What If... It's Your Turn to Fly? Hanna Bankier on the Courage to Launch Kids & Find Your Wings

At some point in parenting, the job changes, not because we stop loving our kids and not because they stop needing us, but because the very thing we've spent years preparing them to do is finally happening.

They're learning to fly, and suddenly, we're the ones who have to learn a whole new way of being.

Today's conversation gets wonderfully real about that handoff, about knowing when to step in and when to step back, about watching our kids make choices we might not make, resisting the urge to fix what isn't ours to fix, and even rewriting the job description of parenthood when the old one no longer fits.

And yes, apparently, our kids are actually allowed to fire us from certain

responsibilities? What? But here's what surprised us most.

This isn't only a conversation for parents.

It's about what happens when a role that once defined us begins to change, and whether we're willing to stay curious enough to ask a simple question.

What if? What if there's more waiting for us on the other side of what we've always known?

Welcome to the PIG, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude.

We're Kelly and Erin, sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us that loving someone sometimes means giving them the freedom to find their own way, our mother, Marsha.

Some stories are not defined by one major turning point.

They are shaped by a lifetime of transitions.

Leaving one country for another, starting over in a new language, building a career, leaving one version of work for another.

moving through divorce, raising children, launching them into the world, and then standing in the quiet that follows, asking, who am I now? Today's guest, Hannah Benker, knows transition from the inside.

She is an immigrant, mother, career transitionist, founder, CEO, divorcee, coach, and birdie launcher.

Professionally, she helps mamas navigate the season often called the empty nest.

But Hannah doesn't use that phrase, because as she says, the nest isn't empty.

The mamas are still here.

And that distinction matters.

Because this conversation is not just about kids leaving home.

It's about the woman who remains, the woman who has spent years producing, performing, providing, holding everyone together, and is now being invited to come home to herself.

Hannah helps women sit with the full soup of emotions this season brings, the grief, the relief, the pride, the worry, the joy, and the question underneath it all.

What if the best years of your life are still ahead? Hannah, we are really grateful you're here with us today.

And before we jump in, what feels so aligned about your work is that you're not asking women to rush past this transition or turn it into a polished reinvention story.

You're inviting them to notice what they've carried, what is changing, what is ending, and what may be ready to begin.

So let's start here.

Where does the unboxing of your story begin?