Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Empty Nesters

Our youngest graduated high school today and is going away to school out of state in a month. I always thought being an empty nester would be cool, but now that reality has set in, I'm not so sure.

Enjoy it while you can. When your wife moves your elderly MIL in, you'll long for the empty nest.

Are you nuts?

after the youngest went off to school, I wasn't in such a hurry for the oldest to get on with his life and move out.

Now I talk to him about the advantage of staying home and not paying rent.

they always come back, at least my grown ass fu-ck up stepsons do, have one here now.

My wife manages a big ole day care in town.
She doesn't have to work.
We would be perfectly fine and comforatable on my retirement.
She just likes being around young kids.
But being a empty nest couple and now having all 3 daughters grown and gone. We have probably upwards of 1.5k a month extra saved in expense,s.
3 daughters stacked 7 yrs apart going thru college and high school at the same time living at home.
Just told em all , keep your head on straight finish college and school and mom and dad will pick up the ticket from tooth paste to auto insurance.
Right now the youngest is home from college for the summer.
Everything from loads of laundry to groceries seems to have doubled.

Oh well cant really complain
They are squared away women now.
1 is a nurse captain in the army always getting tasked for TDY high profile assignments and married to a SF captain from 10th group.
Another is fixing to make captain in army MI flying UAV,s via satellite uplink taking shots.
Youngest is on a full boat ride pitching softballs in college,business major with a 4.0 going into her junior year.

But beleive me when they was all home.
The house of estrogen with 4 females was drama filled at times...

I dont miss that one bit.....

Not if you don't let 'em.

Had my in laws living with us for 2 weeks back in 08 when they moved from Maine to here looking for a house.

It was "different" to say the least and putting it kindly....

One of the benefits of being in the military back then was not having her parents or mine around all the time.

Indeed. We're going on three years of sheer bliss and my last one was as easy as they come to raise.

It sucks! I wish my daughter was 3 years old and at home!

Yeah. I just pitched Amazon's distribution start up program last night in hopes of getting rid of one more.

My wife thinks five years old is too young but this is a really bright kid we're talking about.

Our son and his wife and our beautiful grand daughter moved out a couple months ago. Esther just turned two, and we watched her grow and change over the last couple years. It was tough to see them go. We are headed to Indiana this weekend to visit with them for the first time since they moved.

My daughter has been talking about moving to Florida this summer, but now it seems those plans have cooled off a bit. I have to admit that the thought of Cathy and I bouncing around this big house without the kids around has not been pleasant. Our kids are still very welcome here. We'll do this to help them out, and I wouldn't be surprised if they move back. It's so expensive for a young couple to get on their feet these days, I feel like this is something we can do to help out.

I know some here start marking off the days on a calendar, looking forward to seeing their kids move out. We don't.

You should encourage your daughter to move to Florida.

She won't regret it.

my youngest son is 23 and has lived on his own since he was 18. always struggling . I've tried to get him to move back so he can go to school, but he won't.

You will get used to it, you will like it!!!

My thoughts exactly. When ours left I annexed their room the very next day.

Wanted to reinforce the notion that there would be no safety net in case it didn't go well for them...

Course I understand that some people actually like kids...

Now that these two are grown up, productive members of society, I love them.....but as children, not so much.

Wife and I love it, sorry to say but if the parents raise them right they won’t be back. Both my boys have very good jobs and wife and I love having all this extra money.

i have my grandson here, my daughter can't work full time and go to school to get her RN and take care of him so we do that.

After the last one left for college in 2005, 2 years before I retired, we missed them but it sure was nice around the ole homestead. Peaceful, quiet, we got to watch what we wanted to on TV, no more 'used car lot' look in front of the house, the house stayed clean, the fridge stayed full, and the food bills were cut to only ⅓ of what we were spending before and our water, electricity, and gas bills went down substantially.

My Wife has no kids. We have been empty nesters since we got married, 34 years ago, and I'm 66

LOVED every minute of it!

Virgil B.