The Guardian

So we’d be happier as empty-nester parents? That’s rubbish | Simon Hattenstone

My children are adults, and the house is buzzing with life. Even thinking of them leaving fills me with a sense of loss
‘I’m sure extra dogs and extra holidays are wonderful, but to me it sounds like vacuum-filling. Empty-nest syndrome is a syndrome for a reason. And I’m yet to meet a syndrome I want to sign up to.’ Photograph: Alamy

Christoph Becker and his colleagues at Heidelberg University in Germany have discovered that people with kids are – so long as the kids have left home. Their analysis of 55,000 people aged 50 and older from 16 European countries revealed that people with children who had fled the nest had greater life satisfaction and fewer symptoms of depression than

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