Episode 25: Kids Leaving for College: Facing the Empty Nest
What happens when the college drop-off is over and the house gets quiet? Rob and Brent talk honestly about kids leaving for college, the emotions that come with the empty nest, and how this transition can reshape family life, identity, and what comes next.
Links, resources, books mentioned:
Topics we are covering in this episode:
The empty nest transition
Kids leaving for college
College drop-off and the emotions that follow
Changing parent-child communication
Family identity and shifting household rhythms
Transcript:
Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.
Lena: You spend years getting your kids ready to leave home, but no one really prepares you for what it feels like when they do. Today on Midlife Circus, Rob and Brent talk about college drop offs, changing family rhythms, and the very real emotions behind the empty nest. Before we begin, remember to follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Let's dive into kids leaving for college, facing the empty nest.
Rob: Brent, what college memory do you have that you hope your kids don't repeat?
Brent: That is a good one, Rob.
Rob: And I don't think they listen to the podcast, so you can get away saying anything you want since I doubt they're listening to us talk.
Brent: Highly unlikely that my kids would actually listen to their dad on a podcast. So the one that comes to mind for me is, you know, when you go to college, there's this rhythm that you start to learn. It's how you interact with your professors. When do you study? When do you not study?
When's the fun? Like all those different things that you learn in college. I was a slow learner in that one, Rob. So to kind of set the stage here is at the end of my freshman year, I was meeting with my guidance counselor and I was in the engineering school at the University of Colorado. And he said, You know what, Brent?
I don't think engineering is for you. Because I did really bad my second semester. And I clearly had one track rhythm, which was, this is so much fun. College was just too much fun. And I didn't realize the challenge of the schoolwork associated with engineering school, but also just being in school.
I just like, I'll figure it out. And I was a pretty good, I'll wing it person in high school and that worked out well. It didn't serve me well in college. So it took me a few years. I started to learn how to interact with professors better, and really to learn how to use TAs and how to partner with other people in your classes and really work on things together.
So after college, I went on a three month trip to Europe and I did the Eurail with a buddy. And I called home, this is pre cell phones of course, I called home and I talked to my dad and he goes, Brent, I got a letter from the University of Colorado on the mail today. My heart sunk. I was like, oh no, I didn't graduate. That was the first thing that came to mind.
I'm like, maybe I didn't finish a class.
Rob: One class was missing something.
Brent: And he goes, congratulations. You made the dean's list. Of course, you did. Well, Rob, it took me five years to get to that level. I started out so bad, and I just didn't understand the rhythm.
And so I hope my kids are much quicker learners on that. I would assume that they are because they both do pretty well in school. And my older who's in college is doing well, and I just didn't quite get it. So that was a learning. I hope that they understand the rhythm of college.
I hope they have a ton of fun, but they recognize the importance of carving out time for the studying aspect of it. I just wasn't good at that, Rob.
Rob: That's funny. I don't think I ever figured out the studying part until after I graduated. I barely graduated. I definitely had below a three point o GPA graduating from college. It was it was, you know, work, party just a little bit, but work a lot to help pay for school and then, try and get out to get that big fancy job.
And so, like you, I did not learn how to how to study while I was in school. It was actually after I left that I had to figure some of that stuff out while I was in the workforce.
Brent: And those that are watching this on YouTube, you can see that we're proud with our colors. So I've got the University of Colorado gear on. You've got the Oregon State gear on. Go be. We both made it through college.
So all we can ask is our kids and those that are listening that their kids get a great experience and make it through as well.
Rob: Absolutely. And that's a great, kind of segue, Brent, as we go into our main discussion today, which is really going to be about a very significant real midlife transition. Watching your kids leave the house, whether it be go off to college, leave the house and go on to a trade school, or go into the working world, when they actually grow up a little bit and they actually leave the nest and they are away from home for an extended period of time for the first time. We're going to talk about the types of stages families experience along the journey from college applications to the summer before they leave for school, what the drop off experience is like a little bit, and even what happens as your kids get a little bit older, what it feels like when the communication starts to drop off and they're not calling home as much for help. During this discussion, we're going to unpack a little bit about what is happening emotionally for the parents during the journey.
This episode hopefully puts a voice to that experience and helps anyone that has kids at home prepare for the transition, but it also might give some of you that have actually had your kids leave the house a little bit of a nostalgic look back on what that experience was for you. Brent, you have two sons. The youngest is getting ready to graduate from high school here in just a little over a month now. Your oldest is finishing his third year of college. So you have some experience, I would say, doing this and the upcoming transition you're going to go through having already had one son transition away from the house.
Let's talk about a little bit about your experience with son number one, so your oldest, and how that experience is helping you prepare for your youngest son to leave the house and start going to school. What were the stages of kind of a life that you went through as the kids were getting ready to leave the house? And what was your experience going through those stages?
Brent: Well, the first stage, which is really strange is like that college application chaos. And it's really strange because kudos to the colleges, they've made it this competitive environment and it's challenging in the applications, it's really intense. I didn't experience that when I went through it a million years ago, but it's so different in the sense of schools are hard to get into, especially if you're targeting specific schools and maybe they've got a higher standard for academics or not even that, like the financial aspect. I mean, all these things come into play. It puts so much pressure on the student, the kid, and then the parents are trying to go along in the journey, but it's all of this.
