Commentary by Chris Smith, editor-in-chief of Clarksville Now.
Twenty-five years ago, after five glorious years of what we now call “being single” (we were married, but we didn’t yet have kids), the Wife and I – mainly The Wife – started nesting.
I’d heard of this before: A pregnant woman takes to wandering the woods or the neighboring streets, picking up twigs and sticks, stray bits of clothing, animal fur. She then piles it all up and binds it with saliva, or maybe a hot-glue gun, to make a cozy spot for the baby to sleep.
Luckily for me, The Wife took a more reasonable route and instead emptied our bank account.
We got a hand-me-down crib, and we started collecting baby books. We painted the spare room, and we baby-proofed our house so much I sometimes felt like I was living under armed guard. Want a late-night snack? Not so fast. First, figure out the digital-encrypted two-step verification code for the spoon drawer.
These days, with those babies now flown the nest, we’re going in the other direction: We’re reverse-nesting.
Rethinking the way we are
It’s been interesting, taking a step back and rethinking why things are the way they are. For example, we had a TV in our bedroom so that The Wife and I could watch CSI while the kids had friends over in the den, watching Tinkerbell or Hellboy or Scream XIV. Now the den TV is all ours, so we got rid of the bedroom TV.
Years ago, the kids had destroyed the towel rods and hooks in the bathroom. I don’t know why or how. I guess it’s easier to yank straight down on a towel than it is to lift it off of a hook. It happened so often, I stopped replacing them. Now that the kids are theoretically responsible adults who can visit without destroying the bathroom, I installed a new rack of towel hooks. (They better last!)
We used to eat out of cans a lot more than we do now. Some nights, entire family meals were compiled from food that came quickly and easily out of cans. But these days, we open a can maybe two, three times a month. Do we really need a large under-cabinet automatic can opener that’s exactly in my way when I cook? Nope. Goodwill it is.
Manly man tools of your own
My favorite reverse-nesting move has been the Ultimate Box of Dad Tools. With each of the kids, I haven’t let them go off to college without me at the last minute throwing together a box containing basic tools – hammer, screwdrivers, wrench, duct tape. I have plenty of these that I’ve accidentally accumulated over the last 50-some years of my manly manhood.
But each one of those punks has complained about it on the way out. “Dad, I really don’t need these. When am I going to need a wrench? If I need a hammer, I’ll just borrow one.”
I made them take the tools anyway.
Lo and behold, within 30 days of going off to college, I got a call or text from every one of them thanking me profusely for those tools. They ended up needing them almost immediately, and in some cases, they ended up being the source of hammers and wrenches for all those unfortunate kids whose dads were the schleps who sent their kids off without an Ultimate Box of Dad Tools.
Confession time: When writing this column I texted the kids to send me photos of their boxes. Turns out, The Boy and The Kid ended up with actual tool boxes. The Girl got a cardboard box. I think this Dad is in trouble.
Guest room, ‘their’ room or office?
The big question, especially from The Girl, who is sentimental about these things, was whether we’d turn their bedrooms into offices or home gymnasiums. And we thought about it. My philosophy is that when the kids leave the house, they don’t live here anymore – it’s no longer “their” room. They’re GAA (grown “up” adults), and they live in their dorm room or apartment.
The Wife says not so fast.
We do have enough office space in the den, and we do need a place for them to sleep when they come home to visit. So, guest rooms it is, still decorated mostly the way they still were when they were still here. And no, I never go up there and look at the Harry Potter books and ballerina dresses and beginner ukuleles and get misty-eyed missing them. No, that would be silly.
It’s all still better than twigs covered in saliva.
Daddy Overboard is a limited series on life as empty-nesters.
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