The Nest Is Empty. Now What? Navigating Life Between Adult Children and Aging Parents - Part 2

Your children are grown and living their own lives. Your parents are beginning to need you more. How do you honor both without losing yourself in between?

Sondra Ziegler picks her conversation back up with Kate Hamilton, author of The Imperfect Parent: A Nonjudgmental Guide to Raising Children in the Modern World, moving from parenting adult children to the conversations we need to have with aging parents, and the reassessment waiting for us in our marriages.

Kate speaks openly about her parents, 88 and 82, and the tension of watching decisions she would make differently while choosing to honor their wishes anyway. The contrast with her father-in-law is striking: he was fully transparent about what he had settled and what he had not, and Kate describes how much easier his passing was for everyone because of it. Sondra adds what she sees in practice, where the caregiver child carries the daily weight and the distant sibling only sees their parents at holidays.

Kate then gets practical about approaching a parent who does not want to talk. Build rapport first. Ask rather than tell. Mirror back your interpretation, not their exact words. The conversation closes on marriage, where she and Charlie are treating the empty nest as halftime and planning the second half as deliberately as they once planned how to raise their children.

Highlights from this episode:

• Honoring your parents' wishes when you would decide differently
• The legacy conversations worth having while they are still here
• What transparent planning spared one family, and what silence costs another
• Why caregiver siblings and distant siblings see two different sets of parents
• How to open a hard conversation with a parent who does not want to have it
• Clarify and verify: mirroring back meaning instead of words
• Halftime for a marriage: assessing the first half, planning the second
• The two-millimeter shift that can change every relationship you have

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Imperfect Parent by Kate Hamilton (Amazon)
• Kate Hamilton's Substack

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host

Sondra Ziegler

Executive Director of Ziegler Estate Law Firm

What is Second Half Conversations?

The second half of life can be full of meaningful moments—more time with family, new opportunities, and the freedom to focus on what matters most. At the same time, it often brings important questions about planning, caregiving, relationships, and the future.

So that’s exactly what we talk about.

We'll tackle difficult topics like estate planning and care navigation, strategic aspects of taxes and business succession planning, and the dynamics of relationships and seasons that come with the second half of life.

Because if done right, the second half can be the better half.

I want to circle back to something you said. So now we've arrived at this spot where the kids are launched. They're, you know, beginning their own story, their you know, having to go through their own struggles, learn who they are, and we've moved from driving the car to the back seat of the car. But at the same time that we find ourselves there with our kids, we find ourselves needed more by our parents. Oh, come on. And so tell me a little bit about, a little more about feeling that with your parents. I know you've described them as healthy and as very mentally aware still.

But how how have you seen your role change with them? And what sort of conversations are you starting to have with them or seeing that you need to start having having with them? I know there's and I know that they've been very important in your kids' lives as well, and so I wanted to touch on that a little bit too, the role you see for grandparents, because I know that's part of your book as well, and I know a lot of our listeners that's really important for. We have our first two grandbabies on the scene now, and it's it's an exciting time of life, and you really do start thinking about how can I be intentional in this season because I know my years with my, I want to be intentional with my grandparents, I want to be intentional about what we do with our remaining years in terms of how can we live our lives in such a way that we can be involved with our grandkids as much as possible in a healthy way and in a way that provides a legacy for them in terms of our involvement, our love, our support, but also our experience, like passing on the lessons we've learned and the wisdom, but then also with my parents, you know, my parents are getting older too, and we don't live close to them?

And so, yeah, what conversations should we be thinking about having with our folks?

Well, I think the conversations I'm currently having with my folks are, hey, what is the legacy that you want to pass down and how do you want to pass it down? Not just financials. I mean, that is what it is. And I have a brother who has a frontal lobe injury and a sister that is still struggling with some issues. And I have to have, and my parents want to deal with it by just still, quote, being parents to these adult children.

And I have to step back and honor their wishes when I feel that they could do something different and these are the hard conversations that I'm having with my parents. They came from a different generation. They see the world their way and I have to respect it. I do get the opportunity to ask the questions but they also get the opportunity to respond and as a child, I'm still a child in their eyes. I am still their child and something that if I mean, if I'm honest with my faith, my faith says that honor your mother and father.

It doesn't say when you get to a certain age, you get to stop. Honor them. Period. Doesn't give any caveats. I wish it did sometimes, but it doesn't.

