Jennifer Lopez Opens Up About ‘Emotional Time’ After Twins Max and Emme Graduate From High School

Jennifer Lopez is feeling emotional as she enters a new chapter in her life: empty nester.

“It’s an emotional time,” Lopez, 56, said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on Monday, June 8, admitting she has been ill-prepared for her 18-year-old children to leave home. “It’s been the three of us. People have come in and out of my life, but it’s been the three of us. They’ve always been there, and I’ve always been there.”

The Office Romance star shares twins Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony. The kids recently graduated from high school and are preparing to go away to college in August.

Lopez continued, “I just never thought they would not be there. I just never thought that far ahead. I thought, too, that they’re so independent — I gave them roots and wings. [I thought], ‘It’s great, this is how it is … this is a healthy mom thing to do.’ And then about a couple of months ago, I just was, like, writing something for their end-of-the-school-year thing for them to put in the program at the graduation, and I just have not … every time it comes up, I just start crying. I could cry right now.”

According to Lopez, children often emulate their parents, and she has been trying to instill as much wisdom in Max and Emme as possible before they begin their college careers.

Asked to share parenting advice, Lopez said, “They do what they see you do. It’s not so much what you tell them all the time. Even though I’m trying to download everything I’ve ever learned in my life, every lesson I’ve ever [learned], to them right now before they leave in August … I still feel like who you are as a person, how you act, what they see you do, if you work hard, they become more hard workers.”

“They mimic you in this weird way and learn from you, even though they act like they’re opposite [to] you,” the actress continued. “My kids [are like], ‘I don’t want to be anything like you. I want to have my own path.’ They see this persona, it’s such a thing, But I also see them … not mimic, but just pick up things that are the good traits about you.”

In May, Lopez admitted to getting tearful on a regular basis in the lead-up to her twins’ respective high school graduations.

“Tomorrow, one of them graduates. Don’t talk about it ’cause we start crying. I’ve been crying for two months,” she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“When I tell you, the tears … two days it took me to write those things,” she said of writing ads for the twins’ yearbooks.

The “Jenny From the Block” singer said she plans to personally move the children into their college dorm rooms later this summer, but she also admitted that she hopes they might want to return home.

“We’re going to pack up their rooms here, and they’re going to take all of the things that they want to take to their dorm. And then they’re gonna realize that their dorms are too small and they’re gonna miss home, I hope, and want to come back real soon,” Lopez said. “That’s my plan.”