The first TikTok was their idea. Brooke Shields was in the Wake Forest dorm room of her youngest daughter, Grier, on freshman move-in-day. Grier and her sister Rowan—a senior at the university—told their mom they said they wanted to film something. They launched into the concept: The actor would ask the kids if she was finally an empty nester. When they responded, she’d sprint out of the room in a joyful bid for freedom. Shields was hesitant. She had mixed feelings about leaving them. But after some encouragement, she agreed. The TikTok got more than four million views.
The second viral TikTok, however? All hers. Days after drop off, she sat alone on her porch, hit with her solitude. “It just overwhelmed me, the finality of it—that this was definitely a rite of passage,” Shields tells Vogue. So she took out her phone and began filming. She’d cried when they said goodbye, she admitted, and then for most of the car ride home. And right now? She was just having a really hard time with it all.
“I was feeling completely self-absorbed about it,” Shields says, laughing, weeks later. But then she gets serious: “I was just being honest about the gut-wrenching feeling when you watch them get smaller in the rearview mirror. It rips your heart out.”
It struck a chord. Close to two million people watched the clip on TikTok. Two million more watched it on Instagram. Thousands flooded the comment section sharing their own stories. “Oh Brooke, it’s so so hard. It’s the end of an era and now you get to start a new chapter. But first you need to cry. A lot. I laid on my couch for 3 weeks and couldn’t speak to anyone,” wrote Debra Messing.
Whereas mommy-influencers are dime a dozen, Shields is leading the charge in the new frontier of empty-nest-TikToking. It’s a complicated niche. After decades of intense, over-involved child-rearing, your role as a primary caretaker abruptly comes to a close. “I told you when to sleep, when to wake up, what to wear, what not to wear, what to eat, when to eat. You have this utter control,” Shields says. “All of a sudden, here they are as full-fledged young women. It’s beautiful to see—and yet, it’s really melancholy. It’s not just about being needed…you love them, and you just miss them. Then you see them having fun and it’s mixed. Because you think, ‘Oh my God, they don’t need me. What am I going to do?’”