And I get the opportunity to honor their wishes in the manner they want. So I'm having some super hard conversations that I have to listen to and honor my parents with. And I get that opportunity. It's gonna have me then more intentional about this stage of my life with my husband. I got to see my father-in-law do it differently.

And hence the fact, again, I can even have some of the conversations. I saw everything that you guys laid out for my father-in-law. I saw how easy it was when he did pass. And I get the opportunity today to honor his legacy in the manner that he wants because it's so clear. And that's the thing we forget.

And this is what I really love about you guys is that, yes, you set the documents up properly, but you also go through those hard conversations. Hey, when is it time to put them in a place where they are taken care of? What are those stages? What are the steps? What else?

How can we financially manage things so that we're doing everything appropriately ahead of time so that their legacies can remain within the family. There's so many things that unless you've walked down the path that you guys have walked down, that you just don't know about. And even Charlie and I today are setting up things in a manner that our wishes are then carried on after we pass. And our kids are super aware of our wishes also. And it doesn't mean they're not gonna change as we get older.

They probably will. But it's something that through conversations, they're changing and the kids know. I mean, for instance, grandpa Harry has a ranching legacy of his family that he has passed on. And he used to say lovely things like, your dirt is in my hole. I love those sayings.

Like, meds are made for dying, so get on up. The sun is going to rise before you, so you better hurry up. I mean, he used to have these delightful phrases that I still remember, and our kids remember, and they get to share his legacy with our grandkids because of how he set it up ahead of time. And I'm grateful for that. Let me tell you, it wasn't a legacy or a way of life that I had ever been introduced to until I met grandpa Harry.

And it's enriched my life and made me a better person.

So how I know in the work we do, it's really important for the family to understand the why of how parents want things to go after they pass. And so much conflict can be avoided if the parents are willing to have that discussion. Now, I will say there are sometimes some very good reasons why they will not have the discussion ahead of time. Maybe there are siblings in conflict, siblings who haven't spoken to each other in a long time, siblings who may want to make trouble with the plans that mom and dad have for how things are going to go, who maybe do not agree with their values. It's often the case too that we have caregiver children.

So that the, you know, there are one, there's one child or two children who are bearing the primary burden for helping make decisions, getting to doctor's appointments, who are in the day to day of it with their parents, let me just say that. And there's maybe another sibling or other set of siblings who don't live nearby, and they, to some extent, just don't get it. Don't get their parents are facing every day and what day to day life is actually like. They may see their parents at holidays, maybe one other time during the year, and they don't see their day to day needs or maybe how their health or their cognitive abilities are changing over time. And so sometimes they don't have that discussion, they don't have that understanding, and the parents for whatever reason do not want to be transparent or forthcoming.

What advice do you have having walked through that with your father-in-law and, you know, he did his estate planning and has now passed away? Just from what you saw in that in that situation, what would you advise adult children or siblings to remember, do, say, not say? Yeah, just what

experience or, you know, wisdom can you pass on to us? So my best wisdom would be, I do think that parents need to try to solve the issues within their generation that they have somewhat created. Now, having said that, I don't believe that my parents are going to do that. My husband's parent, father, who passed away, absolutely did the best he possibly could to do that and was super transparent. And so consequently, it was very easy and he was even super transparent with me.

I mean, he had no I mean, I was grateful that he felt that close to me to be able to tell me everything, you know, the good, bad and ugly, even at that stage and and where the skeletons were hidden or not hidden. And he just was extremely transparent and knowledgeable about, hey, here are some of the things that I know I didn't solve. And here are the things that I hope I did. My parents, on the other hand, and again, so my point of saying all that is conversations and transparency, in my opinion, having those hard conversations when the person is still alive. Is super key.

And. I just think it's imperative to have the conversation rip off the band aid, it's gonna hurt sometimes. But don't go to the grave saying I coulda, shoulda, woulda. And those are the conversations I'm having with my parents. But again, I'm going to go back to my parents get the opportunity to choose what they want even if I disagree and it's my obligation as their daughter to do what they want, not what I want.

And that's the hard part that stings for me personally sometimes. And I'm grateful I could acknowledge that sting. I'm grateful I get to work through it while they're still alive. I'm grateful that my parents are still talking to me and telling me they're whys. I'm grateful we can still have the conversation.

Because if they just passed and we didn't have this, I think it would be even harder.

