Empty Nesters Go Back To School - E95

Clancy Denton  0:00  
On this week's episode of the loud quiet, empty nesters go back to school. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the loud quiet. We're very excited today to have Scott and Eileen Nichols with us. They are members of our life group, which those of you who have been listening, we've mentioned awesome life group before. They are also public school educators. Eileen Elementary School Scott is a high school teacher. They are also parents of three kiddos. They have two adult daughters and one son. And then, of course, the most important person is their grandson, Charlie, which we will talk about him later in the episode as well. So welcome you guys. We're glad to have y'all here. I want to start

Rick Denton  0:46  
off with because this is a podcast all about empty nest, and a lot of folks think of the empty nest as that's when you wind down, that's when you scale back, that's when you relax. People even equate it with retirement. Y'all chose, obviously, a much different happened. What? What motivated you to go back to

Scott Nichols  1:05  
school? For me, it's, it's really about advancing the career I want to go into leadership and education. So you know, only way to do that is to, is to get a master's in Educational

Rick Denton  1:20  
Leadership. What does leadership and education

Scott Nichols  1:22  
mean? So we're talking about, you know, becoming an administrator, Principal, Okay, assistant principal, moving up into the district office, that kind of thing.

Rick Denton  1:32  
And today you were, I know, places at high school level. You Yeah,

Scott Nichols  1:35  
so I'm a classroom teacher of seniors for US government,

Rick Denton  1:41  
macroeconomics got it, and we're recording this in summer right now. So everybody's got the nice summer vibes. We're all relaxed. But you all didn't have that same kind of level of relaxation, because school kept going on during the summer, right? Eileen, yeah, yeah,

Eileen Nichols  1:54  
I did. And we were doing papers and quizzes on our two week vacation that we took around the East Coast. So that was that was fun, too.

Clancy Denton  2:04  
So Eileen, tell us what prompted you to go back to school, because we know Scott started first, and then you decided to

Eileen Nichols  2:13  
do it as well. Well, Scott gave me a gentle nudge. I I really don't have much of a desire to go into administration, although I do want to be a curriculum coach, and so this will help me one of the classes that I'm taking. It's actually over several courses. This one book that we're reading has to do with how to coach and become an instructional leader. And so I'm leaning more towards the instructional leader side of things than just the administrator, Principal, AP, kind of situation.

Clancy Denton  2:58  
So y'all were already in the empty nest. Y'all have been in the empty nest for a few years. How has this impacted your freedom of the empty nest going back to school?

Scott Nichols  3:09  
I think it's, I mean, there's a lot of work. I of course, I started first a year ago, and I'm about to finish up. But the the amount of work that goes into it alongside teaching is quite a bit. So that took up a lot of time at home. I mean, it was means early mornings, late nights, some weekends of just, you know, working on getting the assignments done right, doing the studying. So it does cut in a fair amount, although we've had plenty of fun, been able to do some concerts and traveling and stuff during that same year. So you fit it in. But it's, I can't imagine having done it when I had kids at home. I think that would have been really, really hard.

Rick Denton  4:01  
Yeah, that's interesting. So I'd lead with saying that a lot of folks think of the empty nest as a way to wind down. You're saying that the empty nest actually provided an opportunity for you to go into this. Was this something that you'd envision? Was it planned, or did this show up?

Scott Nichols  4:20  
I mean, I have thought about doing it for some time. I was kind of hoping that she would do hers first, and then I went to mine second. But it does give you the opportunity to do more things. So I just looking into, what do I want, right? I mean, I've spent a fair number of years working multiple jobs, doing lots of things, going to undergraduate, to be able to become a teacher during that time when we had kids, and, you know, not necessarily doing something that is going to further my career more, you know, kind of for me or for US per se. So I think if. Just open that up for you, for me.