And so I'm in the midst of it right now with my younger child, because all of the responses are coming back from universities. And so we are riding this roller coaster of emotions day in, day out of, am I going to get into the school? What happens if I get into three schools that I like? How do I make a decision? So it's a lot of this decision making and anxiety and anticipation and fun too, because you see the joy of, I got into the school.
But then it's also interesting, you watch how they interact with their friends and maybe they applied to a lot of the same schools and one gets into one school, one doesn't get into the other school. And so it's just a really interesting dynamic. But what I will say is the amount of pressure that is put on the student is so high. It's very strange to observe. And I'm just trying to figure out the role that I play sometimes, because I understand we have a voice in it.
There's a financial voice and also we want to steer our child in a direction that we think that will be best served for them and where they're at in their life. But also it's letting go of the reins, helping them navigate this decision on their own too. It's hard Rob. And I would say from one kid to the next, it's both of them been challenging at this stage.
Rob: Well, it's interesting, and you shared this with me just a couple days ago, and I didn't make the connection until just today, Brent, that your youngest son got an email regarding his acceptance to a school, where I think about it when you and I were graduating from high school was a letter that showed up at your house. You either heard the letter or a big packet, and the big packet was you got in. The letter meant maybe next time. Maybe not such good news, but you were at home. And I can only imagine your son looking at his phone while he's at school catching a either acceptance or a decline or a deferral or a wait list while at school when he's not able to actually communicate and have those emotions with you personally when he you know, in person with you.
You shared that you got a note from your son in the middle of the day that he had got accepted to a school.
Brent: It's so strange. It is so weird. And a lot of times they're actually logging into a portal to see if they've been accepted or declined or waitlisted. So there's different stages and it's like this anticlimactic experience where you and I describe going to the mailbox and our experience was, do we get the packet or we get the letter? And the packet is all about the university and all the things that come with it.
And the letter is like, sorry. And it's so different. And I'll just get a text like I got in. And then when they come home, I'm like, woo hoo. And it's like onto the next, because you applied to a few different school.
So it's like, Okay, I'll wait for the next one and the next one. And I find it's just a very chaotic roller coaster of an experience, but it's also fun to see, in my case, his excitement of this entire process, because a lot of times they start the application process last fall. So it's several months removed. And so there's this big period of time and then, the letters that they have to write and get all the referrals and it's so, it's intense. I just find that it's a fascinating process, but it takes my wife and I on the highs and lows too, for sure.
Rob: Well, thanks for explaining. I was assuming it was an email, but it makes a lot more sense that it's a portal and they just log in and they get to see the list of schools they applied for. That makes a lot more sense. I thought it was even old school email that they were getting.
Brent: No, we do get the email too sometimes. And also we're listed as parents. And so we'll get an email sometimes of a congratulations, your child got into the school before I even talked to him. I'm like, this is so weird. Like the sequencing of things, I want this to be this like big celebration together, but it's not, it's very disjointed, but it's cool.
I'm really happy that he's in the middle of the process and he's getting his senses of relief. You're good heading into the summer now,
Rob: which I'm really interested in. Your youngest will have graduated from high school. It's a young adult. In a couple of months, he'll be completely on his own, and you got this summer kind of window. I think back to when I was 18, going through that first summer, pushing boundaries, trying to figure things out, like, I really have a curfew or not?
I'm going to be off on my own here in a couple of weeks. How are you approaching this summer given the experience you have with number one?
Brent: With my fingers crossed that it's all going to end well. That's where I start with is, Rob. Well, two things are happening for us this summer is my oldest decided to stay, where his college is at for the summer. So he's planning to do an internship and that's his goal. So that's new to us because he's come back every summer.
So we have to navigate that one. And then my younger son, I find it's one of the coolest summers for the kid because they don't have obligations on either side. They don't have college obligations or they don't have high school obligations. They have freedom obligations. Like just go have fun.
Like it's a weird space because do they have a curfew? Do they not? You still want to have like some rules of the road here, but then you're also trying to say he is going to college here in a few months. So it's a very strange summer and you start to see based on my previous experience, the flexing starts to happen pretty early. Like I'm a college kid now, dad.
Yeah, you are. And so it's probably a harder transition for me than him because he's like, I should just have no rules. So that's my anticipation. But I learned a lot from my first child that you have to learn to go with the flow because guess what? We're all navigating this together for the first time.
That's something that I've learned a lot with my older child is not only is it challenging for us as parents, but for him, my boys are trying to navigate the first as well. And so they're trying to figure out like, how far can I push this? Or maybe they don't even know they're pushing it and we feel like they're pushing it or vice versa. So there's a lot of firsts, as long as there's this communication. And my dad did that with me.
He was always like, Hey, staying out till three in the morning's a little bit odd here, like why? And of course I had a great reason, but he's like, Not a great reason. And so he's like, Let's just tone that down a little bit. That's living out of respect. And I actually respected him by saying it.