So what would you say to families where the parents are not being seem reluctant to have that conversation? Is there or to have important conversations and what we what what what might be we be talking about? It could be something as simple as, you know, since we do estate planning, I'll start there. You know, here's my wishes. This is what I'm writing into my documents.

Here's who I want to be in control of this process, and here's why. But it could also be relational things. It could also be unresolved conflict.

What well, how do you what do you how do you

recommend people would would approach their parents to encourage them? Because what I see throughout your book is a very positive mindset that having these conversations is not or just the way you approach things is assuming the best about people and and their possibility for growth, not only your own, but others around you. And so how do we take that growth mindset to our conversations and to these things that we'd like to talk with our parents about instead of thinking, having sort of a negative mindset of, oh, they're so closed off. They they don't agree with me about this issue. They're never going to want to talk about it.

How do you because I also have seen how you approached in the stories about how you approach conversations with your kids and how you raise them. How do you approach these conversations with a an openness, a positive mindset, and a belief in your ability to grow, other people's ability to grow, even with these ingrained patterns of relating.

Yeah, I would say to, I mean, the conversation literally that I just had with my dad is that, you know, dad, I appreciate your wishes because I think the first thing is, is that they have to, you, when you meet somebody, you have to have rapport before they are gonna talk to you, before they're gonna open up and they're gonna trust you. And so you've got to gain that rapport first with the person every time, every time you talk to them, every time you leave the conversation and come back, you gotta gain that rapport. And once you have that rapport, then you can dig And you ask a question, you get curious and you stated in a manner, well, tell me what you think. And you've got to show how that you understand their world, understand where they're coming from. I understand my parents are different generation.

They grew up in a way that they were raised that you just told your kids and you just did it. You took care of family. You didn't, it didn't matter certain things. This is how it's done period. And so I have to understand their world and I have to let them know that I understand their world every time.

And then open to hear things you don't wanna hear.

Okay. Keep going. I have a question for you already.

Go ahead. I don't mind you interrupting.

Well, okay. Because this is very practical. This is very, very practical. And that's what I was hoping for is it's just, I love this tactical advice because this developing a rapport every time, I saw that in your book with your kids, developing a rapport every time. And part of your tactic for that, that I've heard before, but not in this context, was how you would mirror what they were saying to you and say it back to them.

Oh, Okay. So do you do this with your parents also? Absolutely. Okay. Okay.

So tell me, show me what that looks like.

So let's yeah. So for instance, my dad would say, hey. I want you to do x y z. And I would say, okay. You want me to do x y z, and that means this and this and this.

Because that's what else I heard by x y z. And he will he will then say, oh, no. I didn't mean that and that and that. I only meant this. Oh.

And and what I say is that's clarify and verify. I'm clarifying by repeating it back to him what he said. I'm clarifying my understanding because when you say a word, it has a lot of different meanings to you than it does to me, or it can mean the exact same thing. So for instance, if I tell my husband I'm gonna go get a pair of pants at the store, he thinks I'm gonna go to that store, walk straight in, buy a pair of pants, and walk out. I'm not gonna do that.

It's not gonna happen. He might do that. Right. I'm gonna go in. I'm gonna look at things.

Go in. And then go out of the store. I'm gonna do other things too. I might tie it into something else I have to do. I might just because I feel like it.

Go look at something else in the store. Curiosity. Whatever. I'm gonna do it differently. I have a different perspective of what that means.

So when he's saying something to me by me repeating it back and repeating back not only just the exact words, but my interpretation of it also helps him to hear and give him and don't just repeat it back and say, this is what you said. You say it as, hey. This is what I heard. Is this what I should is this what you intended? By being curious and asking him, is this what you intended?

It keeps things on a positive manner. Like, no, I didn't mean that at all. I meant this. Oh, let me try again. Did you mean this?

And again, I'm not gonna repeat it back word for word. I'm gonna repeat back what my perception was.

What that means to you. Exactly. I can see how that would really help with defensiveness. It could really help lower that defensive wall of that person because I mean, you and I've always, we've all been in conversations where you try to ask clarifying questions, and somehow it comes across as argumentative. Yes, accusatory, argumentative.

And then you're arguing and about what words mean. And I said this, well, this is what this means as if there's but what you've done, the way you've said it acknowledges that the same words can have different meanings to different people. And that that's certainly okay. And that your whole goal is just to understand what they meant. Exactly.

