Tuesday, August 14, 2012

When the nest is empty but you’re still in fine feather



If you google ‘Top Blogs for Women’ you’ll find sites to help you start a business, improve your business, get a raise, make money from home, make jams at home, and make crafts from jam jars.
Your kids are bored? Mommy blogs teach you to teach your kids crafts and cooking and CPR and subsistence agriculture and marine biology using simple objects from around the house.
Your house is boring? Have you never heard of Pinterest?
If you aren’t frugal, organized, stress-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, pain-free, debt-free, and germ-free it isn’t the fault of the blogger world.

But what if you are dependent-child-free?
Where are the blogs for women who no longer need to be on high alert EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY to keep their offspring from tearing apart the known universe and blaming it on a sibling?
How do women who have spent a few dozen years trying to get food on the table and wiped off every other surface of the house learn to wind down but still feel productive?
How do we keep from turning into my old neighbor Ellen, who, once her children left home, could never get out of the habit of doing 3 loads of laundry a day and putting up 200 jars of pickles every fall?

Here we are at the Raspberry Filling Years. Sandwiched between sponge cake layers of motherhood and grandmotherhood, or, for those of us without children, between layers of building a career and looking forward to retirement.

Yes, there is always online Scrabble. There are part-time jobs and volunteer work and caring for aging parents and being on the lookout for potential spouses for our unattached children and wondering when the heck we will be able to put all our wisdom to use as a grandmother. But some of us have something new: extra time. How do we fill it? Where is our blog?
 

As a good prude who never shirks her duty, I plan to add a weekly segment called ‘The Nest is Empty but You are Still in Fine Feather’.
Because Raspberry Filling Women need a voice.

4 comments:

Sue Vick Finley said...

Wow, you hit a raw nerve for many of us out here or should we call it a ruffled feather. Preach on Prude! We need you!!

Lori Lipsky said...

I can't wait to hear more of "We are still in fine feather." The timing could not be more perfect for me. Thanks, Prude.

Robin Steinweg said...

You are indeed a Prude after my own heart.

I've heard that collecting feathers is illegal--however, I hope to collect many from you in the coming weeks! Don't turn me in!

beth BA said...

Grandmotherhood is so great - and worth the wait!

How much has your "Finder's Fee" been for your sons?