He wasn't mad, he just said, I'm up kind of waiting for you to get home because I didn't really know what your plan was and you just show up at three in the morning. So we'll get a little of that with my kids, I'm sure.
Rob: I didn't know your oldest wasn't coming home this summer. Yeah, that's going to be a new experience for the two of you. How are you thinking about that?
Brent: We talked to him over this last Christmas break, And we talked to him about that because we know, he'll be going into his senior year next year and there's always that importance of an internship and to get your first job. And from my understanding, statistically, if you have an internship versus not, it helps you quite a bit to get your first job. So he knows that as well. He also signed a year lease that goes through the entire summer. So leaving a place just empty is kind of one of those things like we challenge that.
But there's also this bit of, we got to let him out. Like you got to let him grow and evolve. And those are so fun summers, like in college. I did the same thing at one point in time. And it's like, you got to let him start to live his life the way he wants to live his life.
So it's strange for us for sure, Rob. Like that's been tricky to navigate because part of us, of course, we want him to come back, but the other part is we also know the importance of him starting to grow and and being as a young adult life.
Rob: And the summer was a big block of having him around the house from time to time. I mean, you're not sitting with them all day every day, but they're around the house. They're, you know, grabbing food out of the fridge when you're walking by and you're able to have those real quick one off conversations with them, but this will be the first summer where you don't get to have that.
Brent: So it's like you start to realize there's little voids on both sides, but I'm so happy for him. I mean, a cool thing. He's in a fun city and I think he'll have a blast. What we do as parents is we were just talking the other day, like we'll go visit him and we'll go to his space and he does a great job of taking us to different restaurants and different kind of attractions, parks, things like that in his community. So we'll just have to go to him, but so exciting, but it is definitely new for us.
Things get quiet, it's very strange.
Rob: And kids kind of help you get ready for it, right? As they're getting ready to leave for school that final summer, not having kids, I can only vicariously live through other people, and I hear the stories of their kids pushing curfew boundaries or, you know, they're off doing stuff with their friends all the time. So I think it's like I almost get the perception it feels like an evolutionary transition that happens that they actually help you as a parent get through that because they're always gone when they're during that summer. So they're off doing things, so they're not at home as often as you would like them to be. They're pushing boundaries, and so you might have this love hate relationship with some of the things, not with them as a person, but some of the things that they're doing.
So you're getting a little anxious, like, I wish you just got out the house sometimes. I've heard a parent say that to me before. They're just driving me crazy. I can't wait till they leave for college. So they kind of help prepare you, I think, a little bit for that drop off that's coming when they're getting ready to go to school.
Tell us a little bit about kind of that drop off experience. You're what you've done it now once. You're getting ready to do it again. Are you at the place now where you're ready to push the next one out, or are you just trying to hold on to every last little bit of time you can have and then look at drop off different?
Brent: So the first drop off, we all did the moving into the dorm together and just doing the shopping and getting to used to his new town and all that. So that was fun. Driving away is very empty because you know, like he's going to be gone for a while and the next time you'll probably see him either parents weekend or some sort of break. That's very strange feeling. I was never like ready to push him out.
Like that's even with my second kid, I would love him to stick around for a long time, but I know that that's not a healthy thing for him nor us. We've always had really good relationships with our kids. And so there's this piece where it is very sad, but it's also a part of the process. We did it, others do it. It happens with everybody.
And I learned from somebody that I worked with years ago. I mentioned to her, we were in a meeting and I knew her, I think it was her oldest was going to college at the time. And I said, You really sad? And she goes, You know, I'm sad, but I'm not going to show it in a way that puts the burden on my kid. Because what I don't want to do is like, I'm so sad that you're leaving and all of sudden they're starting to feel that pressure and they're feeling that kind of concern for the parent and the role reversal, like kid parenting the parent.
And so I learned from You don't put that burden on them. Back to your question, I'm so happy for my second child to go off to college. So there's so much joy there, but that's going to be a very strange feeling for us as parents, because then our house is quiet for sure. Because now we don't have either kid home. And that's the end of the line outside of our pets.
So it's a different experience, but there is that buildup, but I will fast forward a little bit. There are times when they do come back home in college and you're like, Time to go back to school. I'm not going to be shy about that one.
Rob: Why do you sleep until 03:00 in the afternoon? Don't you realize you had the whole day ahead of you? Oh, wait, you're 18, you're 19, you're 20, you could do whatever you want now.
Brent: I was laughing. There's this like universal thing about kids that come back home, let's say for Christmas break, and I call it like the tornado child where they have remnants of their life all over your house. So there's piles of clothes over here, there's piles of stuff over here, and it's not limited to a few spaces, it's like all over the place. And you're like, how is this possible? But then you realize they've been living on their own, and that's probably how they live on their own.
And it's just a little thing. And so you're constantly always like the kitchen. You're like, hey. This kitchen is for all of us. And you're just kind of navigating the kitchen, and then you're kind of looking, you're like, close piles over here.
It's more humorous if you step back from it, but sometimes you're like, I don't know how this is happening. Like, it's really strange. Like, your stuff is everywhere. You didn't even have that much stuff, but it seems like you you've tripled it because it's just piles of stuff. And I was talking to another parent about that and they were laughing.
