This episode is a flip. Rick and Clancy are in the guest seat, interviewed by Paul Basden, their pastor of nearly 20 years. He knows their kids. He knows their story. A question Clancy asked Rick in the car sits at the center...

Lisa Guzman didn't come to the empty nest the usual way. She came through foster care, homelessness at 17, building a life from scratch, 25 years as a wife and mother, and then losing her husband and her last kid leaving home...

Graduation week has a way of swallowing you whole if you let it. Rick and Clancy have been through it and they're headed into it again. The logistics are real. Multiple ceremonies, ticket limits, restaurant reservations, park...

Rick and Clancy listen to a lot of podcasts. In this episode they run through their current favorites, from Bravo recaps to business professors to flight attendants spilling what they actually think about passengers. And they...

Some Mondays just arrive with a layer of meh. No obvious reason. This is what Rick and Clancy did about it. They get into why stuck feels different in the empty nest, why wallowing feels strangely satisfying even when it does...

Teagan's 21st birthday trip to Tucson turned into something neither of us expected. A wheelchair basketball national championship. Online friends who flew in from California. A signed book. It was a weekend that kept handing ...

Not every empty nest looks the same. In this guest episode, Shara and Aaron Goswick share their story of building a marriage that began right after high school, raising their family young, and navigating a version of empty ne...

A blown tire turns into a bigger question… what do you actually owe your kids once they’re out of the house but still in school? Rick and Clancy find themselves on opposite sides of the same situation. One sees it as part of ...

March is full in a different way when you’re in the empty nest. Rick and Clancy talk about birthdays that don’t carry the same weight, even while they still show up for their kids in bigger ways. That shift leads into a wider...

Rick and Clancy talk about a different side of the sandwich generation.Not caregiving… life events.More funerals connected to parents and their friends.More celebrations connected to adult children.The conversation started af...

At 49, Tracy Smith booked a trip to Ireland with friends. Then she changed the flight. Then she changed it again. What began as a group vacation slowly turned into arriving in Iceland alone… with no clear plan home. In this e...

The Olympics just wrapped… so Rick and Clancy stepped back into their own arena. Two years ago, they created the “Empty Nest Olympics” and ranked themselves in five events. This week, they revisit the same categories and ask:...

When your kids leave home, the communication changes. Sometimes it slows gradually. Sometimes it feels abrupt. In this episode, Rick and Clancy talk about what staying connected really looks like once your kids are living in ...

Valentine’s Day shows up every year with expectations attached. Reservations. Prix fixe menus. Cards that say more about obligation than affection.In this Greatest Hits episode of The Loud Quiet, Rick and Clancy talk honestly...

Intimacy changes over time… especially when the house gets quieter. What once felt automatic often needs more intention, more conversation, and sometimes a better framework.Just in time for Valentine's Day, in this guest epis...

We spent several days at home during an ice storm in North Texas. Sweats instead of real clothes. Garage workouts because the gym was out. Too much food because that’s what people do when they’re stuck. We talk through how ou...

Spring semester drop-offs don’t get the same attention as fall move-in… but for a lot of parents, they’re tougher than they expect. The house was full again. The routines came back. And then, just like that, they left. In thi...

The holidays are over, the fridge is still full of leftovers, and the routine hasn’t quite found its way home yet.In this episode, Rick and Clancy talk about what happens between Thanksgiving and “whenever we finally pull it ...

Your young adult’s path may look messy, stalled, or off-script… and that doesn’t mean something is wrong.In this guest episode, we’re joined by Joanna Lilley, a therapeutic consultant who works with young adults and their par...

That weird stretch between Christmas and New Year’s… when no one knows what day it is, the snacks never stop, and you start thinking about what just happened and what might be coming next. In this New Year’s Day episode, we l...

We’re releasing this episode on Christmas Day, and it felt like the right time to bring this one back.This is a Greatest Hits re-release of Episode 20, originally recorded after our very first holiday season as empty nesters…...