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Comedian Cally Beaton says she didn’t expect the pain that comes from empty nesting.
The 56-year-old mom of two, who started her career as a TV executive before becoming a comedian and podcaster, appeared on the Aug. 17 episode of Hello! Magazine’s “Second Act with Ateh Jewel” podcast.
Around the 37-minute mark of the episode, Beaton opened up about her two kids leaving their nest.
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"I really had a pretty big old collapse when they left home," she told Ateh. "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.”
Beaton went on to describe parenting as “such an odd thing” because 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 added.
According to the Better Health Channel, empty nest syndrome “refers to the grief that many parents feel when their children move out of home.”
Beaton, who clarified that she’s a single mom with two kids, including a son with special needs, co-parents her two kids with their father.
While she said she was responsible for her kids roughly 80% of the time, she revealed that her two kids have since moved away from home as they begin their adult lives.
Her son now lives about five hours away and her daughter has lived abroad in Madrid for eight years.
"They say that you give your kids roots and you give them wings,” she said of empty nesting.
"They didn't just go round the corner,” she explained. “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."
Cally Beaton reveals how she turned empty nesting into a beautiful thing
While talking to Ateh, Beaton said she never thought empty nesting would be as painful as it was.
"I thought I dodged the bullet because I've always had a career. I've always been the breadwinner,” she said of her role as a single mom.
"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'. And, oh my goodness, how wrong I was,” she said.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, symptoms of an empty nester include redundancy, fear, grief, sadness, guilt, stress, loneliness, irritability, emptiness and powerlessness.
For Beaton, she says spending “quality time” with her kids helps her tolerate the distance between them.
"My son comes home a lot and I see him regularly, and my daughter and I do just really lovely things together,” she said on the podcast.
"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,” she added.
While empty nesting can cause a lot of grief, she says it has led to a new breath of life.
"Like a scraggy, old, cranky rock face, beautiful flowers start to come through,” she continued.
"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. Just a painful shift,” she said.
As for her advice for other parents coping with empty nest syndrome, Beatons says, “Don’t rush it.”
“It’s also the joy of the adult relationships with them. I hugely treasure both of my children’s presence in my life,” she explained.
“If we can even be half the human our children have grown up to be, we’re doing okay,” she added.
Beaton is best known for her time with Viacom, where she oversaw the budgets for channels like Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount, according to the Cit Agency Forum.
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She was responsible for shows like “South Park,” “Friends” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
