We thought we’d be empty nesters at 50. Instead, 3 of our adult kids are living at home, and one’s moving back in soon.

The past 10 months have brought several milestones for our family.

My wife, Barb, and I both turned 50. Our oldest daughter finished her graduate coursework and started fieldwork, and our youngest son graduated from high school this spring.

For the first time, all four of our kids, ages 18 to 23, were either in college or preparing to start. Barb and I thought we had reached the point when we could exhale and look back on years of school, activities, and raising four kids into young adults.

We assumed our noisy, crowded house would soon become much quieter. Instead, a series of decisions and circumstances have kept three of...