What they meant. Not pass judgment on what they meant. Right. Or whether they should have meant it, or whether it makes any sense, or anything like that.

So I Well, love and frankly, that's something that I I kinda always try to remind myself of over and over and over again that, wait a second. What's the goal? The goal is not to tell my dad what to do. The goal is to understand what he wants. And once I understand what he wants, I can then get curious and ask questions.

Hey, what about this, this, and this? Because I know you want this. What about trying this perspective? What do you think about this? And asking it as a question.

And I respect that you don't want to talk to my siblings about what's going on because you don't want the argument. You don't want them to be nervous and you know that I will do your wishes. However, it's going to put me in a position later on that will be, I will be backpedaling and I will be withholding information from them at this point in time that I don't really feel comfortable with. Now I'm getting to telling him how I feel. And would it be possible, is the word I always say, would it be possible to do it in a different manner?

I'm not saying my way, but could you help me come up with an even better way? And allow them in the process because telling people what to do, in my opinion, doesn't work. Asking them how to do it better or different, watch how they come up with a solution that's even better than you ever thought of.

I love it. Okay, so that is a great segue to another part of your book when we're talking about this conversation style and using that with your parents to understand their wishes and getting them to open up to you and maybe consider a different course of action than they were, you know, contemplating, that's being open about their finances at a certain point when they need to, or about the estate planning they're putting in place, or who they're going to lean on to be, to make decisions for them if that day comes, if they need a child to act under under a power of attorney because they lose capacity, or have some sort of physical ailment, or who's going to be the executor, you know, when they pass someday, or why they're giving these assets to these kids and why they're giving these assets to these kids, all of that sort of thing. But in your marriage so shifting gears to talking about the empty nest, and once your kids leave home and the change in your life at that point, you talk about in your book that, you know, marriage at that point in the empty nest, you have an opportunity to sort of take an assessment of where you are as sort of halftime for that married couple, and reflecting on the first half and planning for the second, and being intentional, And not thinking that, okay, what we've always done, we have to keep doing, or just sort of, you know, trudging through each day without examining, well, what are our goals now?

What is it that we as a couple want to do that maybe we haven't been able to do before? So tell us about that, about marriage and empty nest. So one of

the things that Charlie and I are doing is that we are kind of trying to plan the second half of our life. We sat down and kind of planned and talked about how we were going to raise our kids. And we're being intentional about now, of our kids, how are we going to raise ourselves? Are we gonna do? How are we gonna act now together?

And sitting down now at this stage when our kids are away and gone. And we've started that, but we haven't been as intentional, frankly, let's be honest here, as we've both wanted. And I think we're more intentional this year, especially we have been way more intentional about it. And we're writing down kind of our past so that we can share with our husbands some of the things that maybe we never even shared. And so we understand maybe and help find out what's our next or what's our next identity?

What's the next venture? How are we gonna quote, end life well? And it makes me like and really, one of the things that really got us super thinking about this is a good friend of ours father passed away. And we were both close with this gentleman also. And every day, he woke up and treated every day like tomorrow was the last.

I mean, how he treated his wife, how he interacted with his kids and his grandkids, and how intentional he was about working, about playing, about learning, and what he did. It was about him understanding that he wasn't gonna leave the, oh, I'll do that tomorrow. He wasn't gonna do that. And watching him, and then he got pancreatic cancer, and then he found out he had six months, quote, six months, you know, the proverbial six months to live. He lived a little longer than that, but he lived every day and didn't change a thing when he found out he had this cancer.

He didn't do anything different and I wanna be there at that point. I think that Yes. Getting there. I'm on the path, and Charlie and I are working hard to be on that path so that there's nothing different that we do. I'm not happy There's with this a reason my book's called The Imperfect Parent.

Oh, man. There's so much, there. And, yeah, that whole perspective about don't put it off and just the gratitude for each day and knowing that it could be your last. And so what is it you wish you were doing? What is it you wish you were growing in?

What is it you wish you were communicating to your those that you love and those that you have privilege of being around, either leading or being led or, you know, the church you're a part of, the things that you see that need to be done that you know you could do. Yep. Yeah. There was a song I used to love that just talked about, you know, it's not always the things that the bad things that you do that you end up regretting. It's the things, the good things you knew to do that you didn't do and that we don't wanna be regretting.

Oh, wow.

