It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. - Eleanor Roosevelt

It seems to me that the real problem does not lie in diminished interests after the children have gone. It lies in having limited your interests while they were at home. A woman cannot meet adequately the needs of those who are nearest to her if she has no interests, no friends, no occupations of her own. Without them, she is in danger of becoming so dependent on her children for these things that she is apt to be equally dependent when they have left home. She may give them the uncomfortable feeling that she is languishing without their companionship and so make the time they can spend together an uneasy duty and not the pleasant occasion it should be.

No One
Has The Right
To Make You Feel Inferior
Without Your Consent

If people only realized what a war goes on in a child’s mind and heart in a situation of this kind, I think they would try to explain more than they do,