It is not new that children, when they reach a certain age, leave their parents’ house. Some want to get married and build a family, others have their own independence. Without the obligation to care for their offspring, parents feel that they have lost their function and enter a state of suffering.
Called empty nest syndrome, the condition is characterized by a period of mourning that occurs when parents, whose primary responsibility is to care for their children, are released from this obligation. The degree of emotional distress varies.
Women are usually the ones who suffer the most, although the syndrome also affects men, says psychologist Beatriz Borges Brambila, from the São Paulo Regional Council of Psychology. Because the role of caregiver is more associated with mothers, fathers do not always assume complete responsibility at all times in their children’s lives. With that, they live the period in another way.
“Many women spend their entire lives dedicated to this domestic work, to this work of caring for their children, and certainly when there is no longer this meaning, there is no longer this activity, there is no way not to feel suffering, not to feel alone. , not to feel sick, sad, eventually depressed”, says Brambila.
Tânia de Castro Jardim, 60, is the mother of three women. To have the girls close by, the businesswoman built a house on the two-story house where she lives in Diadema, in Greater São Paulo, for at least one of her daughters to live. Still, they chose to move, leaving the space empty.
“At the moment it’s being nice, but at first I just cried, my husband and I. Then I started to read a lot. There were things I read that said that we can’t get attached to the child. When they told me that the child people created for the world, I panicked”, says Tânia, who saw her youngest leaving home recently.
“I still cry. The house was huge because my husband built a two-story house, it looks like a mansion, and none of them are with us”, says she, who tries to kill her daughters’ homesickness by making video calls every day.
It was for fear of her mother’s reaction that the youngest Sueni de Castro Jardim, 24, took a long time to leave the house.
“I was still a little afraid to tell my mother because I was afraid of her reaction, that she wouldn’t accept it very well. So my boyfriend and I started to visit the apartments in secret and when we felt that we were much closer , that it was going to work, so I told my mother.”
And to make up for the distance, Sueni and her sister are always at their mother’s house on holidays and weekends. And Tânia does everything to kill the nostalgia when she sees the girls.
“They take great care of me, they want me to go out and when one of them says she’s going home, I take care of lunch, I make that food and even the drinks they like I buy, already waiting for my princesses”, he says.
On the other hand, when leaving the parents’ house is synonymous with living in another country, the distance makes the homesickness only increase. Kalinka de Souza Lanza, 45, saw her daughter Maria Clara, 21, pack her bags for Australia about two years ago. The purpose of the trip was to do a 12-month exchange program and return to Brazil, but that’s not what happened.
The onset of the coronavirus pandemic made Maria change her plans and now, with the health crisis waning, she has decided to stay there.
“Initially, I didn’t suffer because it would only be a period of one year at most to study, but my daughter went to Australia in November 2019, and soon after we had news of a pandemic that would change the destiny of many in the world”, he recalls. Kalinka, who hasn’t seen Maria since she boarded.
“Dealing with distance and homesickness is really difficult. We connect by video call at times when she can talk because the time zone is also a problem, but despite that we are always connected and the homesickness only increases every day”, she says.
Leaving your parents’ house, however, does not mean leaving love aside. On the contrary, the moment will open up other opportunities and possibilities for parents, says psychologist Beatriz Borges Brambila. At this stage, it is also important that they are welcomed by the family.
Anna Carolina Lo Bianco, vice president of the Federal Council of Psychology, explains that this condition is a current phenomenon, since families are smaller today than before.
“In the past, families, in general, were extensive and very large, with many children, it didn’t happen as often as it happens now. Today, families are small, there’s a father and a mother. [Então] the children leave home, and the parents who lived there because of them, suddenly find themselves alone and, in general, very unsupported”, he explains.
Like Brambilla, Lo Bianco also sees the syndrome as a phase, just like all the others in life. The psychologist emphasizes, however, that parents who are very close to their children, such as those who do not have an active life, may feel alone and find it more difficult to deal with this moment.
“And in this sense, the therapeutic accompaniment is important for the subject to be able to focus more on his life, not just being connected to what he has lost. He must certainly find himself in his life, have his interests”, completes the professional.
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