I love that. In that life well lived. And so, boy, that really hits home. Yeah. And being intentional.

And that's the thing. You have to be intentional about your life. You don't just wake up and it happens. You gotta figure out how to be intentional with everything.

So true. And one of the things that you talk about in the chapter about your marriage in the second half of life is, or half time I think you call it, is your communication. And you mentioned a letter to Charlie. Yeah. That changed your communication.

Tell us about that and staying curious. Okay, so first of all, one of

the things about staying curious is that you always have a positive thought or you always believe that what he's telling me, I'm going to interpret it in the most positive interpretation, most generous interpretation I possibly can. Okay? And by giving him the most generous interpretation, then I believe what he's saying to me is to help me. And I believe that it's going to be good for me. And I believe what he's saying is positive.

So Okay. That's huge right there. We could have a whole podcast on believing the best. We we really could.

The and Brene Brown is the lady who came up with that. That is not my, you know, that I did not invent that. But show

us what that looks like. Okay.

Oh, well, it's like, can you give yes.

Give us a for instance with it.

Oh, let me think. So for instance, I in the book, write I try on a dress, and I show him the dress. And he looks and goes, oh, that's an ugly dress. And, of course, I so not giving the most generous interpretation, I initially think, oh my gosh, I look ugly. And his point was, no, no, no.

The dress was ugly. Not you. You're beautiful. But I, in the meantime, fell apart and, like, just because I thought my husband called me ugly. But the truth is, he never called me ugly.

If I flip it and give it the most generous interpretation, he says, the dress is ugly. I don't I didn't originally hear dress. I just assumed it was me. And the even if I didn't hear the dress is ugly and just heard I'm ugly, I would have said is, tell me more. Why do you think that?

Like, get curious, and you must be meaning the dress is ugly. Right? And ask the question, oh, did you mean that the dress was ugly? Oh, because I must have heard it wrong. And so no matter what he says, I'm just gonna flip it.

It doesn't matter. And and, frankly, for my happiness, it doesn't even matter if he really called me ugly. Because guess what? I don't believe I'm ugly. And so why should I?

Why should I let him? Mhmm. Why should I believe something or let somebody tell me something I don't even believe about myself?

Right.

So tell us that's hard.

Yes. No. It is. But the the staying curious and believing the best that you know your husband and that he does mean well for you, and he what you're hearing may not be what his intention was. Yeah.

So tell us about this letter to Charlie that changed your communication.

Well, so he used to well, he does. He speaks very direct, and he wants bullet points back. And I'm a girl. I don't tend to speak that way. You've heard in this podcast, I started one thing, go to another, back in circles sometimes, kinda how I go shopping.

Is what it is. I allow him the opportunity to interject, to say, hey, do you mean to clarify and verify? And by, by, we sat down and we told, I wrote a letter to him giving him some background of why sometimes his words are more hurtful than others. Why? The, having him understand some of my triggers, some of the things that we say, when you have a, a scar, someone can touch it all day long and it doesn't hurt.

But if it's a scab, someone touches it, it might hurt. But when it's an open wound, it's really gonna hurt when someone touches it. And so is this a scar? Is this a scab? Or is this an open wound?

And I gave him a roadmap to some of those open wounds still and some of the scars. He doesn't just know. Even though we've been married for twenty six years, you think he would just know, no, I don't just know. So we, again, have to have that communication. And by having that so I don't mind if he interrupts me.

It I don't care at all. Sometimes I need to be interrupted. He's like, okay, honey. Please stop. Just give me an Ebola point.

Oh, happy to. Okay. Mhmm. This, this, and this. Oh, okay.

But he didn't feel comfortable in the past. I would drone on, not understanding that he even heard anything because there was no other response. I mean, as a girl, we tend to go, oh, okay. Uh-huh. Tell me more.

Or, like, have more of a response. And he was being super respectful from his perspective. And I didn't, I knew it, but I didn't catch on sometimes. And so we had these conversations and we talked about it. And by talking about it and being intentional, you can resolve some things so that the future then is even easier.

