When your youngest or only child is heading off to college, one question keeps cropping up: Are you ready for an empty nest?

I've heard this query in all its variations dozens of times over the past several months. We will be moving both our children into their dorms in a state hundreds of miles away on the same weekend later this month.

Friends with younger children look at me with a mix of concern and pity when they ask how I feel about my impending empty nest. I've taken to assuring those who ask that I'm fine. Everything's fine. We're all fine. I'm totally fine.

Maybe it doesn't sound so reassuring when I say it like that.

But part of me also wants to push back on the assumption built into the question. We've already had two years of being parents to our older college-aged child. While it isn't on a daily basis, this young adult still needs our guidance, support and financial backing. It doesn't feel like the child-rearing work is complete once tuition bills start arriving. In fact, it seems to usher in a time of greater parental anxiety and far less control.

I would never say this to a sleep-deprived, exhausted parent of toddlers, but it's more mentally taxing to be raising adolescents and college students than young kids. They are in a liminal space -- no longer under your direct supervision but not quite ready to fend for themselves. Their brains aren't fully developed yet, but they fully believe they are.

It's also around this time that you can appreciate things your children are able to do that you cannot. Our daughter can write college papers in French, a level of foreign language mastery I never achieved. Our son can play the trumpet, whereas I have no musical ability or talent. They both learned calculus in high school, which was beyond my comprehension even in college. Their interests, abilities and talents have diverged from our own, and that's pretty amazing to witness.

As they move closer to independence and adulthood, we're going to miss the events that filled our schedules for the past several years -- tennis matches, school plays, debate tournaments, band performances and all the practices, rehearsals, celebrations and get-togethers that came along with their activities.

But it's also interesting to discover how we will fill that newly found time.

We will miss the two extra places at the table at dinner and having someone around who was always willing to run to the grocery store or fix my computer issues. But I'm more excited to see how they are going to grow and the great adventures ahead in their lives.

An empty nest conjures images of a discarded, abandoned haunt, a former refuge that has been deserted. That's not the scene I'm preparing for around here. Their stuff is still all over our home. They parachute in as needed and have a soft place to land.

These are more like the Airbnb Years. Young people show up for holidays and respite and summer vacations. They bring youthful energy and dirty laundry and bigger grocery bills.

A wise mom whose children were all fully launched told me that the empty nest era doesn't begin until your children are financially independent and living on their own. A fair amount of therapy has taught me that you can change the way you feel about something if you can change the way you think about it.

So, that's the approach I'm taking to this so-called empty nest.

Feel free to check in with me next month after the big drop-off. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine.

The iconic pictures of summer -- sunsets, beaches, mountains and landmarks -- have filled my social media feed for weeks.

Pent-up demand for travel has delivered legions of airline passengers to far-off destinations. We joined these masses last month to take a family vacation to Europe, which we had postponed since 2021.

We enjoyed the sights in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium before heading to England. Exactly 24 hours before our return from London, my husband attempted to check in for our flights. He kept getting an error message.

I tried the American Airlines app. It showed us leaving on a flight three hours later than the flight we had booked. This was strange. We are old-school enough that we print copies of our reservations before we travel, so we double-checked the paperwork. How were we mysteriously rebooked on a later flight? I messaged customer service, not knowing when (or if) I would get a reply.

Normally, the delay wouldn't be a big deal. But we had a connection through O'Hare airport in Chicago, where we would have to go through customs. This later flight left us only an hour and a half to make it. That seemed unlikely.

Were we victims of involuntary bumping? I learned this term during last year's Southwest Airlines meltdown, when thousands of flights were canceled. I watched TikTokkers explain that airlines owe passengers refunds and compensation when this happens.

We boarded our later flight, planning to hustle off the plane on the long-shot hope of making our connection. But when we landed in Chicago, our plane was stuck on the runway behind a broken-down tug and couldn't reach the gate.

When we finally got off the plane, we had less than an hour, and I gave up any hope when I saw the line at passport control. It was longer than most queues we've waited in at Disney. A young boy in the line, 8 or 9 years old, got so tired standing that he sat on the floor in between starts and stops.

He also threw up in front of me. On the floor. Twice.

When we finally made it to the customer service desk, long after our connecting flight had departed, I asked if they knew anything about our mysterious flight change or possible compensation for the delay.

They did not. The agent advised me to email the airline or go through social media. They did, however, pay for our hotel that night and give us $12 meal vouchers for dinner.

Twelve dollars for dinner in an airport felt like salt in the wound.

Given that the delay was happening on the return portion of our trip -- we weren't missing an important event or shortchanging our vacation -- I kept a healthy perspective on the inconvenience.

But that evening, things got more complicated. Our son woke up in the middle of the night with a piercing earache. The last time he flew with an ear infection, his eardrum ruptured, which he said was excruciating. Rather than risk that on our morning flight to St. Louis, my husband and son bought tickets on Amtrak.

