‘90s FAMILY : The (Fading) Home Front : Children depend on the older generation for stability. So when parents sell the family home and move on to bigger and better adventures, even grown-up kids may experience a loss.

Call it the reverse empty-nest syndrome.

Experts say that as more parents live longer-selling homes and moving on to new lifestyles and adventures-their children often are the ones who feel left behind.

Susan Sysler is among those who now feel “lost” during the holidays.

Eight years ago, Sysler moved to Los Angeles, where she is a supervisor of adult senior and cultural activities with the Westside Jewish Community Center.

“Although I moved out of my home at 24, I always went home for the holidays,” said Sysler, 51. “In Brooklyn, we were a tight community. I knew everyone in my neighborhood, and during my 20s and 30s the neighborhood remained fairly intact.

“My home was a warm, loving place. We played cards and games in the kitchen. And played stoop ball outside. The neighbors would come over to swim or eat barbecue.”

Four years ago, at age 81, Sysler’s father, Sam, sold the family home and moved to Delray Beach, Fla., with her mother, Ann, now 75. Today, Sysler said, “I feel like I can’t go home again. To me, home is Brooklyn. I miss the memories.”

Susan Naifeh, 47, of Marina del Rey, knows the feeling.

Her parents sold the home in Mason City, Iowa, where she grew up, and moved to Tucson when she was 23. “It was hard coming home (in Tucson). I missed having my own room and space. . . . I felt like I wasn’t part of the family anymore,” said Naifeh, a psychology student.

“Plus, I hated Tucson,” she said. “My friends weren’t there. I felt uprooted. It took me about 10 years to get over this feeling.”

Irene Goldenberg, a family psychologist at the UCLA Psychiatric Center, believes that “feeling uprooted” by parents’ moving is common these days. “People’s roots are attached to the home where they grew up,” she said. “Age doesn’t matter.”

In today’s hurried world, children like depending on the older generation to remain unchanged, she said. “The sense of following a routine that feels good gives you a sense of being part of an extended family.”

Changing demographics play a key role in this shift.

“As the role of parenting fades in the overall architecture of family life, mature friendships and companionship become more important to older adults,” said Neil G. Bennett, a sociologist and demographer at Yale University.

“Life expectancy is much longer today,” Bennett added. “It only makes sense that adults are going to spend more time outside of raising their children.”

Eugene Bianchi, author of “Elder Wisdom: Crafting Your Own Elderhood” (Crossroad Publishing, 1994), said it is important for children to realize that life has to do with transitions, and that “they can’t expect their aging parents to stay the same.”

When “middle-aged baby-boomer children” observe their parents changing, they need to start planning their own “elder life,” said Bianchi, a professor of religion at Emory University in Atlanta. “Middle-aged people need to face aging positively.”

They need to be prepared for aging emotionally, spiritually and intellectually by pursuing a lifestyle through travel, writing, a new job or social contacts, Bianchi said. “The negative aging stereotypes of our culture should be confronted and overcome. Old people are not mindless, sexless or useless.”

In today’s transient society, people crave a place they can call home.

Janis Ballin, regional director of the Jewish Family Service of Central Los Angeles, has observed how baby boomers react to their parents’ new lifestyle.

“No matter what age, people are trying to connect to their roots. When their home or ‘place’ changes, it throws the entire family into a feeling of insecurity,” she said. “Holidays, or short-term visits, become more intense and emotions are heightened.”

Jane Lewis, a Manhattan Beach psychologist, said that when parents sell the family home, no matter how old the children are, “It triggers real-life issues you may not be aware of.

“If you can’t count on your family being there, it automatically makes you seem older and disrupts your sense of security.”

Nancy Walker, 50, a Dallas homemaker, cherished her summertime visits in Canada.

When her mother, Mae Strachan, 81, sold the family home in Alberta and moved back to the United States, her family experienced a sense of loss.

The youngest of six children, Walker and her siblings visited their mother in Canada each summer; Strachan lived in a country town near her own brothers and sisters.

“Those summer visits were special,” Walker said. “Mom would bake pastries or cook fresh vegetables from her garden, and she made us all feel at home.

“It was the only time we would see our aunts, uncles and cousins who lived nearby. It was like a family reunion. In my lifetime, my life was mobile and uprooted,” said Walker, whose husband was transferred to another state every four years. “And my mother’s home was a base of security.”

When a change takes place in a family, UCLA’s Goldenberg said, the whole system reacts. It changes everybody’s role.

“Traditions, customs and places represent a sense of identity and security,” she said. “In the complicated world we live in, your family connection is vital. It gives you a sense of being part of something other than yourself.”