The Nest Isn’t Meant to Stay Full
What If the Closeness We Want Requires the Space We Fear?
We talk about empty nests as if they’re barren. Abandoned.
But maybe that misses the point.
The nest was never meant to stay full.
Its purpose is to give our children enough to leave.
And when they do, what’s left behind isn’t emptiness—it’s space.
Space to stretch, to breathe, to discover who they are—beyond who they’ve needed us to be.
Our children don’t outgrow us. They outgrow the nest.
And in doing so, they give us room to fly again, too.
We’d rehearsed this goodbye like a routine we didn’t want to perform.
Her new apartment was a mess of boxes and beginnings. We both knew how it would go. She’d give me the sign—a tiny nod, almost nothing—and I’d turn and leave. No long hugs. No words that would crack us open. Just a silent agreement to make it quick, even though nothing about it felt easy.
When she gave me that nod, I hugged her once, told her I loved her, and walked out of that building with steady steps. I made it all the way to my car before the sobs came.
Later, I’d learn she did the same—kept it together until she was alone in her bathroom, then let herself cry.
But we didn’t fall apart because something went wrong. We were feeling the weight of something that had gone right.
The ache didn’t come from falling short. It came from reaching the goal—and having to let go.
From my front seat, I watched the other parents walking to their cars, looking shell-shocked, and I kept thinking: Why don’t I feel destroyed?
Don’t get me wrong—I was grieving. But mostly, I felt relief. Accomplishment. Like we’d done the thing I set out to do eighteen years ago.
What hit me in that moment wasn’t confusion. It was clarity.
As a parent—and as someone who’s spent years working with other parents—I recognized something I wish more people knew:
We don’t need to be essential to be important.
My role wasn’t disappearing. It was shifting. And that shift wasn’t failure. It was proof I was right where I was supposed to be.
We’ve been taught to parent as if the goal is to be needed forever. To measure success by how tightly they cling, how often they call, how close they stay.
But what if that’s backwards?
What if success isn’t being needed—but being chosen?
Parenting well doesn’t lead to dependence. It leads to closeness—anchored in the way we show up: reliable, reasonable, and respectable.
Our job isn’t to raise children who can’t function without us. It’s to raise adults who choose to include us in lives they’ve built themselves.
What comes next lays the foundation for everything that follows.