They're like, yeah. It's just like little tornado came through town and just pushed everything. Their room is no longer like where their stuff is. It's just everywhere.
Rob: Right. Because wherever they live now, it's they have all that space to be able to expand into. They don't have anybody else to worry about but themselves or their roommate who's probably just like them.
Brent: Yeah. When you drop your kid off, the dorm is one experience because usually you go into a dorm, it's pretty clean. But then the next year, when you drop them off and you go see the off campus house, maybe that they live in, you're like, Oh boy, is that considered a kitchen or is that considered a bathroom? What is that space right there? And it's funny, and then you go back in time, that's how we all lived?
Rob: My gosh. Yes. Yeah. I was the pile. I was the pile of clothes, clean clothes pile and a dirty clothes pile.
Nothing ever got folded, but it was the what was clean, what was dirty. And I think back to, you know, some of the apartments I lived in in college, they were absolutely disgusting.
Brent: Oh, they're terrible. Awful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had I had a place that I lived in that had a lot of whole, like broken windows and just constant air conditioning, we called it.
I was just purely like, you know, things didn't work and you just you figure it out, but that's a funny stage of life. And you walk in and you're like, wow. You're start itching instantly. You're like, am I picking up whatever's here? So but then you realize that they don't even flinch.
That that's this is just how they live. You go back and you relive your own personal experiences and you know that you did the same thing, but you've evolved, and maybe they'll evolve at one point in time, but that's a strange thing too
Rob: that you It's a rite of passage. When they leave the house, they end up having to live in a place that may not be as nice as it was when they lived at home. Yeah. And get used to that.
Brent: Absolutely.
Rob: Yeah. So let's talk about communication a little bit, Brent. And I want to go through kind of the evolution of the communication with the kids as they leave for school. So you got, you know, the drop off in the freshman year. That's probably a very different communication style than it is now that you have a son that's three years into college.
So walk me through what the evolution of the communication has been with your oldest son in anticipation of what you're going to experience with your youngest.
Brent: Well, I think the first thing that happened to us is the different communication styles between me and my wife. And so I noticed that my wife would talk to my older son more often his freshman year than I did. And I would get a lot of my information through her. I don't think that was a codependency, that was just a rhythm that the two of them got into. And the cool thing today is FaceTime's great.
That's how we talk with our kids. It's not just on the phone, it's a FaceTime. And so you feel like you're in the room with them. So that's a neat experience that I enjoy. But the rhythm at the beginning as a freshman is definitely a lot more frequent, meaning that they're just trying to navigate every single day of new things that are happening in their lives.
And so there's a check-in process and they may ask for some ideas or guidance and they may not. And so you kind of learn the rhythm there. So that is something freshmen is unique in the sense like a lot of communication can happen, but also there's moments in time where you're like, why aren't we talking more? And it's because you look at there's a lot of things going on in his world through activities on campus or just a lot of fun things happening. And you're just like, wow, that's like, where's mom and dad in the picture.
You quickly learn, and this is a strange feeling to go through, but you quickly learn. And I tried to put myself back where I was at that age is, you think a lot more about your kids than they think about their parents. So I'm always like wondering where they're at, what they're doing, all those things. I guarantee you, both of my kids don't think that way. They're thinking about where their friends are.
Rob: Right.
Brent: And where their next fun thing to do is, not what's mom and dad up to. That's too boring.
Rob: Or what's happening back home in Colorado?
Brent: No. No. But the communication's really interesting. But then the cool thing that happens, that happened for my wife and I, is our communication evolves with it. And so we actually have learned, even to this day, like we try not to do a lot of the conversations where it's all three of us, because there's different things that happen.
Like my older might come to me for one thing and my wife for another thing. So it's like, just let that one on one happen more naturally, and it's usually a better conversation. Because usually if it's the three of us, one person's kind of left out of the conversation. So we try intentionally to do that. And sometimes it might be a little bit more work for him as he calls it.
Rob: Yeah, because he has to talk to both of you.
Brent: And we ask the same questions probably.
Rob: But you probably get different answers. Sometimes we do.
Brent: And then we have to compare notes, but we found that that's actually a good part of the process for us as parents is that we get to talk afterwards and how's it going with him and what's going on, what's the latest and greatest, how's school going and things like that. And the cool thing is we have different questions that we do One of us might be more talking about academics at one point in time, the other might talk about extracurricular activities. My older is a student athlete, so we're always talking about what's going on with his athletic program that he's in. So those things kind of come and go, but it is weird how freshmen is a lot of communication, but then it has these moments where there's a break where you're used to a lot. Stop.
Then as they get a little bit older, definitely for us, our experience is it's a lot less frequent.
Rob: Okay. So it starts to taper and then it get becomes almost, you know, once every week, once a month. Where are you at right now?
Brent: He's a junior, so I would say that it's almost like in every other week.
Rob: Okay.
Brent: One of us is talking to him, but if he's in season, it's a little bit more frequent because we're checking in with him after meets and things like that.
Rob: How he's feeling? Yeah. How do you do, you know, physically and emotionally with the meet?
