She calls herself "Mother of Dragons"

E1: The term "empty nest" brought me to tears. Was there a way to rebrand?

I’d dreaded becoming an empty nester. The very phrase had me on the verge of tears, visions of gazing into the void. I desperately needed a rebrand.

“Wait. What am I moping about? I asked myself. “Isn’t this the very goal we’ve been working towards all these years? To raise responsible independent adults, confident enough to leave, and excited to make their mark upon the world? Who am I to hold onto these creatures in whom we have invested so many days, weeks and hours?

But what is my role, what is my identity now that I’m no longer running carpool and making school lunches?”

The year of the long goodbye

2018 had been a long and difficult year of letting go. It dawned with my father’s funeral in the depths of a wintery January. It went downhill from there. By September, it felt like I had spent each subsequent Monday digging deeper as I said goodbye to my kids - hugging one goodbye at an airport as he headed off to backpack solo across South America, tearfully blessing the youngest as he started his new life in his new dorm room. 

Nothing seemed out of bounds as we dismantled our rusting basketball net. The ultimate betrayal was watching our minivan being towed away. That sailfin blue Sienna entered our lives the day our youngest was a month old. An extension of our family, it pretty much went everywhere we went. It held together long enough to let each child, in turn, earn their driver’s license in it. But Sienna stubbornly ground to a halt after ferrying our child to her new apartment, tightly tetrised with clothes, duvets and the bar fridge. 

It was as if everyone and everything was forcing me to acknowledge that this was the end of an era.

I’d been raised to raise a family

My identity crisis had started long before those final goodbyes. Interlaced with the emotional flurry of university applications and interviews was the realization that whatever the choice of college for my youngest child, his departure would mark a substantial milestone in my life. 

I’d been raised to raise a family. With a school principal for a Dad, getting an education was paramount. Establishing a career was expected. But there was this repeating beat of a bassline - the underlying physiological end goal of reproduction. The persistent question from my Indian aunties was always “So, when are you going to settle down?”  

I’d been on this journey for many decades. Countless blind dates and challenges of finding a suitable husband. Had I left it too late to get pregnant? Balancing a rewarding but challenging career with long hours with the many years of doing laundry, helping with homework and nurturing this young family.

“What now? Who am I now that this biologically defining stage of life is complete? What happens once the birds have flown the nest?” I wondered.

As a futurist, I’d encourage others to re-frame their problems. No matter the situation you face, there is an opportunity, I would assert. A little like finding a silver lining amid the dark clouds. “Maybe that is what I need to do,” I decided. 

Who am I?

The silence of those first weeks was deafening. Sure, there were benefits. I could now sleep in past the start of early-morning rugby practice. My zoom calls were no longer interrupted by the piano chords of Chance the Rapper’s “Sunday Candy”. As I opened the fridge each morning there was milk! Enough for my coffee … today AND tomorrow.  

“Who am I now?” still needled at me as I sat at my desk in my home office. And a possible answer stared back at me. 

My desktop is an archaeological relic. All five of us had shared it in that era before individual laptops. Five sigils pop onto the screen as it slowly booted up. Fresh off season two of HBOs Game of Thrones in 2012, the kids had selected one for each user account in our home: 

• The black wolf of House Stark

• The golden lion of House Lannister

• The swooping falcon for House Arryn

• The yellow rose of House Tyrell

• And mine - a red three-headed dragon for House Targaryen

 Yes. It had started as a family joke. Mother of Dragons. 

• Where Daenerys had three dragons, I have three children.

• Like the Khaleesi, my instincts are to fiercely protect them from anyone who will cause them harm.

• Not unlike the Silver Queen, I intentionally prepared three beings for an uncertain world. 

Was this the answer? Instead of focusing on the gap, could I take pride in the gain? We had spent years deliberately encouraging their appreciation for our world, their thirst for knowledge, and their sense of exploration. 

I decided now was the time to take back that moniker. And own it. 
Because I'd earned it.

They have their own thoughts

As parents, it turns out we cannot dictate the type of child we bring into this world. Ask any parent - training them to be mini-MEs is futile. It took me a while to realize that I’d not birthed clones of me - each model another opportunity to sequentially refine (and trust me, there is a lot to fix and polish!) Instead, three kids, three distinctly different personalities. 

