I’ve been an empty nester since mid August when my youngest child headed off to college.
Most of the time, I can handle both of my kids being far away at their colleges, but I do feel like an empty nester at dinner time. I think that’s because dinner at our house was often the highlight of my day when the kids were growing up.
Despite my kids’ crazy schedules, we almost always managed to eat together as a family. I think we managed to do this about six days a week. I loved talking to the kids about their day and discussing current events. The children would kid me mercilessly if I brought up something that I read in The New York Times because I was always mentioning something from that newspaper.
Anyway, I am taking a long time to share that I found a way this week to have dinner with my daughter Caitlin even though she is more than 2,700 miles away. Last night when my husband and I were getting ready to sit down for a dinner of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) my daughter called and I was too hungry to chat on the phone.
Dining with Skype
Instead I asked her to call us through Skype on her computer. I set up my Macbook laptop on the table and for the next 45 minutes we had one of our family dinners. She got to see us and we saw her and we chatted. The only difference between this family dinner and those from the past is that we had leftovers. And Caitlin got out of washing dishes.
For all you empty nesters out there, consider having a Skype dinner occasionally with your college student.
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch and US News. Follow her on Twitter.
What a great story for those families who are both excited for their impending launch of their student and fearful too. Luckily there are lots of great ways to stay in touch, and SKYPE is certainly a great one!
Awww. This is nice. Hope I’ll be able to figure out Skype in a year or two.