@abasket, you asked if SAHMs do worse as empty nesters. I don’t know of studies about this, but my belief is yes for the following reason.I wrote this much earlier in this thread (so pardon the repetition), but a very wise friend of mine says that mental health comes from three things – community, meaning and structure. If someone is missing one of the three, he/she is likely fine. If the person is missing two, he/she is likely to have a problem and if he/she is missing three, depression is reasonably likely.
Here’s the problem: SAHMs typically get a lot of their meaning in life from raising their kids, form their community from school or hockey / soccer or other kid-related organization as they make friends with the parents of their kids’ classmates or activity-related peers, and develop their daily structure from the kids’ schedules (drop the kids off at school; run errands, pick up at school and schlep to after-school activities, dinner, help with homework, …). HS kids wean us from some of the structure, but when the youngest kid heads off to school, many SAHMs lose meaning, structure, and over time the community devolves as many were friends of convenience rather than deep friends. As a result, they are probably more prone to sadness and depression when the youngest leaves than a parent with a job and a well-developed community separate from school. My sense is that this is a tendency, not a forgone conclusion as lots of other factors matter as well, but on average, I suspect that SAHMs have it worse when the nest empties.
If that is the diagnosis, the prescription is find an area/activity that seems meaningful to you (literacy, hunger, art, politics, …), build a community (possibly around that area/activity) and create a structure for yourself. For some, organized religion provides community, meaning and structure. Employment provides structure and often instant community but may or may not provide a sense of meaning (it does for me but doesn’t for everyone). I work beyond full-time but always try to create one pro bono project per year for myself that draws on my talents/skills to keep me in touch with higher order meaning (I’m not one for organized religion).
Our youngest graduated in January and both kids are in grad school on different coasts. We try to see them as often as they/we can, which isn’t that often. But, we are thrilled to watch them mature and become responsible adults pursuing things that they love. For example, we just spent the weekend on the other coast and our son showed us around his new university and we could see how excited he is about what he is studying. We were pleased to hear that, in addition to the extremely intense level of work he is doing in his program, he is playing basketball two hours a day (and look to be in fabulous shape) and, while he doesn’t have a GF, has a nice set of friends and goes out on two dates a weekend (he doesn’t get a lot of sleep). We were both so pleased to see him doing so well and building a strong foundation for his future. Both kids still call for advice and help (me for practical things about life and for life strategy; my wife for emotional things). But the nest is permanently empty and we are thinking about replacing our current house with something a little more compact and energy-efficient.