The present study aims at investigating how birth parents from Central Ceará backcountry feel about their childrens' leaving from home. In order to achieve that goal a qualitative collective case study method has been adopted. Study participants were couples from Central Ceará backcountry with at least one child having left home for other reasons than conflict or non-planned marriage. With each partner there have been done semi-structured and separate interviews, which afterwards have been analysed by means of content analysis model. Categories, such as "Sense of loss and feelings of acceptance towards their childrens' leaving", as well as "Changes in Marital and Parental Relations" have been identified and discussed. The postparental transition, also called "empty nest period or empty nest syndrome" within specialized literature, shows to be a normative phenomenon in the realm of family development, being then context of relative importance, but not necessarily leading to family psychopathology.
postparental; family development; family psychology; life transition; normative development