You know, I think there's really something to learn there about staying humble in our own perspectives and our own understanding and not being so convinced that, you know, circling back also to the being staying curious and asking and reflecting back and stating back what you heard from someone that that is not an elementary exercise, that it really is a gift to those around you and helps you to stay humble in your own confidence of your perspective is what I'm saying. Because we all bring not only our history, but our personality, what happened to us that day, our own understanding of words, all these different things to every conversation we have. And if we constantly bump up against each other and just believe that if we don't believe the best, and if we don't stay curious, we can really do each other a disservice by constantly misunderstanding the people around us and not giving them the benefit of the doubt. And so I love that with your husband. And that also brings me to, in this second half, this halftime reassessment of your marriage and where you wanna go together as a couple, and as parents of adult children, and as grandparents someday when those grandchildren arrive on the scene, and the the legacy that you wanna leave, and and you talked about finishing well, and the gentleman who passed away of pancreatic cancer.

He was living so intentionally that he did not need to drastically change his life with a six month diagnosis. Tell us about how you're going about thinking about your legacy and being intentional with your husband. What are some of the things that you are realizing you want to do or that are important to pass on to your children or how you are relating with them now and what you yeah. How would our listeners embark on a journey with their spouse of thinking about the second half? So

one thing I do want to add also is that when I am talking with Charlie, one of the things, and it's something that I started when the kids were young, and it's you're quick to say you're sorry, slow to judge and learn from the past. We keep those three things in our mind also. It makes it because even when you do say something that was misunderstood, if that wasn't your intentions, then you're quickly say, I am so sorry because my intention, I never want to hurt you. And I see that my words hurt. And so and then judging in my opinion is the worst because it's super harmful.

Instead of getting curious, that's the alternate to it. But in the second half of life, when you sit down and talk about how do you wanna handle grandkids? How do you want to handle travel? How do you want to handle where you're going to live? What you're going to do?

How important is work? How my husband is not the kind of person that ever will retire. There's no such thing as retirement. He works because he loves it.

Mine's that way too. So

And and and that's wonderful because guess what? We get the opportunity to see them happy and doing what they love. So why would I ever wanna take that away from him? Right. So yet I also wanna add in because he's gonna feel pulled to different areas.

He's gonna wanna spend more time with the grandkids and the kids, and he's gonna wanna take them on trips and teach them and show them. He's gonna wanna do some of those things that his dad did with our kids. He's I'm sure he's gonna be telling those kids, hey. Your dirt is in my hole. Not sure my husband

You better get out there and get it out.

You better get out there and get that dirt out of my hole. And so I'm sure he's gonna be wanting to do that. And it's just a matter of him balance, understanding balance, how we're gonna balance it. And it's a different stage and we're gonna have to ask all the questions, you know eventually, hopefully, maybe, let's just, I should. I'm gonna should all over myself right now.

I should write another book about all the questions that we're going through now and helping us rethink and ask the questions and write down the stories. So hopefully our parents, our kids can go through. I mean, it's a roadmap and it's not saying what to do again, cause it's not about what to do, telling people what to do. It's about helping them figure out what they want to do. Another thing I wanna say about the halftime and marriage is that one of the things that I really learned was is that to get curious about my husband.

And when I wrote the letter, we understood that we had these differences in speaking, but it then made me say, okay, at this next stage of my life, my identity is different. Not only how I need to show up and talk to my spouse, but what my primary focus is, is going to be different. And my focus before was my children, and that was important. But my focus now is, and we discussed this, and this is what I chose, and anybody, everybody gets to choose their own focus. And I chose to have my husband as my biggest, for me to be his biggest cheerleader because I want him, like I said before, he loves to work.

I want him to work. I wanna cheer him on and be there to support him and be his cheerleader and be there standing next to him at the events and being that person there for him. I also want to be curious about what's going on so that, hey, I get to continue to learn. I love learning. I get to see new things and find new, go new places.

And that curiosity, albeit I have one idea about some of the places I want to go and all the exotic ones, just name one. Of course, I want to go there. And I get the opportunity to go to some other places that were never on my list that I get to find some amazing things. We got to spend fourth of July in Panhandle, Texas. And we got to go listen to this band play there that was phenomenal.

And one of the artists wrote this song, and it's about life. And but it goes and and the chorus goes something like yet I still cried and I'm still gonna cry when old when old yeller had to be shot and because it's about life and even doing the hard things, just because you already knew they were hard and you already did them, you know, and the great things. Life, you're going to cry, you're going to have fun, you're going to have great things. It's just a wonderful song. I'm probably not doing it justice, but I got that opportunity that I didn't even know I was going to get.

