Life after Kids

By the time our youngest, The Boy, was finishing his senior year of high school, we had already sent his two older sisters successfully off into the world. We knew the drill. That's not to say it was easy to see them go, but our pride in them and their desire to start their own lives far outweighed the melancholy. The Piglet and Decibel have both thrived outside the nest.

Perhaps I should give some explanation about those names. Our eldest, The Piglet, has just always been The Piglet. I don't remember how it stuck; it may have been a Pooh thing. But even now, as a big- city journalist, she will answer to it. If she minds, she has never let on. Sometimes she even refers to herself as such.

Decibel, on the other hand, is self-explanatory. It's a volume issue. She is loud and impossible to ignore ... always has been, always will be.

Their leaving brought a flood of bittersweet emotions, hopes, and fears. But each time, there was the task of finishing up with younger siblings. We still had work to do.

This time it was different; there would just be us after The Boy took flight. We were ready to seriously ponder what our life after raising kids would be. This was an opportunity. A chance to celebrate, reconnect, and live a little, but we had yet to determine exactly how.

One lazy St. Croix Saturday morning, we were lingering in bed with the tropical sun streaming through our window. Veronica was reading a paperback, and I had laptop in lap and gears turning and grinding inside my pea brain. There may have been a small puff of smoke wafting out of my right ear. It had popped into my head to Google "empty nesters."

I wanted to see if anyone else was looking at this stage of life from a point of view like ours. We've spent twenty-five years raising kids. Isn't it great that they have grown up, moved out, and started their own lives? We'll have our time to ourselves again.

After typing into the search box and hitting enter, I said, "Look at this, honey."

The biggest item on the first page was an enormous ad for an Alzheimer's patch.

Veronica's response?

"Holy crap! What's wrong with these people? We just finished raising our kids; we're not dying." Ah, she was engaged now. "Keep looking. Let's see what we can find."

So I did, with Veronica ditching her book to look over at my screen more and more. Soon my quest had become a joint effort. All we could find were websites that lamented how terrible it was that the kids weren't around anymore. A lot of self-help, self-absorption, and self-pity.

Raising kids is hard work, and we couldn't comprehend all of these people grieving the end of the task. Granted, continuation of the species is one of life's most important activities. But unlike the other critters on earth, once we have finished the job of rearing the offspring, we're able to have some fun. To accept a big pat on the back. Job well done.

The kids have grown into full-sized Homo sapiens fully capable of feeding themselves. The time had come to let them do their own hunting and gathering. When they get hungry enough, they will find food. But they have to learn to do it for themselves. Otherwise, they'll end up like zoo animals. When tigers get fed every day, they never learn to hunt. If they're released into the wild, they starve.

Personally, we taught our little cubs that if they get really hungry, they can always kill and eat a bag of ramen noodles. They've gotten pretty good at it too.

But we had barely evolved into full-grown human beings ourselves when Veronica and I started having babies. While many people our age were still in school, we were raising kids. Veronica transformed from child to mother while I figured out that Daddy better get off his rump roast and bring home the bacon. For my work, that meant hitting the highway. As a general rule, we musicians have to go to the people — they don't come to us.

As with almost everyone else of our generation, it took the combined incomes of both parents to bring home enough pork product to raise three kids. Because of the logistics of road work, the bulk of the child rearing landed on Veronica's shoulders, so she, like so many other women, juggled work and mommying with the skill of a circus performer. She took on various jobs — waiting tables, delivering pizzas, even watching other people's kids, all while tending to our ever-growing brood. Sometimes I could swear I heard calliope music.

Meanwhile I was away from home 250 to 300 days a year as a traveling troubadour in a never-ending hillbilly roadshow. And through it all, Veronica and I always tried to remember that a huge part of being good parents was being a good couple.

In a weird way, all of the travel may have helped our fledgling family. The money certainly didn't hurt, but the constant emotional good-byes and happy homecomings managed to keep our relationship fresh. Sometimes absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Through the years we worked out our lots. I found ways to travel less and still keep the wolf from the door, while Veronica started a home-based web design business that allowed her to grow into her helicopter mommy self.

As our Spawn grew, the parenting became more of a joint venture. By the kids' teenage years, we were both fully engaged. We had to be, because raising teenagers requires all hands on deck.

Having survived the terrible teens, we had any number of conflicting feelings, and these days even the smallest emotion or complaint must be labeled as a syndrome. It was right there on my computer screen, in bold type: empty nest syndrome.

How in the hell can kids moving on with their lives be a syndrome? Shouldn't that be like breathing oxygen syndrome? Shouldn't we be excited about this portion of life? Most of us have made more than a few sacrifices to get here, so we say stick a fork in us, we're done. It's not only not selfish to take a little time out for ourselves after surviving three teenagers; it's insane not to.

While clicking onto page after page of empty nest lamentations, an idea began to germinate. A plan to have no plans. Veronica and I could be the kids for a change. The...