What do you do when the kids are grown, the weekends are finally yours, and suddenly nobody needs you to be anywhere?In Episode 5 of *Life After the Nest*, we’re talking about how to use this stage of life well.Not just how to stay busy.How do we figure out what we actually enjoy? How do we make time for our spouse, friendships, travel, hobbies, service, and new experiences without turning our free time into another packed schedule?We talk about:• What happens when your calendar finally belongs to you• Figuring out what you actually enjoy doing• Filling your weekends without just filling time• Dating your spouse again• Making new friends after 50• Avoiding the work, dinner, TV, bed routine• Using some of your time to help other people• Taking advantage of the freedom you spent years saying you wanted• What retirement looks like when work is no longer filling most of your weekIf you don’t know what to do with a free Saturday now, what are you going to do when retirement gives you seven free Saturdays every week?

Your kids are adults now.

That sounds simple enough. Until they need money. Advice. A place to live. Help fixing another problem. Or all four at the same time.

In Episode 4 of Life After the Nest, I’m talking about one of the harder parts of parenting adult children. How do you stay supportive without continuing to run their lives?

Where do you draw the line between helping and rescuing?

We talk about adult kids moving back home, lending money, giving advice they did not ask for, setting boundaries, and learning when to say no.

We also get into something parents sometimes forget. You still have a life too.

Your marriage matters. Your retirement matters. Your travel plans matter. Your finances matter.

You can love your kids, support them, and be there when they truly need you without organizing your entire life around every problem they have.

The parenting job does not end when your kids grow up.

But the job does need to change.

Your kids are grown. They have their own lives, schedules, relationships, and responsibilities.So how do you stay close without holding on too tightly?In Episode 3 of Life After the Nest, we’ll talk about how your relationship with your children changes once they become adults.We’ll discuss staying connected, giving advice, boundaries, family traditions, feeling needed, and learning how to build a new adult-to-adult relationship with your kids.

For years, being a parent shaped your schedule, your priorities, and a big part of your identity. Then the kids grow up, move out, and need you in a very different way.

In Episode 2 of Life After the Nest, I talk about the identity shift that can happen when active parenting ends. We’ll talk about the mix of freedom, pride, loss, and uncertainty that can come with this stage of life.

We’ll also get into rediscovering interests you may have put aside, finding purpose outside of parenting, adjusting to a new relationship with your adult children, and figuring out who you want to be now.

If you have ever asked yourself, “Who am I now that the kids are grown?” this episode is for you.

Episode 1 of Life After the Nest

What happens when the kids leave home and the life you built around raising them suddenly changes?

In this first episode, Eric Stephenson talks about the transition into empty-nest life and the questions that often come with it. We talk about identity, relationships, purpose, adult children, friendships, travel, and figuring out what you want this next stage of life to look like.

Life After the Nest is for married couples, singles, divorced parents, widows, widowers, foster parents, adoptive parents, and anyone getting close to the empty-nest years.

New episodes every Tuesday.

What happens after the kids leave home?

Life After the Nest is a weekly conversation about relationships, identity, purpose, friendships, adult children, faith, health, retirement, travel, and creating a fulfilling life after active parenting.

Hosted by Eric Stephenson of Empty Nester Getaways.

The first full episode arrives Tuesday, August 25, 2026.