EMPTY NESTERS ...

Being a mother of a certain age and stage I find myself cropping up in all manner of magazine and newspaper articles. Well not me specifically, however the genre into which I gather I have been pidgeon-holed as "empty nester"! Ironically there seems to be a mass of confusion as to whether or not I should be joyous or distraught, celebrating the freedom or spending all waking hours wondering what our off spring are doing in their young and active lives whilst we, their 'no longer needed for hourly feeding/washing/chauffeuring or nagging mothers weep into our empty linen baskets and wallow in the savings we're bound to make by not wasting electricity, leaving hair straighteners on and using up the loo roll just because its fun to! Apparantly I should be thinking of taking my own 'gap year' around South America, walking the Great Wall of China for Charity and Learning Mandarin and how to Salsa in my spare time. The thought of having a day out without having to rush back in time for the school gate pick up still hasn't quite sunk in despite it being about 7 years since offspring no. 2 was able enough and keen enough to find her own way to and from anywhere she wanted to be without me!.
I have noticed a fairly widespread change in the characteristics of my friendship group. A sense of complex depression mingled with the thoughts of post teen "where am I going, what am I doing" syndrome. Some 30+ years ago most of us would be doing our impression of Jane Austin and attempting to find suitable suitors for our almost certainly in work youngsters, but times have definitely changed and seeing our daughters walk up the aisle is no longer within the realms of high expectations for most of our 20 somethings. Then again the chance that we might become grandmothers before the stage at which dribbling is something we're more accustomed to than ever before. Providing we've managed to steer our kids (as if we have any sway!!!) through their teens and early twenties before they're having to cope with their own parenting powers then we are likely to find ourselves in the in-between decade of "empty nesters"...