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. So that would show up more. And then if there's any sort of injuries that are happening that might show up, that increase the frequency as well, just to make sure that we're able to support them through getting healthy. It's strange, Rob, when you start to think about the communication, because there are moments in time where it just drops off entirely and you might send a text and saying, Hey, let's catch up.
And you might not get a response for like four days. That is so strange because when they're at the house, that's almost unacceptable because you're trying to check-in like, Hey, where you're at? When they're in college, it's not that way. They'll fit you in when they want to fit you in. And there are some general courtesies that you ask for, but sometimes you just got to let those things go.
Because at the beginning, I'd be like, why aren't you responding back? He's like, because I had class and I had training and then I forgot about the message and then I forgot about it again. And then I never thought about it. But I'm thinking about it every eight minutes, so why
Rob: you sent me a message, dad? What are you talking about?
Brent: I remember both my boys saying to me about texting, they said, you know, sometimes they just don't respond, Even with their friends and stuff, I'm like, what? Like, how does that happen? And they're like, well, that's just sometimes that's just the way it works. I was like, dang. Okay.
Sorry. I asked.
Rob: So as you talk about not getting back to you texting, that leads me to then think about the next kind of thing that I've heard from parents is tracking their kids, whether it be on Find My Friends or Life three sixty or whatever those apps are to be able to track. I know kids. I've heard this They all track their friends. Where's my friend at right now? So they can, you know, meet up or, hey.
You're right down the street. Let's get together, grab coffee or things like that. I came from the place of parents were always just watching what their kids were doing. Just couldn't get rid of that. When I heard the stories of parents tracking their kids versus deleting them from their phone.
Tell me about your experience. Are you are you the parent that is going to track on a daily basis? What are they up to? What are they doing? Are you checking in on that from that standpoint since you're not getting texts?
Brent: It's comes down to the individual on this one. I don't want to put it out there that I have this one figured out because I've gone through my own stages of trying to understand, you know, and I think it can be really unhealthy for me personally to be like, where's he at now and trying to check every day or a couple times a day, because I don't know what that means. And meaning, what can I do with that information? He's in a different part of town. What's he doing?
Like, maybe he's having lunch with some friends, maybe he's shopping, or maybe he's just going to explore a different part of town. I'll let that show up in the conversations, but I find that if I start bringing that into the conversation, like where were you? That is going to create a lot of tension instantly. Because like, why are you tracking me? There's a time and a place when that actually was super valuable when they were younger, because you could actually see where are they in the community and what friends house are they at.
But then as they get older, it's like, you got to let it go. I just find it's really challenging if I go in a lot, but there are times that I feel a sense of comfort. Maybe there's something going on in the city that he's in. It's like, where's he at? So I can use it that way.
I find there's certain people that have a relationship with Find My Friends as an example, and it can be really dangerous. I find it doesn't help the child start to be an adult, be on their own. And it's tricky, but I don't want to place judgment on anybody in this one. It's how you have evolved as a parent and a child and what's important. And I would say, Rob, at the beginning a lot more, because that's more of a curiosity.
Where are they? Like, where are they at? And it's almost a simple way to check-in without checking in. Like, oh cool, he's at the Yeah, they have a football game and I can see he's at the football game, that's awesome. So I'm excited for him that way, but then over time I had to start to learn to kind of take breaks from that because I don't know what that does for me because it starts to create more questions and then I don't need to get on with him and create that odd relationship.
But it's a tricky one. The hardest thing in the college experiences for me is you have your own experience that if you went to college that you went through, and then your relationship with your parents and what you remember of that relationship. It's very difficult to reflect that into today because we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have Find My Friend. I may have talked to my parents once every three weeks from the pay phone in the dorm room.
So it's a very different experience that they have and the way that they communicate with their friends and they communicate is so different today. So you got to be really progressive with this one. You got to roll with it versus trying to control it. Really tricky to do though, I will freely admit.
Rob: It's been challenging. Share with me as we were preparing for this, one of the things that you shared with the find my friend or life three sixty was that it almost was somewhat nostalgic for you to see what they were to as well. It's, oh, look. He's in the quad. Then you almost go back to when you were walking through the quad at 19 years old and what that experience was like or hanging out with friends at somebody's apartment late into the evening.
We all did those things. We just didn't have a way that our parents knew that we were doing those things. You have a chance to actually see that and the exciting piece and be excited for what they're doing, not the not the angst or worry. Are they going to class? Are they are they studying enough?
You shared with me that it was more of an excited thing for you looking at that from time to time that you're able to just reminisce on that experience that you have when you were back at school.
Brent: It's a lived experience. Like, you're living vicariously through them in some ways. A really cool example is I noticed, my older one was at a basketball game. His school was playing another big team, and was so excited for him. And then I instantly got a text from him.
He got courtside seats What? To one of his friends for free, right behind the basket, but he was on the floor. So there are floor seats, and it was actually moved to a really big arena in the town that he's in because it was a big game. I was like, that is such a cool experience. And I knew he was kind of in that general vicinity of that big arena.
Rob: Yeah.
