Sending the Kids Off to School…Now What?

Last week I was working on my blog post, writing about the crazy relationship we Minnesotans have to summer when I got distracted and unmotivated and forgot to write anything. That’s kind of how my summer is going. It is only a couple of weeks until my tiniest baby starts high school and I am facing hard growing pains. Here’s the post I always recycle about back to school. As I reread it, I realize it is also pretty good advice for how to think about my impending Empty Nest Syndrome.

Labor Day is almost here! The kids are all going off to school and parents everywhere are doing the happy dance.

If you’re an old momma like me, you’ve been down this road before. September I get the house back, I find a few extra free hours and I don’t have to feed them over and over again. Even though I work full time, my kid’s summer schedule highly disrupts my life and as much as I love summer, I am dying for some structure.

If this is the first time you’ve sent your kid off to school, I have a few words of caution. It is a big deal. It just isn’t necessarily the big deal you think it is.

If this is your first fall without kids home, especially if you have been home with the kids for years, I can tell you that you are going to need a lot more recovery time than you are planning. If you have been home with little ones for years, you may find that you find some damage to your attention span, your internal clock, your drive, your sense of self.

For the past 5-10 years you have been doing what others need, what others want. You have been eating and sleeping on someone else’s clock. You have eaten standing up, eaten what was left on the plate. You have watched way too many cartoons and read the same book over and over. You have made all decisions first based on what was right for them, then what was right for you. Once, when the kids were babies, you knew that you were dangerously sleep deprived and you survived and recovered. At this stage you may be dangerously free time deprived.

SAHMs (and maybe SAHDs too but I don’t have as much experience with them) often plan to go back to work or back to school or start the next stage of their life once “the kids are in school”. When the decision is made to cut back hours or rearrange the work schedule or give up the career it is almost always until “the kids are in school”. So…the kids are in school. Now what?

My prescription for all newly liberated stay at home parents is go slow. Take this year, yes this whole year to rediscover yourself. You’ve grown and changed a lot in this past challenging, rewarding stage and haven’t even had time to notice that you aren’t the person you used to be.

Rest. Allow yourself to stare at the walls, get nothing done, sleep, eat, wander. Just know that you are on a journey of rediscovery.

Window shop. Look at the women around you who have big kids. Find some role models. What sounds good? What sounds terrible? Just daydream about this stage.

Talk to your partner. If you have been home, a lot of what you have been doing still needs to be done. I am so glad the kids are in school but they aren’t there all day, they aren’t there every day. There are endless school release day and unpredictable sick days that must be covered.  There are doctor appointments and dentist appointments and someone has to meet the repair person at the house. There is still the house and laundry and food prep and the errands. Any changes you make are going to influence your family and your partner needs to have your back.

Read a book. A big one with long grown up words. Read something not about kids. Read something for fun and read something for challenge.

Purge. If for some reason the resting and reading isn’t filling your days, start purging. Throw out baby clothes and toys and stuff you are never going to wear. Simplify. Let go of what isn’t right anymore.

Exercise. I put this on everyone’s prescription no matter what life transition you are going through because there is no excuse that lets you stop moving your body. Use it or lose it baby. Do it for your health. Do it for your stress. Do it to set a good example for your kids. Do it to get your groove back. Just do something. Set a goal. Create a new habit.

Journal. About the same time that you became a mother, you lost a huge chunk of who you thought you were as well as any quiet time for reflection. Do some reflection. Walk, meditate, pray, write. Get to know yourself before you make any big decisions. Lots of what you thought you would want, who you thought you would be doesn’t fit you anymore.

Give your relationships some attention. Call old friends who don’t have little ones and have grown up lunch. Spend some time alone with your parents or siblings. Meet your partner for lunch or better yet, have them come home for lunch… you know…naked lunch.

Be gentle with yourself. The world says that raising kids is the most valuable thing anyone can do but that certainly isn’t how they treat people who do it. You aren’t done yet. School isn’t the end point you may have thought it would be. And life is a marathon…and this is the quiet mile in the middle where you can’t quite see what is coming around the next bend.

Maureen