Clancy Denton  5:02  
So Eileen, how you mentioned doing your work on your road trip this summer. So this is the first summer that you've been back in school. So how was that

Eileen Nichols  5:12  
I have a tendency to be a perfectionist, so I stress a lot, and so I will. There were times that he had to just say, will you just hand it in? I've looked at it a million times, and so I'm my biggest critic. It was difficult. I wanted to have it all done before we left, but it just wasn't. It wasn't in the cards, and we were in classes that wouldn't, wouldn't give us access to the assignment until the week of so there was, there was one week where we had to, like, do those assignments as we got them. But we found time, and we actually made sure that we had a place that we rented that actually afforded us to be able to do that. So that was helpful.

Rick Denton  6:02  
You talked about doing the classes while you're on a road trip. You talk about how busy this is. Empty Nest alone can put pressure on a couple. How have you all navigated maintaining being a couple inside of teaching going back to school, grandkids, family. Where does the emptiness couple fit into this?

Scott Nichols  6:29  
I mean, we've done some things where we're members of like Cinemark, okay, right? So we've got tons of credits, because there haven't been any good movies in couple years. There are now we've we've seen two already in the past week or so so, and several more coming. But we try to get out to the movies. We go out to dinner. You know, it's a hard day. Just go out to dinner and enjoy something outside of the house, especially where we've got graduate work going on, and see things that we would do at home, get away from that. We try to find other things to do in the area. I mean, North Texas is still fairly new to us, so there's a number of day trips or things that we could do. But we've also made a point to during some breaks, go to like San Antonio for some time or we've venture out to Disneyland or Disney World a couple of times a year

Rick Denton  7:27  
there's a Disney

Scott Nichols  7:31  
Yes, yeah. So we do those kind of things as often as we can. New Orleans, no. New Orleans was great.

Eileen Nichols  7:41  
I think that one thing that we do that's really important, I think, as a couple, is I am someone who has to pull away and have quiet time. And being in a one bedroom apartment, that's a challenge, yeah, and being empty nesters with the same schedule and can be another challenge, and we both have things that keep us busy as individuals too. So like in the mornings, I like to have my quiet time, and so he'll just stay in the bedroom, and I close the door and I have the living room to myself to just have a quiet time I run. He has the podcast. So we we find other things that. So we're still like together, but we're also giving ourselves space and time. Because, you know, being together in a small apartment can sometimes be a little bit much too. I

Clancy Denton  8:37  
can't imagine. You guys made the move from Florida. You were in New Hampshire before that, and y'all moved to the north Texas area during COVID years, all right or right around COVID year, tell us why y'all decided to come to the north Texas area. After being in Florida,

Scott Nichols  8:59  
I started to get the itch to relocate during COVID. So during that 2020, year, in the fall, just kind of becoming disenchanted with with Florida a little bit, wanted something new. We've been looking for a church for a long time, and weren't really able to find one in Florida, so And COVID just made it more difficult to find one there. But COVID also opened up the opportunity to watch Church Online, and so we got connected with a church in North Dallas that we really liked enough that we started traveling out here to check it out some more, and decided that we would make the move to out here from Florida. So it really kind of centered on looking for church community, but also better pay.

Clancy Denton  9:59  
That's. It. Were you on board with

Eileen Nichols  10:01  
that? Yeah, I was. I was on board with that. I really liked the the idea of starting something new. I was looking for more of a spiritual growth being a part of something that would would grow us, grow us together as a as a couple, grow us together as a family, and we were also looking for a place that Charlie would be able to grow and get what he needed, spiritually and educationally as well.

Rick Denton  10:37  
You've you've made this move. You're here before your family was all in essentially the same location. Now you've got two that are here, one that is still back in Florida. Walk me through kind of the emotions of now having this multi location family coming from a everybody was close together, family unit.

Eileen Nichols  10:58  
First of all, we all moved west the same time. Our son actually moved to Colorado first, okay, and then moved back to Florida. The girls rented apartments right in our complex. So we're all living in the complex together. It's like our own little, what do you call it?

Clancy Denton  11:17  
Commune? I think I

Rick Denton  11:19  
was going for punk pal.

Eileen Nichols  11:24  
Our son has always been very independent. Um, so having him back in Florida is not terrible because I'm a Disney addict, and so I am Disney, and he also works for Disney, and I'm it's it makes me happy that he's doing something that he's passionate about. It's not been a really terrible thing.