Brent: But then when he sent me the text with the pictures, I was like, I can't believe you're there. And it was so fun. So that lived experience is so cool that you can see where they're at and what they're up to and so forth. But I'm careful. Like, it doesn't do me any good to look at any time after about 09:00 at night.
Like, that just doesn't it doesn't do because number one, I will not get a response, I guarantee you if I text him or call him. And number two is then I won't sleep because I'll be worried about him. So just let that one go and it'll show up when it needs to show up in conversation if it needs to.
Rob: There's a lot of things that we did after 09:00 at night that our parents never heard about. Nope. No. Except they're probably hearing some of it today as my parents listened to this episode. Likely, I have my parents still alive listening to things.
Hi, mom and dad. And that's actually going to take me to, back to something you shared, Brent, around the communication with you and Carolyn and with my parents. And it's funny. You have one off conversations with a son. Carolyn has a one off conversation with a son.
When I call my parents, and they're boomers. When I call my parents, it's immediately on speakerphone and I get both my parents in the conversation, which is great. But sometimes I want to talk to just one of them. And so you and Carolyn have had to build out a new rhythm around your communication with each other and trying to keep each other informed on what's going on with either one of your sons as you're having one off conversations.
Brent: How have you both navigated that? I think we're doing really good today because we've have a few years of this experience and we're more of a team. And we approach certain topics and saying, You got this one, I got this one. So one of us might pick up the financial conversation, another one might pick up, Hey, are you having fun with your friends conversation? I mean, different things that we can play different roles.
So I find that we've built this really healthy team relationship between the two of us, because sometimes it takes that. Sometimes there's the emotional support side of things. Sometimes the child's going through something and one might be better suited than the other to address that or help them through that. So we've had a really healthy relationship on trying to navigate it together, but it also is one of those things where it's a first for us too. And so we got to give each other grace and each one of us is going to deal with the emotions differently.
And I just remember when my older son was in his freshman year, definitely emotionally, we were both in different places. Sometimes it was so hard on me. Sometimes it was so hard on Carolyn. And so we helped each other emotionally through the process. So that's where that team started to form because some things trigger one of us versus the other or maybe it doesn't.
Just triggering an emotion, not a negativity thing, more of a like, wow, that was tough to hear. Because they're also, your child's going through a lot of firsts and there's things that they're going through that, you want to be there to help them, but you know they've got to experience life on their own. So we're a good emotional sport between the two of us, and we're also good at just kind of teaming up with it. But I like what you said, when you call your parents at home today, a lot of times it's speaker phone and it's what, what? And one's dominating the conversation.
I've met both of your parents, I can assume who's dominating the conversation.
Rob: You know who it is. I'm surprised one of them may even leave the room at some point.
Brent: Well, that happens. Where I go with this, Rob, it's a really good question. I think the most important thing that I've learned through the process is letting things evolve, being patient, trusting yourselves. So Carolyn and I opening up our communications more. I feel like we're in a really good rhythm.
Now we'll be tested again because this next stage is now we only have two children. The second one is leaving the nest. So that's like a whole new challenge for us, but obviously we've had the warmup with the older and now the younger, he's going to move off and it'll challenge us another way, but we just have to give ourselves some grace through this process because it's challenging, but it's also can be exciting too.
Rob: Did you happen into the different approaches from you said you each would have a different conversation, Right? Did you was that just happenstance that it happened, or were you and your wife planful around? Alright. I need to talk to our son about this conversation. Can you talk about that?
Were you was it planful or just kind of happenstance? That you both gravitated into a different type of conversation?
Brent: Well, some of it's carryover from when they were at the house, you know, in high school. Okay. So, like, the money type of thing is one parent might just kind of always do that. So then it's that that just carries into college. But what I find is what we've experienced is we're responding to the way that our oldest son is reaching out to us for different things.
So we're falling into roles that he's almost assigning us to things.
Rob: Got it.
Brent: And so that's a piece you got to be comfortable with as well, because you might feel like, I got a lot of experience with it, but they go to the other parent. If you try to insert yourself artificially, sometimes it doesn't help the situation.
Rob: Like pick up the phone and say, Hey, I heard you called about this already. And they already spoke with your spouse.
Brent: Yeah. So it's one of those things where you're responding to how they reach out to us and those roles sometimes get defined that way. And so we're trying to be as fluid on this one as possible. And that happens also when they're even younger, kids have a tendency to lean on different parents for different things. So that's what we've learned, but it's not that my oldest isn't going to reach out to me for all things.
I mean, he finds the right balance that works for him and we're just adapting to it the best we can.
Rob: Brent, you're incredibly planful and thoughtful into the future. It comes from your business world. You know, anybody that was in executive roles, you're always thinking 10 steps ahead and trying to be planful in advance. And as you think through, you know, just looking forward in relationships with your sons, obviously, those relationships, kind of like a relationship contract is going to change and evolve. And having two kids, they're definitely unique personalities, and you're going to have to approach each one a little bit differently.
But as you think forward, thinking about, you know, it's for our audience, a child's getting ready to leave the house, whether it be to go to college or to go off to an apartment and a job on their own, how have you been planful around that relationship contract changing going forward?
