Empty Nest Quotes:

The empty nest is underrated.

- Nora Ephron

source: "I Feel Bad About My Neck" by Nora Ephron, www.nytimes.com. August 20, 2006.

topic: Parent, Nests, Empty Nest

When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.

- Erma Bombeck

topic: Mother, Retirement, Children, Supervisors, Empty Nest

The biggest change for me as a mom was realizing I needed to put someone else before me. Now the hardest part about the empty nest is learning to put myself first. I know that I have raised my sons to be big, strong, independent men who love God, themselves and care for others. I have to learn to let them have space and learn without me.

- Kim Alexis

topic: Mom, Strong, Independent, Strong Independent, Empty Nest

Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.

- Aleksandar Hemon

source: Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.3, Pan Macmillan

topic: Home, Leaving Home, Empty Nest, Home Is Where The Heart Is, Home Sweet Home

People make a lot of jokes about the empty nest. Let me tell you, it is no laughing matter. It is really hard.

- Michelle Pfeiffer

source: "Michelle Pfeiffer Opens Up About Younger Men, Love, and Family". Interview with Dotson Rader, parade.com. May 3, 2012.

topic: Laughing, People, Nests, Empty Nest

Contrary to all we hear about women and their empty-nest problem, it may be fathers more often than mothers who are pained by thechildren's imminent or actual departure--fathers who want to hold back the clock, to keep the children in the home for just a little longer. Repeatedly women compare their own relief to their husband's distress

- Lillian B. Rubin

topic: Mother, Children, Husband, Empty Nest

I diagnosed my loneliness as premature empty nest syndrome.

- Kristen Schaal

topic: Syndromes, Empty Nest

How then can we account for the persistence of the myth that inside the empty nest lives a shattered and depressed shell of a woman--a woman in constant pain because her children no longer live under her roof? Is it possible that a notion so pervasive is, in fact, just a myth?

- Lillian B. Rubin

topic: Children, Pain, Persistence, Empty Nest

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.

- Dorothy Parker

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Hilarious, Being A Mother, Mothering

Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.743, Delphi Classics

topic: Dream, Thinking, Bird, Empty Nest

When a man is forced into early retirement, he is often being 'given up for a younger man.' Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being 'given up for a younger woman' is for a woman... Why do many men get more upset by retirement than women do from the empty nest when their children leave home? When females retire from children, they can try a career; when a man retires from a career, his children are gone.

- Warren Farrell

source: "The Myth of Male Power". Book by Warren Farrell, 1993.

topic: Retirement, Children, Home, Empty Nest

They had each other and there was a love between them that would withstand anything. Alina and I had always intuited, with no small wry pique, that, although our parents adored us and would do anything for us, they loved each other more. As far as I was concerned, that was the way it should be. Kids grow up, move on and find a love of their own. The empty nest shouldn't leave parents grieving. It should leave them ready and excited to get on with living their own adventure, which would, of course, include many visits to children and grandchildren.

- Karen Marie Moning

topic: Children, Growing Up, Moving, Pique, Wry