I have two adult children now in their early 20s.
Both of them have been out of our family home for many years as they both lived elsewhere during their university years. They both found good jobs immediately after graduating from school, and also lived away from the family home as new entrants to the workforce.
Our family home has effectively been an empty nest for many years, but I never thought of it as such until recently. Earlier this year our younger son started working full-time in another city and cleared out his “room” in the family home as part of his move to this other city. With that, neither of our sons had a “room” in the family home. This meant that in practice and in spirit our family home was an empty nest. That realization made me sad.
While we do miss seeing our sons on a daily basis, our lives have become much simpler as empty nesters. Meal planning and preparation take less time. We eat well, but we have much more flexibility in what we want eat, and no longer feel the need to prepare a "full and complete" meal. We no longer have to check with three other people before using one of the cars. We no longer worry about everyone getting home at the end of the night.
Our older son lived in residence on-campus for his first year of university. He then lived off-campus for years two-to-four of his undergraduate studies, and in that same place during his first year in the workforce. No doubt he was living in a student building, which was fine while he was a student, but not so much when he had to get up early in the morning to get ready for work. After a period of time of being a “working man” and being surrounded by students, he realized it was time to move. He started looking for a new place to live and in that process discovered that rent in the areas he wanted to live, and layout/size of place he wanted were more expensive than what he had anticipated. This led to a conversation with us parents as to whether he would be better off buying a place, making a mortgage payment and building up equity in a home, instead of paying rent. We were not fans of paying rent to begin with, and so with rent payments being so high, it made sense to consider buying a home and making a mortgage payment instead.
Our son was a good saver and had a decent nest egg built up, but could use some additional savings to put down a larger down-payment. I’m sharing this tangential story with you, because our older son who moved out of the family home at age 17 to attend university, would move back into the family home at age 22 to save up more money for his home purchase. As a result we were no longer empty nesters. This lasted a full year. He was working full-time at this point and saved a lot of money while living at home that he put towards a down payment on a condo, his first home. Mission accomplished.
One other side note to being empty nesters. Our adult son came back home, and we were happy to have him with us, as there was a good reason for him returning home. However this return home was not without adjustments and sacrifices being made. Our son lost some independence and freedom; after having lived on his own for over five years, he was living with two other people and living under their rules. After not keeping tabs on his whereabouts for five years, we reverted back to wanting to know when he’d be home at night. There was some natural tension in the situation that we all managed to overcome. When he bought and moved into his condo we were all very happy for multiple reasons.
When you become empty nesters, it is a good opportunity to assess whether it is time to downsize your family home. Sure, you want that extra space for when the children come to visit, or other family or friends stay overnight. But how often does that happen? Is it worth maintaining the extra space that you rarely use? You may be sitting on some equity in a larger home that you want to monetize. Why not take that money off the table? I’ve seen many family and friends wait too long after becoming empty nesters, to get serious about downsizing, to the point where the effort required to purge a lifetime of belongings and go through the process of moving becomes too much of a burden in their minds. They become paralyzed by the thought of moving, and don't do it. Its an opportunity lost and it ends up falling to their children to dispose of the larger family home. No one wants that project.
Our younger son is working/living in Toronto. He has no plans to come back to Ottawa. He has fully embraced the bigger City. When we do see him in Toronto or Ottawa, or when see his older brother, we are very excited and happy to see them. It reminds me of how happy my mom is to see me. And, it reminded me that as parents you’ll always love your children and find your time together to be very precious, especially in the early days of them leaving home and leaving their parents as empty nesters.
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