Didn't even know I would ever wanted to be there. But I was open and curious, and I was my husband's cheerleader. And so I got an opportunity. I didn't even know it was a blessing.

Yes. That I was going And being his cheerleader, you're also being willing to be a full partner in the things he wants to do. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of being reluctant or, know, wishing you were somewhere else or wishing you were going somewhere else.

You went to Panhandle and you heard an amazing song that touched your heart because you were open to the Yeah. You were curious and you were willing to be to do something new that you didn't maybe think you would love. Yet you did.

And that's what the next part of life I think our next our next part is. And I think it's boiled down to three things: curiosity, the most generous interpretation, and I get to be my husband's cheerleader. I get that, to be that. So

lightning round. One thing you wish every parent of teenagers knew before the kids leave home.

Oh.

It could be about anything. Like, they've got some time left with those but not a lot of time.

Well, I wish that the parents knew that your kids really do want to be around you, even though they don't act that way. They're really listening And they're watching you closer than you ever realize.

That's a good one. Okay. One thing parents of adult children, parents of adult children should stop doing.

Telling their kids what to do and expecting them to do it. Okay.

I love that in your book, that mind shift of asking questions instead of giving direction at that point.

Yeah. Kids, adult children need to fail. Allow them. Allow them to have the experience. I mean, doesn't kill them makes them stronger?

My husband, when the kids were really little, he said to me, oh, the boys will go to the emergency room at least once a year. It's like, We will be the worst parents ever if our kids go to the emergency room once a year. You've got to be crazy. Well, they didn't go once a year. But they went a few times, a few more than I ever anticipated.

And you know what? What didn't kill them made them stronger. They learned some really good lessons because consequences allowing kids to have the natural consequence, I think, is the underlining helps them learn. And the more experiences a kid has, the more they become, they understand how to do, and the more confidence a kid gets by doing things and having experiences.

Okay. One thing parents of adult children should do more often.

We need to call them. Not to tell them what to do, but to listen. We call them and listen. Beautiful. You know, I always hear, oh, call your mom.

You didn't call me. No. No. No. We call them and say, hey, tell me.

Listen.

Okay. A question every married couple should ask at halftime for the second half.

What identity do you want for yourself and how can we make those come together? Oh, and I have one more, sorry.

Go for it.

It's a choice. I think that marriage, you both have to be willing to work at it. And at halftime, I've seen couples with the most horrific history stay together and become an amazing couple And with just little things, their marriage fall apart. The difference is the intention of the people and the willingness for the two to stay together and work at it.

That's really beautiful. And if someone listening to this wants to begin living more intentionally today, what is the first small step that they can take, whether that's toward their kids if they're still at home, toward their their little kids, toward their adult children, or in their marriage? What what do you feel like is the first little step they should take to live a more intentional life in the second half?

I don't know if it quite answers your question, but I think it's the best thing that anybody can do to get a little more curious and have and do like what I say a two millimeter shift is instead of saying, telling somebody something, ask a question. If you can phrase everything in a question instead of a statement or demand, try try that and and then see how it gets you. You will become a little more curious because you're asking a question.

It could really transform every relationship you have. Yeah. Yeah. Kate, this has been such a rich conversation. I can think of about five different things I wanna have you on and talk about for their own podcast, and we should do it.

Yes. We've talked about parenting adult children, breaking generational patterns. We've talked about empty nesting, marriage in the second half, grandparents, aging parents, what it means to finish well. And what I appreciate so much about your message is that it's not about being perfect in any of those in any of those roles or at any of those stages of life, but about being honest and intentional, humble, and curious. Yes.

Thank you so much for joining me today for sharing the heart behind The Imperfect Parent. And if you want to read more, we'll have a link in our show notes to that book, you can purchase it on Amazon, and anywhere else you get books. And to our listeners, if today's conversation stirred something in you, whether it's a conversation you need to have with your adult children, your spouse, your parents, or your own advisors. I hope you'll take that next step. Stay curious, be open to new possibilities in the second half, and watch your second half be your best half.

Thanks again so much, Kate, for being here.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Sondra. I appreciate everything you're doing and this podcast and your other podcasts have been amazing and I hope everybody keeps listening to you and you keep it up, please.

Thanks so much. Thanks. A quick reminder that today's conversation is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to be legal advice because to give you legal advice we need to meet with you and know your specific situation. Thanks again for joining us today for this conversation and remember to make the second half the best half.