Full Nest 8 comments

By Andy Whitman

According to the AARP commercials, at this stage of my life I should be planning to retire and play golf for the rest of my glorious country club days. The kids should be embarking on their upwardly mobile careers, the grandkids should be bouncing on my knee, and the years should stretch out enticingly before me, full of meaningful volunteer work, convivial evenings with friends, and intimate candlelight dinners with my beloved spouse, punctuated by occasional jaunts to Europe or Caribbean cruises.

Instead, I sit at home, a 55-year-old rock critic with a hearing aid. I sit at home because I’ve just been laid off. Again. My daughters sit at home—my home—with their college degrees, and with no real prospects for meaningful work. They are part of the 82% of recent Ohio college graduates who have learned to say “Cash or charge?” and “Grande or Venti?” My wife, God bless her, heads off to the only real job in the family, the job that allows us to make our mortgage payments and more or less pay for the healthcare that costs more and covers less every year.

I could complain. Okay, I am complaining, and if I hear one more glib assurance about the so-called economic recovery then I’m probably going to scream. But in truth it’s turned out okay, better than I would have expected. In theory my wife and I should be enjoying our empty nest years.

Instead, we have a full nest, and nobody seems likely to fly anytime soon, and it’s been one of the best years of our lives because we’ve been able to spend extended time with our children as young adults. It’s a luxury many Americans have not had, and we’re making the most of it, albeit in fairly straitened circumstances.

There have been challenges, of course. It's taken time for four people who were used to living on their own to adjust to life together again. And there have been challenges because my daughters are very different from one another. One is an extreme extrovert who processes life by opening her mouth and figuring it out as she chatters along. The other is a shy bookworm who needs her space and her solitude. They love each other. And they are unfathomable mysteries to one another. It has always been that way.

When they were little, Katryn, my oldest daughter, played school with Rachel, my youngest daughter. Katryn, naturally, was the teacher. It worked well until Rachel entered toddlerhood and was mobile enough to make a beeline the other way, which she did with surprising speed and with great regularity.

That set the tone for what has now been more than two decades of a rocky relationship. “Why can’t she shut up?” Rachel asks. “I don’t need to know every detail of her life.” “Why can’t you just listen for once?” Katryn responds. “It wouldn’t kill you to get your nose out of a book and involved with human beings.”

And so it goes. My wife and I have played referee most of their lives, and we’ve had days, sometimes weeks, during the past year when we’ve sent them metaphorically to their respective corners. The timeouts never end. We just change the terminology. And so we pray, fervently. We look for moments of grace. We love them both dearly, and recognize their unique gifts. And we see glimmers that they have begun to recognize those gifts in one another.

Now our two girls, opposites in almost every way, have begun a tentative rapprochement. And I’m not sure it would have happened if they had been living apart for the past twelve months. Maturity has helped. But proximity has helped even more. Katryn, our fashion design major, has supervised Rachel’s fashion makeover, recommending stylish new dresses, flipping through the voluminous pages of Vogue to find just the right trendy hairstyle for her sister. Miraculously, Rachel has followed her advice.

Rachel has helped Katryn with the daunting task of researching graduate schools, assisting with the complex lists of pros and cons that have helped to clarify the options. They occasionally cook meals together. They compare notes on their favorite films. Once or twice I have surreptitiously caught them laughing together.

It is, at best, a qualified triumph. They will never be best friends, and they will always have to contend with the annoying quirks and incomprehensible personality traits of the other. But the past year has been a rich one in spite of the economic hardship. It has been the year when the fledglings have returned to the nest, unwillingly, begrudgingly, and taken flight as adults.

I have no idea what the future holds for them, or for me, for that matter. Sometimes I despair of ever working again, or I envision myself ending my days as a crusty greeter at Wal-Mart, the only growing business in America, welcoming bargain hunters through clenched teeth. But I am grateful for this year, and its challenges, and its joys. There’s been good work in the Whitman family, and I’ve been privileged to witness it.