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Women on the Verge of an Empty Nest

09.02.20

When my mother, an amateur photographer, finally saw the last of her four birdies fly off, she took a photograph of herself looking at once wistful and bemused, with the dog at her feet. She called it “Self Portrait of the New Me.”

The message couldn’t have been clearer: The kids were launched, and she was left behind. Then, like most of her friends, she went back to school and launched a mid-life career. Both of my grandmothers made changes, too, once their children were gone. They accepted that they had morphed into matrons, becoming community leaders and dressing themselves with elegance and care, as befitted women of a certain age. They had devoted the first half of their adulthoods to being wives and mothers, and now, with their nests empty, they were adopting a new idea of themselves.

As far as I can tell, my own generation of mothers doesn’t really do the empty nest thing, no matter how large the hole left behind and no matter how pressing the grief. Unlike our mothers, we generally don’t go back to school to finally launch careers or, like our grandmothers, embrace the newly won status of matron and then grandmother. Unlike past generations, today’s middle-agers typically started their careers before marriage and motherhood. As for our wardrobe choices, my own concession to aging mainly involves wearing low-heeled shoes, but otherwise, like practically every woman I know, I continue to dress like I did in my student days. You know the uniform: jeans and a T-shirt or blouse, with clogs or sneakers or sandals.

Source: Wall Street Journal (blog)