Kate Gosselin Confesses the ‘Unhealthy’ Way She Dealt With Her Twins Leaving for College originally appeared on Parade.
Kate Gosselin may have had her hands full raising eight children, but now that they’re grown, she’s opening up about what life is like now that her nest is empty. The former TLC star posted a TikTok over the weekend, sharing how she coped with empty nest syndrome — and the unhealthy way she dealt when her twins moved out.
“I remember originally when Maddie and Cara went to college, I unhealthily pretended for the first, probably three months, that they were just upstairs sleeping,” she confessed. “I couldn’t accept the fact that they had left, they were gone, in college, and I wasn’t going to see them until the holidays. So I unhealthily coped, and that’s how I dealt with it.”
She also said that the first week or two, all three would cry together over FaceTime from their respective locations (Maddie attended Syracuse University while Cara attended Fordham University) before the girls started making friends on campus.
She confessed that she was scared at first when she stopped hearing from her oldest daughters as much. “I wanted to know that they were safe, I wanted to know that they were ok,” she explained. Kate said that it was a friend who helped her through her fear of Maddie and Cara not checking in with her as often as they had when they first left for school.
The friend reassured her by saying, “Kate. They’re in college. They’re fine.”
🎬SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬
Kate went on to say that when the little kids went to college, they chose to stay closer to home, which meant that they could come home on the weekends. “It didn’t feel so final,” she said. Plus having gone through it with the older girls, she felt more emotionally prepared for it.
And of course she said that her favorite part of empty nest life is when the kids all come home for the holiday. “The most wonderful, wonderful thing is when the kids come home for the holidays, and they’re all catching up, because they all live different places or go to different colleges. So I get to listen to them catching up and be a part of that.”
When everyone is home together, Kate said that they cook big meals together, and it gets “really loud.” But she said they get along really great, and she loves having them home and hearing their laughter. “It’s really wonderful,” she confessed.
She signed off her post saying, “In all of this empty nest stuff, don’t forget what our goal is as a parent … to prepare our kids to be functional, productive members of society. So when they go to college, it’s a good thing. They’re growing up and it’s the next step. They still need us, but not as much, and that’s ok.”
Related: Mark Consuelos Reveals the Hilarious Way He & Kelly Ripa Coped With Empty Nest Syndrome
Kate Gosselin Confesses the ‘Unhealthy’ Way She Dealt With Her Twins Leaving for College first appeared on Parade on Aug 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
