a process that takes years,” Anna also knows. Alexander tells how the children in primary school came home for lunch at lunchtime. At grammar school, they were then away from home all day, including during their studies and their first job. And then as they got older, they were out on the weekends. Until they were gone completely. “As parents, you also know that one day the children will get older and want to have their own four walls.”
It was harder for the father
“It was probably a little more difficult for him with the second daughter,” says Anna, pointing to her husband. At that time they helped their child move. They saw the moving boxes being carried from the house into the car and into the new apartment. “When we drove home from her apartment late in the evening we didn’t say a word. And we didn’t drink a glass of wine at home either. ” Anna wouldn’t drink it if she wasn’t doing so well.
“From one day to the next, the bed was gone.”
It was even a little harder with the first daughter. Because she wanted to take care of her move alone. The parents knew that she had found an apartment. But somehow they were taken by surprise. “From one day to the next the bed was gone.”
After the move, they are even closer to the children
What was once annoying may be missing a year later. There used to be used plates on the table next to the sink in the kitchen. Shoes were in the aisle. Wet towels on the sofa. Alexander says that they overfilled the refrigerator for the first few months. There was more than they could have eaten. They didn’t have that under control until about 30 purchases and six months later.
Anna and Alexander say today that they are much closer to their children today than they were before. “After moving out, you meet again on a different level. Our daughters let us participate much more in their lives and are more communicative. “
And Alexander adds: “It is all the more beautiful to see the values our children have taken from their parents’ home.” The room will remain pink in the future. “Because it is our daughter’s room.”
Note: In a second report next week, Zentralplus will ask a psychotherapist about the empty nest syndrome.
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