Brent: If we go back to the episode that you and I did a little while ago around the letter to ourselves from ten years in the future, back to our current state person, our current self, I talked a bit about that. And I highly recommend if people haven't listened to that episode, you can get the gist of just this transitionary period that I'm going through, but most people do go through when their kids leave the house. What I think I'm trying to get better at Rob is not overly be planful, because I think that just sets myself up for either frustration, disappointment, or it's like the idea, like they're going to come home and you're going to spend a lot of time with them. You learn pretty quickly. They're coming home to hang out with their friends and get some free meals.
I mean, there's some things that are reality here. That is something that if I think too far in advance, what happens in a 20 year old's mind as an example, is there's a lot of things that are happening just real time. And so when I ask, Hey, what's your plans for the summer? And if I ask him that over Christmas, so four or five months in advance, he'd be like, I'm trying to figure out which friends I'm going to hang out with tonight, dad. I don't know anything in the future.
I'll deal with that when it happens. So that is something that's been uniquely challenging for me is trying to plan even future vacations, trying to plan times when we can visit. You almost have to live a little bit more in real time. Because when you're expecting to see them over like a spring break and then you get the phone call, hey, me and my buddies are going to go do this, got to let them go do this. You know?
And you think you put together this fancy vacation and you'd like, they'll definitely want to go, not necessarily. Yeah. They might want to do the road trip with their friends and live off, you know, $20 a day. And that's more and more fun to them than hanging out with mom and dad at a nice, destination vacation. So that's been challenging for me on the planful side because I am a planner, I'm always trying to think in advance, but then the rhythm or where they're at is not that.
They live much more present, which congratulations to them because that's a beautiful way to live. When you're not always trying to figure out what's going to happen in two or three or four years from now. That's been challenging for me and it just shows that the relationship is evolving and I'm embracing that and I'm learning through that. I've learned that you can't take it all so personal when they say, No, I don't really want to do that. Maybe they just have something else more interesting in that moment in time.
So you got to let it go.
Rob: Good experience for you to learn how to go with the flow and be a little less planful. Leave it to your kids to challenge and help you grow and learn, Brent.
Brent: This whole experiment, whatever we want to call it, this journey, this experience that you go through is so unique And it has taken me to every emotion, Rob, the highs, the lows, the kind of plateaus, like it's a really fun, exciting, I'll even say sad. I mean, there's so many emotions you go through, but I would say I often walk out of each day with so much gratitude that everybody's healthy, seem to be enjoying themselves, everybody's evolving together, And that makes me excited for their futures, our future. It's hard to explain. You can read a million books about this experience, but it's a lived experience. And you and I've even talked about it, like some of the challenges.
We'll go through a grieving process absolutely in the fall, 100%. One thing that's so unique about the change and the transition when a child leaves home is you probably have gone through eighteen years of a rhythm that you have with your children. From a young age, you take them to school, you have dinner together every night. If they're into sports or after school activities, you're kind of navigating the logistics associated with that. That's something that's happening for a long time of your life.
When that comes to a halt, it's so different. You have a bit of agency as well. I don't want to call positive because I don't want it to be portrayed that way. You have this newfound freedom that you haven't had because you're not tied to your children's calendar the way that you used to be. So it's navigating that.
And there's a lot of emotions that come with that. Sometimes it's excitement. Like I don't have to go when everybody else is going to that destination for spring break, I can go in February or someone else and like avoid the crowds, that's kind of cool. But then when you go to that destination, you're used to doing it with your kids, then now you have a void. So it's like these emotions play with you.
But I would say it's such a cool time of life that I'm happy that as I alluded to earlier, I'm happy everybody's healthy at this moment in time. I'm happy that, you know, everybody's navigating this together and it seems like we're all just having a good time.
Rob: So as you kind of pivot us to they're both out of the house now, You're completely an empty nester coming up this fall. What are some plans that you have around redesigning the nest? I don't think you're going to turn one of the bedrooms into a workout or a gym. I don't think that's the next thing you're going to go and do. But anything on the horizon, Brent, around plans that you and your wife have?
Any anything on the horizon you're going to be mindful of as you go into this transition with both boys being out of the house?
Brent: That's a really good question. I don't know if we've even gone there. I don't know what that emotion brings to me because probably already thinking about like, when is the next time we get to see them? When are we going to go out and see? When are they going to come home?
That type of stuff. But we haven't talked about like, if we're going to do any changes in our house, but I think we've also talked about this might give us a little bit more flexibility to visit my in laws, because at their age, it'd be nice to see them a little bit more and do things that are a little bit unstructured schedule wise, a little easier just to get up and go when you don't have kids in the house. So that we'll probably take advantage of, but we really haven't put much conversation that we're just trying to get through today. Like get this college thing figured out, school, and then try to help all the next steps that happen with it. But I'm sure in the fall, we'll start to think about this and it'll be different and unique for us.
And I'm sure it'll be every emotion under the sun, but it there there'll be a lot of positivity as well.
Rob: Well, with the youngest out of the house, that'll free up time for the two of you to travel to see the oldest a little bit easier than what you had before where you had the young your young son at home, you couldn't travel as easily. You couldn't just on a on a whim go watch your oldest compete in a in a in a running event.
