Empty Nest Syndrome in NYC: Motherhood, Depression, and Finding Yourself After Your Children Leave for College
"Empty nest syndrome" - or, the feeling of emptiness many parents have after their child leaves home for the first time - is often spoken about in playful or self-deprecating terms. As with many other features of parenthood, these feelings of sadness and loss are often minimized. However, more recently, the significance of empty nesting has begun to be taken more seriously and both unknown and high-profile people have begun to speak up about their experiences when their children left home.
Of course, it is no surprise that a child leaving for college would make parents feel sad: for nearly two decades, much of their life has revolved around raising them: organizing schedules, driving them to friends' houses, attending parent-teacher conferences, helping with homework, worrying about friendships, perhaps even taking them to a therapist for adolescents, and preparing for the college admissions process. Even if you are excited for the experiences your child will no-doubt experience, it can be difficult to re-organize a life around you, your relationship(s), and your interests.
In an article for the New York Post, entitled "NYC moms are turning 'empty nest syndrome' into a lucrative opportunity," journalist Marissa Matozzo explored how Manhattan mothers are responding to this transition, rebuilding their social lives, and pursuing interests that had taken a back seat to being a parent. She reached out to Dr. Jordan Conrad, New York City psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of Lexington Park Psychotherapy, to discuss the psychological challenges involved with becoming an empty nester, and how New York City offers unusual opportunities for parents attempting to find themselves again as they enter this new stage of life.
Motherhood, Depression, and Anxiety: The Empty Nest Syndrome Is More Than a Lack of Children
The term empty nest syndrome is not a formally recognized condition, but captures a feeling that many parents have when their children leave home. As Dr. Conrad explained to the New York Post, "Becoming an empty nester is a bigger identity shift than many people expect."
The reasons for this are sometimes obvious: parents raising teenagers in New York City, the years leading up to college can be extraordinarily demanding. After the famously intense high school admissions process, parents' lives become shrouded in obligations to their teenager: taking them to sports, signing up for robotics programs, attending piano recitals, encouraging their creative writing, helping them with college applicatoins. And, in addition to the sheer time-comittment of having a teenager in NYC, parents' emotions can be blown about by the ups-and-downs of teenage anxiety, teenage depression, problems with friends, break-ups, make-ups, and everything in between. As the saying goes: you're only as happy as your least happy child.
Then, one day, it ends. You return home, and its quiet. No basement filled with a softball team of teenagers, no clothes piled on the staircase, no battalion's worth of food disapearing week after week.
Of course, you don't stop being a parent when a child leaves for college. Many parents feel an increased anxiety for their children in this time, and many struggle with depression as well. Even as they continue to offer advice and provide financial and emotional support, many parents, and particularly mothers, feel that their identities dissappear almost overnight.
Motherhood, Identity, and the Loss of Everyday Structure
One of the women interviewed by the Post, Gwen Mitrano, described how quiet her home became after her daughters left for college. She came to the realization that much of her social life would disapear with her child as well. Dr. Conrad discussed with Matozzo how the transition from being a parent to a teenager in Manhattan to being an empty nester often involves losing a social environment, not just one's children:
“It can feel that your entire social life was simply a byproduct of your child’s life, and now you need to learn how to be around people again.”
If that seems extreme, consider how many friendships develop through children's activities: parents meet at school events, spend time together at sporting events, see each other at pick-ups and drop-offs, and organize birthday parties and carpools with one another. Over time, these relationships can turn into genuine friendships and so when a child leaves home, the reasons that sustained these friendships leave with them.
Many people starting therapy for mothers in NYC often report the same feeling. They find themselves living in the same apartment, married to the same person, working the same job... but feel that their life has become unfamiliar somehow. She now hasmore freedom than she has had in years, but also fewer ideas about what she wants to do with it. This is one reason why depression in mothers around this time often involves questions of identity and personal fulfillment, rather than simply feelings of sadness alone.
When Empty Nest Syndrome Becomes Depression or Anxiety
Parents often spend so much of their time paying attention to their children's lives that they can forget to take care of their own. Although it feels perfectly natural to spend hours searching for a teen therapist in Manhattan preventatively, searching for therapy for parents only comes up when parents are at their wits end.
Not every parent experiences empty nest syndrome and sadness after a child leaves home is perfectly understandable. However, as we have discussed before, many Manhattan professionals with intense careers deprioritize themselves and only seek therapy after there is a major problem rather than getting in front of problems before they become serious. It should be no surprise to anyone that major life transitions can contribute to persistent psychological problems in otherwise stable adults, as well as relational problems in otherwise healthy couples. Getting in front of these issues by working with an anxiety therapist, depression therapist, or couples therapist in NYC before the problems deepen is much better than waiting until they get out of control.
The Psychological Transitions of Motherhood Do Not End After Pregnancy
Discussions of maternal mental health typically focus on pregnancy, postpartum depression, and anxiety in the time leading up to childbirth and the time just after. Obviously these are important concerns, but they represent only a fraction of what it is to be a mom.
Becoming a mother changes a woman's responsibilities, relationships, priorities, role in society, the way others perceive her, and the way she perceives and understands herself. But just like becoming an "adult" one does not just become a "mother" and that's it - your relationship to motherhood shifts and changes as babies become toddlers, toddlers become kids, kids become teens, and teens become young adults and then adults in their own right. The emotional difficulties that mothers face in each of these moments are not the same and it requires an experienced and nuanced therapist to work with mothers throughout this journey.
Finding New Connections in Manhattan
The New York Post article features the former Vogue executive, Donna Korren, who founded Empty Quester, a social network for women navigating midlife and recreating themselves after their children leave. Korren emphasizes that having an empty nest is not exclusively a loss, though it can feel that way - it can be an opportunity for women to establish friendships and explroe new interests, and so she has organized dinners and meetups designed to facilitate their growth.
Korren's approach is an excellent one and reflects an important part of Dr. Conrad's advice.
“For that reason, one of the best things empty nesters can do to re-engage with themselves and develop their social lives is to find something that they are interested in — preferably something they don’t know that well – and do it with other people who are also interested in it.”
This can sound easier than it really is. When people feel lonely and depressed, the temptation can be to either retreat from social gatherings all together, or to try to recreat the ones they previously enjoyed. But that doesn't work when the dividing line between before and after is a major life event (e.g., having children, moving cities, etc.); the friendships and activities that made sense when raising teenagers may not make sense now.
Psychotherapy for Mothers Navigating an Empty Nest
For some parents, the transition to an empty nest is bittersweet. Moments of sadness are punctuated by truly fun experiences with new friends trying new activities, traveling to new places, reminding yourself of who you are. However, too many parents resign themselves to their sadness or feel "too old" to live their lives.
At Lexington Park Psychotherapy, our team understand these issues with depth and nuance. A good therapist in Manhattan can help you figure out who you want to be now that you have the opportunity to be whatever it is you've always wanted, without the tremendous obligation of parenting a teenager in NYC. Our therapists can help you examine the change in your life, what feels lost, and what the next stage of your life can look like. Sometimes this means addressing difficulties in a relationship, sometimes it is recognizing the way that you have neglected your personal ambitions for years.
The departure of a child may bring an important part of parenting to a close, but it also paves a path to a new part of life - one that involves stepping out of your own way and becoming whomever you want to be. As Dr. Conrad observed in his interview, New York City offers no shortage of possibilities. The challenge is finding which of those possibilities genuinely interests you.
