Empty The Nest? Ha!

By Francine Russo

Elaine Williamson's three offspring, all in their 30s, are long gone from the family's New York City apartment. They're settled in homes around the country, married, with children of their own. So, why, Elaine wants to know, is her home still jammed with Ann's childhood books; Elizabeth's bridesmaid's dresses; and Jim's surfboard, bicycle and shoes? Has she ever asked them to take these things? Williamson, a science teacher, laughs: "All the time!"

This tug-of-war between generations over stuff and space is being played out by countless families across the country. Some believe it's merely a nuisance or a practical storage problem, but usually far more is at stake. Whether perceived as old junk or saved treasure, remnants of childhood carry a symbolic freight that transmutes over time as the "children" move into different phases of their lives.

For new college graduates, leaving things behind can be their way of saying, "Don't forget me." For older adults, finally reclaiming them can mean "I've arrived." Many parents, though, expect that when their newly minted grownups set up their first apartment or house, they will remove their belongings, releasing a room or at least a closet. Good luck.

"This idea of 'launching' our children is a purely American concept," notes psychologist Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss. "We don't really launch our kids, as if into outer space: they stay connected. Now that kids often move far away," she adds, "leaving stuff with parents can be an unconscious way to maintain their roots."

Knowing it's all still there brings comfort to many a wanderer. Matt McGowan, 24, who works in a digital-publishing company in San Francisco, can fondly picture his possessions back in New York City, including his collections of baseball cards and comics and "a pair of beaten-up, dried-out track shoes I'd never throw away. The stuff instills that feeling that it's still your home."

It's hard to overestimate the symbolic importance of these childhood belongings and the bedrooms in which they often still reside. To young adults moving into an uncertain world, these things represent security. If their parents sell the house out from under them, they may feel betrayed. Anne Braden Moon, 23, an M.B.A. student in Memphis, Tenn., remembers her bedroom as a sanctuary: "It had all my awards and stuffed animals, and the chair my parents rocked me in when I was a baby." She felt devastated when her family moved to another house after her college graduation.

Children may also react negatively if the room remains but has been stripped of their presence. Two years after Dena Cowan Klapperich, 37, a clinical psychologist in Lindenhurst, Ill., had left home to live with her boyfriend, her mother, U.C. Berkeley psychologist Carolyn Cowan, converted Dena's old room to an office. "The first time she came over after that, she couldn't walk in there," Cowan recalls.

The feeling of being "shunted aside or pushed out" when the room is taken over is common, notes Sara Moss Herz, a psychologist in Westport, Conn.--even for children embarked on independent lives. "There's still that fantasy that you can go back and do it right," she explains. "If there's an office or guest room there, that's pretty concrete evidence that life has moved on."

So what's a parent to do? Preserve the room as a shrine? Store the stuff forever? Bear in mind, advises William Pinsof, a psychologist and president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University, that parents may also benefit emotionally from having their kids' old things around: "It makes the nest a little less empty."

Adolescence can last until age 25 or 30 these days, observes Arthur Kovacs, a psychologist in Santa Monica, Calif. "There are false career starts," he explains, "trying out relationships, lying fallow between jobs." He suggests that parents try to "accommodate the anxiety" of their kids and keep the stuff until they're in their late 20s--or at least acknowledge their feelings by saying, "I wish I could do this for you."

Robert Billingham, professor of human and family studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, suggests instilling in children the idea that safety and comfort reside not in the physical space or the objects but in their connection to their family. While children are still at home, you can gently tell them, "A year or two after you graduate, we'll make this into an office."

Still, even the most patient parents may not be automatically rewarded with the liberation of their closets or garages. A decade after their childhood room has become a study, grownup kids in their 30s or 40s may lovingly rummage through their old belongings but still refuse to take them from their resting place.

Brian Boom, vice president for science at the New York Botanical Garden, resisted his mother's entreaties on every trip back to Memphis to take his treasured Boy Scout badges and memorabilia. These trophies meant a lot to Boom. Only after he married in his 40s and became "more of a nesting person" did he feel that these mementos belonged in his own home.

It's often not until grandchildren arrive that parents who had given up hope finally see the last boxes carted out the door. "When people begin to feel very secure in their lives," Billingham says, "they can feel O.K. snipping that final thread to home."

Joanna White, a music professor in Mount Pleasant, Mich., left her bulky "savings" box of childhood memorabilia in her parents' garage in Kensington, Calif., until shortly before her 40th birthday this year. The things in that carton represented her "young self," she explains, who was creative and a writer. On her last visit, though, she did bring the box's contents back to Michigan because she wanted to show her daughter Kailey, 7, who's talking about being a writer, the stories she had written at age seven. "When Kailey read them," White relates, "she decided that at that age, I was like her, but even more shy." Later White realized she may have had another motive: she had applied for a sabbatical to do some writing in her field and perhaps, she thinks, had retrieved "the creative-writing part of myself."

"It's the truly mature personality that can integrate the past, the present and the future," noted Billingham on hearing White's story. "Now the daughter's future will be influenced by her mother's past. This is how the generations can influence one another, and these objects can be the conveyance. It's really a beautiful thing."

And you thought that stuff in your closet was just a pile of old junk.