Comedienne, podcast host and author Cally Beaton opened up about the difficult feelings of empty nest syndrome, on this week's episode of HELLO!'s Second Act podcast.
Speaking to host Ateh Jewel, the 56-year-old opened up about how her approach to parenting needed to shift once her children began to leave home, describing the immediate feelings as a "grief".
© NATASHA PSZENICKI"I really had a pretty big old collapse when they left home," she began. "The wheels came off the bus quite a bit. I felt like I went through the stages of grief. No one has died, but a part of your life has died.
Cally also explained that she believed she would have been immune to the feeling, due to the busy nature of her life outside of motherhood: "I thought I dodged the bullet because I've always had a career. I've always been the breadwinner."
She continued: "I've always lived my life outside of being a mum, even though being a mum is integral to my life and I thought, 'I'll be fine'. How wrong I was."
The comedienne described how she moved into a "different phase of parenting" once they left: "They say that you give your kids roots and you give them wings".
Cally Beaton felt 'redundant' after her kids left the nest
The podcast host told Ateh: "It's such an odd thing, parenting, but it's the only job in the world where the better you do it, the more redundant you're going to be.
"And if that's the case, I've done it really well because mine have flown really far," she said, explaining that her son now lives five hours from her in Devon while her daughter lives in Madrid.
© ShutterstockCally continued: "They didn't just go round the corner. So friends of mine, who have got kids around the corner, would be like, 'I might see my daughter for tea on Sunday'. That would be nice."
The empty nest became easier for Cally
Despite the distance, the family still make the effort to see each other as much as they can: "My son comes home a lot and I see him regularly, and my daughter and I do just really lovely things together.
"We just came back from Copenhagen and we'll just meet somewhere cool, or I'll stay with her in Madrid, or she'll come home to London."
© ShutterstockCally also spoke about how things began to look up for her again afterwards: "Like a scraggy, old, cranky rock face, beautiful flowers start to come through.
"All this amazing stuff has come from it. I've never had a more fulfilling career than I have with an empty nest – and friendships, and everything else. But yeah, it's a big change."
Listen to the Second Act podcast now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and YouTube.
