Life After Kids (eBook)

Rediscover Yourself and Thrive Beyond Motherhood

Brooke Stillwell, Lynne Mouw (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
215 Seiten
Jossey-Bass (Verlag)
978-1-394-29535-7 (ISBN)

Infos

The mom's guide to finding happiness, hope, fulfillment, and self-love as an empty nester

For moms everywhere, Life After Kids: Rediscover Yourself and Thrive Beyond Motherhood is an essential guide to becoming an empty nester. When your child leaves home for new opportunities, it's hard to adjust to their absence. This book provides a roadmap to navigating this transitional life stage, filled with wisdom on finding new opportunities, focusing on developing your emotional and mental health, managing feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and uncertainty, and preparing to welcome a new phase of parenting as kids grow older and more independent.

Written by Brooke Stillwell and Lynne Mouw, two health and wellness experts with decades of experience helping women maximize their potential and find fulfillment, this book helps readers understand concepts like:

• Why continuing to pour even more of your heart and soul into your grown kids' lives is often a step backwards
• Why women thrive as empty nesters through building emotional resilience: letting go of things you cannot control, and instead focusing on things you can control
• Why finding more purpose, rather than accumulating material possessions or indulging in leisurely activities and pastimes, is the only real way forward

For all mothers looking to embrace life now that the kids are grown, Life After Kids: Rediscover Yourself and Thrive Beyond Motherhood is the perfect practical, supportive guide to finding hope and fulfillment in a new parenting era.

DR. BROOKE STILLWELLis an expert in women's health and nutrition. She holds a doctorate degree from Palmer College and has been working with patients for over 25 years. Dr. Brooke is a published author, speaker, co-host of the Life After Kids podcast and co-founder of LifeAfterKids.com where she reaches millions of moms globally.

DR. LYNNE MOUW is a Chiropractor, Certified Strengths and Enneagram Coach, author, keynote speaker, and co-host of the Life After Kids podcast. She co-founded the viral Life After Kids community, where she empowers women to rediscover purpose and potential through strengths-based coaching. She and her husband, Dr. Mark Mouw, live just outside Omaha, Nebraska. You can find the thriving Life After Kids Community on Instagram @life.afterkids. For more information, visit LifeAfterKids.com.

Textauszug

Chapter 1
It’s Not About the Kids

By Dr. Brooke

In the Beginning: The Early Days of Motherhood

Twenty-one years seems like it should be a long time, yet I feel it blew right by me as if I was spinning around and around in circles outside on a bright sunny day as I used to do for fun as a little girl until I got so dizzy I couldn’t walk straight, swiftly tumbling into the soft grass. That’s exactly how I feel about motherhood—like I was spinning for fun at a dizzying speed, and when I stopped, I stumbled right into 2025.

How did I get here? I’d like to tell you I remember each day of motherhood clearly with the unparalleled ability to recall every sight, sound, scent, and feel of my children’s younger years. But let me be perfectly honest: Most days, I was just trying to survive. In reality, a large portion of that time seems like a blur. Yet I can recall some moments as clearly as if I’m watching them take place on a 65-inch high-definition flat-screen TV, subtitles and all. Will you partake for a moment in one of the episodes with me?

It was a hot and sticky Monday in 2003, July 14 to be exact. Almost 10 days past due with my first pregnancy, I looked as if I’d swallowed a watermelon in one gulp; I was bursting at the seams, and I was exhausted not only from growing and carrying a human being around in my body for nine months but also from my dad asking me every 10 minutes how I felt and did I think labor would start soon. He also felt the need to shove a camera in my face for a picture directly after his repetitive interrogation.

Earlier that day, I had begun to feel tumultuous waves throughout my belly preparing my body for labor. As contractions began and then ramped up, I busied myself with what any other normal woman in labor with her first child would do. I watched a marathon of Austin Powers movies, while cooling and calming myself with Fudgsicles. When it was finally time to leave the house for hardcore labor to begin, I was disheveled and in moderate pain, face sticky and spackled with remnants of my chocolate dessert pacifier, wondering if I’d ever find my mojo again.

Let’s be real for a moment, shall we? Nobody can prepare any of our hearts for what it feels like when our baby is placed in our arms for the first time. Regardless of how many books you read and classes you take, the reality is even better than the dream (until of course you bring said baby home and realize your life is never ever going to be the same and not always in a good way).

My first son finally came into the world during the wee hours of the morning of July 15. And once we got settled into our home, I quickly realized that life would never be the same. I distinctly remember my new parenting skills being put to the test one afternoon shortly after bringing Anthony home from the hospital. He was in a newborn rage, red-faced from his high-pitched screaming, and literally nothing I did could calm or quiet him. I sang, I swayed, I rocked, I swaddled, but nothing did the trick. Feeling helpless and way out of my league, I wondered why this little being didn’t come with an owner’s manual. In those moments, I recall thinking “life as I know it is over.” I will never again be able to choose to cuddle up on the couch by myself in the quiet of my home on a lazy afternoon to watch a romantic comedy or a ridiculous reality show. My life was no longer my own.