Rick Denton  11:46  
Interesting, the housing choice I want to come back to, but I do want to ask you, Scott, how do you feel about the family being in these multiple locations?

Scott Nichols  11:54  
We've been very close as a as a family, so the kids have always been in touch. Our son calls all the time, one of us very frequently, or texts, I mean, so we were very much in contact. It was harder, I think when my youngest daughter, for a little while, moved back to Florida from here, and I think that was a little bit more difficult. It only lasted about a month before I ended up having to kind of fly out there and rescue her, but she she came back and and made the choice to stay. So I think they're going well for her. Now there's plenty of communication between all of us, and we get together on holidays and things like that.

Rick Denton  12:36  
One of the challenges of being a parent of adult children is knowing when to step in and when not to step in. Now you're describing a scenario where you're deciding how to step in when your child is away from you, an adult child, and not physically close to you. Walk me through what that was like making that decision to in your words, rescue. If I

Scott Nichols  12:56  
back up in the story a little bit, I can tell you that she was struggling with some things and wanted to move back to Florida. And knowing that that was not going to be a good situation in any way, shape or form, I have to make the very difficult decision as a dad, to say, go for it,

Rick Denton  13:24  
right? You knew that this was

Scott Nichols  13:26  
on the ideal path, and yet, yeah, sort of like, anything about, like, you know, the prodigal son kind of a situation where you go and do it, and you're gonna hit rock bottom, and I know it's coming, and then we're gonna have to bring it back. And, I mean, even telling her you're like, you can't get out of your lease, so you're going to have to pay your lease, yeah, you know, and keep that apartment until you get enough money to escape the lease, which was probably never going to happen. So fast forward now, through the month, and you know, everything's supposedly going good, as she's telling me all along. And then we were at a downtown thing in in our town, and I get a phone call and she's in tears and needs to come home. And she's like, I'm gonna drive tonight. I'm like, no, no, you're not right, right? Like you're not doing that alone. Yeah, you can drive tonight, but you're not doing that alone. So, I mean, I got on my app and I bought a plane ticket, went straight to the airport, took off to Florida, so and flew there, got she picked me up at the airport, and we drove all the way back. Wow, like so, yeah, I mean, I think that was a little bit tough, because she was far away.

Rick Denton  14:42  
Well, that that's gotta hurt so bad to know that you're letting them go into something. But they're adult children, they do that. And it also shows that, hey, even as empty nester parents, we're parents and we're there to rescue, we'll be there, and that's that, that safety net. Yes, it. I. Imagine, gives them such a security mail. Y'all also adopted another sort of approach, and that was where your safety net, but your choice of housing sent another message as well.

Scott Nichols  15:13  
Yeah, we rented a one bedroom apartment, you know, very economical, right? But it does have that appeal of, yeah, you really can't come back, so you're gonna have to work it out as parents, right? There's still, we can still help financially, we just don't have a space for years. Yes.

Clancy Denton  15:35  
And Eileen, I love when you talk about and share with us. You know your girls are in the same complex as you. So tell us some of the things that y'all get to do.

Eileen Nichols  15:44  
So every month we have family game night, and my oldest daughter hosts, which she absolutely loves, and she's all about charcuterie boards. So it's charcuterie boards and wine and games, and it's that that's when our our daughters there, our grandsons there, sometimes even our grandson's father is there, even though he's not married to my daughter and my my youngest daughter's there, and her boyfriend, and we're all there. We play games and we have, we have a great time. On Saturday mornings, we have waffles. Every Saturday morning, they come from breakfast, they come over and we have, we have breakfast together, and they hang out until probably about mid morning. There's a little

Rick Denton  16:35  
tip. And you know, if you don't want your kids to stay but you want them to just enjoy company, get the one bedroom and have a nice living room, kitchen area where we can hang out, but then go home.