My magnanimous attitude was wearing thin.

My daughter and I got on the flight the next morning. It was delayed on the runway. At that point, I wondered if the train would beat us home.

Thankfully, we all eventually made it back.

I received an email and phone call from American Airlines in response to my queries. Apparently, they had emailed both my husband and myself, weeks in advance, that our flight time had been changed. Strangely, neither of us could find these messages in our inboxes or junk folders. Then again, Congress recently held hearings on aliens and UFOs, so anything is possible, I guess.

They blamed the runway delay on air traffic control, and the broken tug on the airport. As far as rebooking us on an international flight with such a short connection time, they said it still met the minimum time regulations. The bottom line was that they didn't owe us a refund or any compensation.

They did say they would refund the two unused portions of the Chicago-to-St. Louis flights, and they offered each of us a travel credit that could add up to a single round-trip fare if we combined them all. It's better than nothing, I suppose.

In an era of airline chaos, I've adopted a mantra to help me deal with the stress of delays and cancellations, especially when traveling with kids: It could be worse.

Also, things are never as easy as they look on TikTok.

I can see why right-wing commentators are so worked up about "Barbie."

On a Wednesday night in a suburban theater in the Midwest, the lobby and concession areas were flooded with girls and women in shades of pink. They were posing for photos holding hot pink beach balls in front of a cardboard movie display, under a canopy of rose-colored balloons. There were grandmas and young girls, mothers and daughters, girlfriends and sisters.

I was there in a hot pink blazer with my book club. I had wanted to see Greta Gerwig's live-action film with my daughter, but she had already seen it with her friend.

This sea of pink filled nearly every single seat inside the theater screening the movie starring Margot Robbie as the iconic high-heeled doll and Ryan Gosling as Ken. The movie smashed box-office records with a $162 million debut -- beating Tom Cruise's latest in the "Mission Impossible" franchise -- making it the biggest opening weekend of the year.

It is, indeed, a Barbie world.

The film provoked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro into such a frenzy that he posted a 43-minute rant about it featuring a Barbie doll set on fire in a trash can. There have been scores of others on social media calling for a boycott of a film they describe as "woke trash."

I don't think this apoplectic reaction has anything to do with the content of the feel-good, sumptuously designed, intentionally silly film itself. Rather, it's a reaction to its success. They are unnerved that so many people are flocking to this megahit.

The message of Gerwig's film is about accepting oneself without relying on outside validation and treating others (and oneself) with compassion and respect. Even in the film's alter-Barbie world, matriarchal as opposed to the "real world's" patriarchy, Barbie's journey makes her realize that it's unfair and unkind to keep Ken subordinated and dependent on her gaze. Her human friend, Gloria, played by America Ferrera, offers a rousing self-empowered speech near the end of the film. The monologue is a rather conventional critique of the mixed messages and unrealistic societal expectations placed on girls and women.

Noting that men hold greater political and financial power in the real world is hardly a groundbreaking insight. Just because a script talks about patriarchy doesn't make it a feminist screed. There's nothing radical in the ideas presented in this film, but its delivery is inventive and entertaining and engaging.

Perhaps that's what has triggered Shapiro and his ilk. It puts the language of empowerment in an iconic American symbol of femininity and beauty.

It gives voice to those who saw Barbie as a ballast of the patriarchy and allows her to acknowledge her role in it. Barbie's discomfort in realizing she may have perpetuated the very oppression she is fighting is refreshing to see in such a commercial, mass-market production. It's the subtle moments of self-awareness, like when Barbie loses the unnatural arch in her feet, making her high-heeled shoes painful, where the film shines.

While the movie never uses the word "feminist," it's clear that Barbie enjoys both her beauty and power. For those threatened by women seeking independence, agency and self-acceptance, I suppose the film is subversive.

But young girls (and boys) don't need Barbie to sell them these basic notions of empowerment. They are plenty aware.

The right uses the word "woke" as a political shorthand to describe whatever they don't like or consider progressive. Originally, the term was used to mean being politically conscious and socially aware. Being awakened to various forms of injustice or oppression is a good thing. But in the same way conservatives turned "diversity" and "inclusion," long considered positive American values, into dirty words, "woke" is ammunition in a culture war.

Meanwhile, Barbie was woke and embracing diversity and inclusion more than 50 years ago.

Barbie started her career as a fashion designer in 1959, and she's had more than 200 careers since. She joined the space race as an astronaut in 1965. She traded a nurse's cape for a surgeon's coat in 1973. Mattel introduced a Black doll, "Francie," in 1967, and the first official Black Barbie in 1980.

Part of the film's rousing success is how it taps into our nostalgia and ambivalence toward Barbie and turns it on its head. I am part of the generation that both played with Barbies and later scorned them.

The film is both a send-up and a love letter.

It's not a feminist act to dress up and go to the movies. But sharing collective moments of joy and reclaiming a symbol of feminine beauty and success are powerful in themselves.

That's worth watching.