This may have something to do with the fact that our culture is structured so that motherhood is something we mostly do on our own. Typically cut off from historical sources of support like family as well as institutional sources of support like child care, histrionically encouraged to believe that “we can have it all” while we struggle to feel that we are doing anything well, mothers often feel isolated and uninformed. We suffer from a surfeit of information on child development and a complete lack of information on mother development. “Mother development.” The phrase even sounds odd.

Despite shelves full of literature on child development, very little is said or written on the subject of how, over the span of decades during which infants grow into fully fledged adults, their mothers change in profound ways. I know that I am certainly not the same woman I was some 30 years ago when my firstborn made me a mother.

Part of our sense of disruption around identity comes not only from the loss of a particular kind of relationship with our children but also because this loss is temporally close to other losses in the life cycle. Our younger selves have dissolved into menopausal clouds. We are too old to realize certain dreams. We’ve made choices that are now irrevocable: not making partner because of the kids or making partner and always feeling guilty about the kids. Chickens tend to come home to roost at about the same time as our children grow up. The marriage that sputtered along, the career that never quite materialized, the friendships that couldn’t be maintained and of course, most acutely, our own mortality. The chaotic diversions inherent in raising children cease, and we suddenly find ourselves with time to reflect. What did we do right? Where did we fail? How do we spend our remaining time? And who will show up to help with the transition?

It wouldn’t be that hard to make this transition more pleasant — and more productive. First of all, it would be useful if we began to think about post-parenting years long before they arrive. Imagining our future selves tends to get neglected as we focus on our children’s future. But opportunity favors the prepared. Many women find these years some of the best of their lives. The get married, get divorced, try new careers, travel, expand their horizons, tighten friendships and maintain warm, close relationships with their children (and in turn their grandchildren). The fact is that women are less depressed, less anxious and less suicidal in their 50s and 60s than at any other time. There is clearly something salutary about navigating through motherhood and back into a more independent life. We don’t really lose ourselves. In fact, we can become better, certainly wiser, versions of the women we’ve been.

In order to continue to parent our grown children well, we might usefully acknowledge and start to prepare for the separations that start early and accelerate in high school. Gracefully and gradually, we must eventually give up our front and center position in their lives, learn to be quieter, to give fewer answers and to ask more questions. Our children’s independence is a reminder of how much we had to give and all that we have accomplished. It is a pleasure to remember that it is not a form of abandonment but an expression of a job well done — and is something to keep in mind as we move back into the center of our own lives, in ways that will make our children proud.