Soon my new life, which really didn’t belong to me anymore anyway, began to fly by. There were first birthdays, mommy and me classes, endless trips to the playground, play dates, two more births, preschool, sporting events, elementary school, nonstop carpooling, homework help, family vacations, middle school angst, and finally high school, first dates, and driver’s ed. It was a whirlwind.

My life was a revolving door that just kept spinning. For more than 21 years, my life has been completely consumed with my children. They’ve grown my heart in ways I never guessed possible. They pushed me to be the best version of myself. They taught me patience and selflessness. Because of them I learned better time management and communication skills. They even just about single handedly built my social network as most of my friends were parents of their friends.

My kids are my greatest joy, sometimes my greatest heartache, and without a doubt my greatest teachers. And now as the revolving door begins to slow down for my exit into the next chapter of my life, I find that my kids are teaching me yet again, and this may be the biggest lesson yet: the art of letting go.

The Transition, the Lessons, and the Heartache of Motherhood

For most of us moms, from the time our first child comes into the world, there is a shift in our universe. Suddenly, our sun is rising and setting on them. The things that used to occupy our head space and require our time take a back seat to the needs of our children. Our needs become secondary to theirs. For example, you may get through a long and arduous week, wanting nothing more than to spend your Friday night soaking in a long hot bath with a good book or ordering a pizza and watching your favorite movie; instead, you spend your night at a youth basketball game. Maybe you planned a girls night out but had to cancel because there’s no one to stay with the kids or your children need you to drive them somewhere. And, of course, there’s nothing better than canceling that much needed appointment because as luck would have it, your child happens to get sick at the same time. Then one day, the youth sporting events are over, your children no longer need your supervision at home, and they start driving themselves everywhere they need to go.

The days of our children depending on us are indeed waxing and waning, and we’re transitioning into life after kids. For much of our adult life, we put our own needs, hopes, and dreams on hold for our children to realize theirs, but now the door to our own life is opening again.

Perhaps we should feel excited about this. I mean for me, there was a time (as you’ll recall from the previous section) that I grieved the loss of the ability to lay down on the couch and watch a movie by myself if so inclined. But ironically, now that life is granting me more freedom and I have the ability to watch said movie, I can’t say that I’m over the moon excited about it. Can you relate?

If you’re reading this book, I’m guessing you probably can. Ironically, we’ve hit midlife, our kids are grown or growing up, suddenly we have more freedom to do what we want and go where we want, but we feel lost and not sure what direction to even go. In a strange turn of events, the days of wishing we had just a few moments of peace and quiet to be by ourselves and collect our thoughts have led us to the peace and the quiet we craved, but now we’re longing for the days of noise. To top it all off, we’ve traded the small worries we had for our kids like “Why won’t they eat their vegetables” and “Will they ever learn to pee-pee on the potty” to “Will they choose the right life partner” and “Will they find a career that fulfills them.” And don’t get me started on the nights we lay in bed wondering if we did enough and whether or not we’ve prepared them well for life. Naturally, these circumstances can leave us feeling disconnected from life, a little lost, lonely, and even fearful.

If this sounds like you, take heart, because you are not alone. Our kids growing up and leaving home is a big deal and not something we need to “just get over.” Dr. Lynne and I have been completely blown away by the response we’ve had to the Life after Kids community. So many women have shared with us the story of their older kids leaving home or preparing to leave, followed by the gaping hole left in their heart by the changes in their family dynamic. Others have thanked us for letting them know they’re not alone in their feelings. Moms of college kids, military kids, traveling kids, trade school kids, and just older kids in general, all sharing one common denominator—their grief over saying goodbye to their kids’ childhood knowing they won’t get it back and the loneliness they feel since their kids left. Trust me when I say, I feel it, too.

When Your Child Leaves Home

My first son left for college in the fall of 2023, moving out of state to live on a campus that is a five-hour car ride away. Friends who had already been down this path tried to prepare me and related that the car ride home after dropping them off would be the worst. I was, however, completely blindsided by how gutted I felt when I walked in the door to my house without my son. Suddenly, my legs felt 10 times heavier than they actually were, and I struggled to put one foot in front of the other. I waded through my house as if I was walking in a swimming pool against the resistance of the water around me. My body and mind were utterly exhausted, much like I used to feel directly after taking an exam that I’d pulled an all-nighter for. I was at the end of my emotional rope. The waves of everything I’d been attempting to prepare my heart for all summer long suddenly came crashing down on me as the realization that my baby was no longer living in my home slapped me in the face with a splash so salty it made my eyes burn. I didn’t try to ignore it. I didn’t try to fight it. I didn’t even cry, at...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
• Schlagworte: adult children • empty nester • empty nester anxiety • empty nester bored • empty nester depression • kids going to college • kids leave home • kids moved out • mom body image • mom find purpose • mom identity • parenting adult children
• ISBN-10: 1-394-29535-9 / 1394295359
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-29535-7 / 9781394295357