This is great advice. I've always loved having an empty nest, but I know lots of people find it difficult, including my in-laws. We were relative newlyweds when my husband's younger brother went off to Newcastle University in England. It was just for a year, but my in-laws were bereft. We lived in the same town and they took to dropping by our house all the time, almost always unannounced. When my brother-in-law finished grad school and moved to San Diego five years later, they handled it much better. Maybe the practice year as empty nesters help them prepare for the real thing.