As these little people did not come with a manual, I found myself parenting as I was parented. 

Then I heard Kahlil Gibran’s poem On Children. The opening stopped me dead in my tracks.

Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

For a parent whose default setting is “helicopter”, how do you learn to let go? This poem completely changed the way I parented.

Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow

Had I subliminally taken my lead from fiction? Daenerys was the guardian and foster mother to a different species. She had to lean into her instincts, reacting to their cues which encompassed both their history and their potential.

As we move into the new Future of Work, I feel like I, too, am parenting blind. There is no recipe for how to raise a child for this new time. How do you prepare workers and leaders to thrive in a tomorrow you cannot envision while acknowledging that the traditional structures are already crumbling around you? How should they interpret the edict to “go forth and multiply” in a world facing climate collapse? 

From that point on I chose to parent differently. I’d ask myself how I could create an environment that allowed each child to happily - and hopefully - grow into a responsible global citizen, ready to dream up their own solutions for their “house of tomorrow”.

Time to sit back and enjoy the ride

Can you tell I am fiercely proud of my three children? Far from perfect [aged four or forty, do parents ever stop tweaking their kid?], they each turned out OK, with a healthy dose of self-confidence and adventurism, ready to make their own difference in the world. They continually surprise me with the tales of their quests, soaring past the limitations of my own imagination for their achievements. “Where did that come from?” I quiz my husband, searching for our imprint on their journey.

I’ve noticed a number of traits - probably material enough for another post:

• They surround themselves with good people

• They embrace challenges - from leadership to collaboration to travel

• They have agency and are not afraid to advocate for themselves

• They make decisions with a long view, choosing to play the long game

• They respect their roots and the sacrifices that afford them their privilege

• They have a high appetite for calculated risk

• They have the confidence that comes with knowing they are loved unconditionally 

Armed with basic building blocks and decision models, they're figuring it out.

Fly, little ones. FLY!

Reflecting on the little steps that got us here, I am now happy in my reclaimed identity as “Mother of Dragons”. I no longer pine over an empty nest. It is filled with occasional visits back (with laundry), frequent stories of their adventures, and great memories of growing through learning, unlearning, and amazement - for parent and child alike. 

I have the luxury of time to experiment for myself. I published a book, learned to podcast, and added more public speaking engagements on the topic of the Future of Work. I’m participating more actively in Climate conversations.

I share my delight as I encourage parents to explore, create and step into their personal version of this rebrand. (If that is you, let’s chat!) 

Now, as I whisper “Mother of Dragons” I see our many shared Sunday evenings watching the Game of Thrones saga together as a family - a hark back to the days all three would huddle over a small screen watching a DVD. Each different, but so content when back together, like three peas snuggled on the sofa that is their pod.

We’ve come a long way from those hatchlings. We have learned from each other. We grew them so they can soar to new heights.
Time for me to step back and proudly watch them spread their wings.

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#MakeTakeTalk is our Call To Action

Do you also feel this way after dropping your young adult off at higher education? Does the phrase "empty nest" drive you crazy? Are you ready for a rebrand?
Whether it is "Mother of Dragons", "Yoda" or some other name, proudly own this new stage of life.

Make:  Make time to journal your thoughts.
Take:   Take inventory. Chart your family journey to this point and be proud of yourself. And click here if you’d like more thoughts such as these. Sign up - we probably are kept awake by the same things we want for our families.
Talk:   Share your thoughts with others. You may find you can give and receive comfort. And if this post was meaningful to you, please share it freely, and loop back to let me know! (My only request is that you tag and credit me).

Do you have a question you want answered? Email me. It might inspire the next post.

Other Parenting posts:

• Till Death Us Do Part - a parent’s love letter to her children

• Like living arrows

• To Parent Scared, or With Courage

• What is your parenting superpower?

• Go Swift and Far

• Am I a High-Pressure Parent?

CREDIT & THANKS; DEFINITIONS & RESOURCES:

• Inspired by and dedicated to Meenal Balar, Megan Goering Mellin, Michael Dean and Alexandra Allen for asking me this question.

• Game of Thrones: Description of the HBO show, The character Mother of Dragons, The houses and their sigils

• From Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet" On Children