Brent: Yeah. And that's something we've talked about. Like, a lot of times with kids is you have competing schedules. If they've got two different things on the same day or same time, and you're like, one do I go to? So this creates a little bit more flexibility.
So that that's super cool. You know, that that will give us there. Because it is odd trying to leave a kid at home, you know, especially in, their last couple years of high school. You want to you want to squeeze them as much as you can.
Rob: Any final thoughts today, Brent, as you're as you're thinking about what you're going to come up and navigate with, becoming an empty nester, but you also have the experience having one child leave for those parents that are having their first child leave the house or those that are getting ready to be empty nesters. Any final thoughts or suggestions or recommendations for them?
Brent: The biggest thing that I've learned is how do you go with the flow? And how do you just respond to the needs of today versus trying to predict the needs of tomorrow? And everything needs to be fluid and being very aware that they're going through emotional transition as well your kids are, and you're going through emotional and maybe your spouse is going through it. So everybody is going through it in a unique way. Going with the flow and trying to let things go makes things a lot smoother along the way, but also recognizing that you are a parent and there are times that you should step in and not overstepping boundaries, but you also have to keep people safe and challenge them on certain things.
But it's a different type of a conversation. But I think the biggest thing that I've learned, and Rob, this hasn't been easy for me because letting go is really hard because you want to put all the pieces of the puzzle in the places that you want them to be, but that's not how it's going to end up. So I'm learning through that process of just letting it go. And also your lived experience in college is so different than their lived experience in college. And it should be that way.
So sometimes I caught myself, especially in the older, in his early years of like, Hey, you going to go to the sporting event? You can do this? I used to go to all of them and he'd be like, maybe. I'm like, why are you going? Because he has a different lived experience and he has a different priority and different things that he wants to do.
So letting that go too is really a part of this kind of growing process for me. But I would just say, if you can get into this present state and learn from your children through this process, it's actually quite fun because it's fascinating and it's cool to see them grow up and evolve and you know, start to see life through their own lens and their own path. It's exciting times, for sure.
Rob: Well, thanks for sharing all of this today, Brent. It's something, in preparation for today's episode, I listened to a number of other podcasts around dropping off kids and what that experience is like or kids leaving the house since I don't have any children. I was trying to just get learn as much as I could about what different people's shared experiences were to help drive our conversation today a little bit. And I heard a podcast with Gretchen Rubin, and so I do have a suggestion for you and Carolyn a little bit here as a podcast with Gretchen Rubin. She talked about having a gap or a buffer between the drop off of the last child and getting home.
And having something in between to help the two of you actually come to grips with the changes that you're going to be going through versus come home, hit the driveway, and see the car in the in the parked in the spot, but you're not going into a house with the child there because usually the car was that's an indication that my son's home. Well, your son's not home. Just because the car's there doesn't mean he's going to be home. And that buffer gave that space some breath, and it wasn't an immediate transition. So I hope something like that can happen for the two of you with something interesting I'd heard on another podcast, just recently that I thought, might be valuable for you.
Brent: Thanks for sharing that. I mean, that's a super good way to look at it. If I hear you correctly, if you just go from one thing back to your home without something in between to kind of help you through a transition, you're just jumping into the really hard right away versus like create a little bit of space to process it.
Rob: A little bit of space.
Brent: Yeah. That's great. Great advice.
Rob: Well, thanks for sharing today, Brent. And hopefully for our audience, we really talked about this is a process. You're not losing somebody. You're helping somebody transition to the next stage of their life. It's not a single moment.
There are stages and the stages are really normal. We talked about the shift in a deeper kind of connection that can happen with one of us, a parent or another, and the communication that needs to happen between two parents as they have children aging a little bit as communication may only have with one of the two spouses or one of the two parents in that relationship. So if you still have questions or comments actually, please join us over on Substack, And we love to hear from our audience that still has questions or thoughts around having to drop off a child, at school or having a becoming an empty nester, but we'd also love to hear from those of you that have listened to this and have some of those nostalgia moments and cannot can come help answer some of those questions. Because obviously, I'm not an expert. I can definitely give my opinion, but it's worth nothing in this scenario.
Brent has some experience, but we have a wealth of parents that are listening to this podcast that have a shared knowledge of experience having had their children go through this. So please join us over on Substack and share what those experiences are and share your questions there. As we like to wrap up, we also like to share a little bit of gratitude during these episodes as well. And, Brent, you brought up an episode from a couple of weeks ago that came out. It was around our ten year letter to ourself, and I got a message from Scott.
And Scott talked about the fact he was just starting going through that process. So, hopefully, by the time this episode airs, Scott will have finished writing his letter. He said, I I he said, I have a couple of trips he was on at work, and he was going to be writing down notes to himself. He was going to take the bullet point format that I outlined, that I followed. He was going to write down bullet points, and he was going to do this over a couple of weeks.
So, hopefully, by the time this episode comes out, Scott's letter is done, and, and he gets to learn through going through that experience as well. So thanks for sharing that, Scott. We look forward to hearing more about your letter.
Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings, and be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder, the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.