Clancy Denton  16:45  
I love hearing those stories. And if you have a story out there to share, maybe your kids live in the same city as you, or maybe they live close to you, that you get to gather with them. You know, once a month, every Saturday, like you all do, please let us note on the loud, quiet emptiness, living. That's our Facebook group. You can go and reach out and just tell us your story. Might

Rick Denton  17:06  
even share that story here on the Yes, we might podcast sometime. Yeah, okay, so we got the family joined here, but your family's gone even a step further. Your family is now working with you, not only in just the same field, you've got a family of educators, but now you have a daughter that's joined the same district as well. I'm really wondering how you balance the roles when you're a parent, you're a colleague, you're a mentor, those three things don't always wrap up together. How do you balance those three roles

Eileen Nichols  17:37  
we call our Saturday mornings, or PD mornings? So low times like development. Sorry, we knew what it was. Educator lingo. Our youngest starter is also a parent district as well. We sit around and usually it's us sharing ideas of things that we've done, or just using each other as resources. The one thing that's hard, though, is turning it off. I think that sometimes we get too caught up in our work that we don't talk about as many other things as we should, and so sometimes we have to, like, remind remind ourselves, like talk about work,

Rick Denton  18:22  
is that something you did we do, like somebody says, whoa, that's it

Eileen Nichols  18:25  
works, cut off. No. Usually it's our youngest or chart. Now, we usually do something that will kind of distract

Scott Nichols  18:41  
be our youngest, until she became a paraprofessional, and now she talks about too, so she's included in the conversation more, so she's not as interested in it ending. The thing is, we all have different perspectives. Yeah, we're all at different schools, so and, you know, we're at different levels. My daughter, my oldest daughter, works in the same level, but this will be the first year she's in the same district with us, but she'll be at a different high school with a different experience and a different subject. It's not as though we're in the same department, so it doesn't, it doesn't really seem quite the same as like if we were working in the same building.

Rick Denton  19:19  
That makes sense. I could see that. Have you ever, have you ever felt a collision in those roles, like, where you're thinking? As a mentor, I need to say this, but as a parent, I want to say this like you're angry for her or with her about something that's happening or but a mentor would say, here's how you work through that. Usually,

Scott Nichols  19:35  
my oldest daughter just tells me, you know, she just, she does one of those dad things, you know, like, I was just trying to say something, like, you don't have to fix

Rick Denton  19:45  
it. So, so that answer applies across all

Scott Nichols  19:47  
it really does. Julie noted,

Rick Denton  19:50  
get that one down, male to female.

Clancy Denton  19:54  
Well, I know there's a special year coming up for you, because your grandson, Charlie, is going. To be at your schools

Eileen Nichols  20:01  
and tell us how excited you I am really excited. So I'm starting in the new school in the same district. I'm opening a new elementary school, and Brittany Harold listeners opening is helping opening a new high school in the same district, and so Charlie is going to be coming to my school. I'm really excited. We do have some boundaries, though. I am doing my master's program, and I'm a team leader, and I have a lot of things that I have to do after school, and so Charlie will be attending an after care program so that he's not needing to hang out at my my room already has constructive things to do, but I did require. I did ask if he could stay with me the first day of school so that we can talk about his first day. But I like it because, you know, teaching can be hard, and to see his little face once a day is just gonna, I know it's gonna really like, lift my spirits. And

Scott Nichols  21:02  
he's really excited too. I asked him today, he's said he's really excited.

Eileen Nichols  21:05  
So that'll be so much. He said that he's not going to tell anybody I'm his Gigi. And I asked him, I said, So are you gonna call me? And he's like, you're Gigi. He says, but nobody else can call you.

Rick Denton  21:22  
So so he's not going to reveal that you're Gigi, but you're going to be called Gigi. I love the thought process.

Eileen Nichols  21:30  
Innocent little lines. Yes, so much fun.

Clancy Denton  21:33  
Hey guys, thank you so much for being on today. We would like to promote Scott has a podcast with one of his friends. It's called home sweet home. It digs into family matters and different situations surrounding families. So be sure to check that out. We will put the link to it in our show notes, and again, we just thank you all for joining us on another episode of the loud and quiet.