Like most moms of graduating high school seniors, Kerry Barto was proud yet petrified by the thought of her 18-year-old son, Conor, leaving the nest for college.
However, in the months leading up to his departure last fall, the mother of three and native New Yorker noticed a change in her middle boy.
Her sweet baby, now age 20, had suddenly become standoffish, a bit of a daredevil and easily distracted by girls and social media. But the shift in Conor’s conduct wasn’t typical teenage troublemaking.
“He was soiling the nest,” Barto, 52, a life coach from Jackson Heights, now living in New Hampshire, told The Post.
“It’s this thing that happens, where kids going to college become more argumentative or distant because they have all of these conflicting emotions about moving out,” she explained.
“By acting differently,” added Barto, “they’re subconsciously making it easier to leave home, and easier for us to let them go.”
And, as usual, mom’s right on the money.
Flying the coop ahead of freshman year can be just as distressing for a teen as it is for parents who oft-tearfully watch them take off.
“The ‘soiling the nest’ [phenomenon] is a displacement of anxiety about heading off to college,” said NYU Langone Health child and adolescent psychologist Yamalis Diaz.
“That anxiety can manifest as irritability, disrespect or combativeness because they’re both excited and afraid about being away from home.”
Well-meaning moms and dads have taken extreme measures toward tempering the transition.
A few have recruited $10,000 “rent-a-moms” to care for a kid’s food and laundry needs while they’re on campus. Others have put their family homes up for sale and relocated to their student’s college town to maintain a sense of togetherness.
But instead of breaking the bank to hire help, or uprooting the nest to be closer to the yard, Diaz suggests parents address the mixed emotions — rather than the rebelliousness — that their child might be grappling with before making their grand exit.
“Validate the feelings you think your kid might be experiencing, talk about the specific misbehavior they’ve exhibited,” she advised. “Set boundaries around what behaviors are and aren’t acceptable.”
“Then, work together to come up with a plan for avoiding arguments and keeping the peace before he or she makes this big move.”
Whitney Cicero, 54, from Los Angeles, tells The Post that heart-to-hearts with her 18-year-old son went a long way toward restoring the peace before his early move to Louisiana’s Tulane University in March. The Gen Zer, whose name Cicero chose not to disclose for privacy, was tapped to play tight end on the school’s football team and left home in the spring for training.
“Those three months before he left were rough,” said Cicero, an influencer marketing expert-turned-stand-up comedian. The married mom of two, known to online fans as @TheNewStepford, recently became a full-time jokester in order to laugh through the pain of becoming an empty nester.
“When teenagers start soiling the nest it’s like they become raging a—holes,” she teased, noting her son’s uncharacteristically cold shoulder and newfound penchant for staying out until 4:30 a.m. “I felt like I was becoming invisible and irrelevant.”
But after a few mother-son chats during long-distance drives, and a couple months of his being over 1,800 miles away from home, Cicero says her “warm sweet little guy” finally thawed.
“There is hope,” she assured other parents with a sigh of relief. Her son now calls and texts on a regular basis. “We’re in a really good place.”
Meredith Masony, 43, a married mom of three from Jacksonville, Florida, is looking forward to being on the other side of the “soiling” saga once eldest son, Matias, gets settled at Florida International University in Miami this September.
“He’s definitely pushed, and pulled, and tested us to see what he can get away with because he thinks he’s an adult,” said the parenting influencer. Recently, the 18-year-old narrowly missed curfew to play poker with his pals at all hours of the night.
“The other day he said, ‘In a few weeks, I won’t live here anymore — this won’t be my home,’ and that really made me sad,” Masony admitted. “And I said, ‘No. This will always be your home. Wherever I am is home.’”
“My kids are my heart walking outside of my body,” she said. “Once he’s out on his own, and adulthood settles in, I hope we can be friends.”
