David and I have decided to renovate and move into my childhood home. The plan is to make it our retirement home. It’s smaller (i.e., cozier), so it will cost less to heat, clean, and maintain. And it’s one story, though we may add a second floor to have a bit more space from each other. It seems like a great idea. What could go wrong?
It’s my childhood home.
It’s my childhood home.
I hadn’t given it much thought until I stumbled on this recent article in which the author dreams of visiting her childhood home. She tries to imagine if the experience will be a comforting one or a complete disappointment. It’s a great read and generated nearly 160 comments, many of which came from readers who longed to do the same. Yet, plenty of readers also said it was a mistake and for all the likely reasons: you can’t go home again, it’s just a house, it won’t be the same experience, too much emotional baggage (i.e., every sad/ugly/traumatic incident you tried to leave behind when you originally moved out). If you want to check them out, they’re in the pdf below.
Since then, I’ve learned the wish to return to your childhood home is not so unusual. Consider this: 6 out of 10 Brits still consider their childhood home their true home. Almost half (49%) said they were the happiest living there than at any other time in their lives.
Those are big numbers!
It’s not only the UK. It’s so widespread that Santa Clara University Psychology Professor Jerry Burger wrote a book about it, Returning Home: Reconnecting with our Childhoods. In a nutshell, here’s what he found. One-third of all American adults over the age of 30 have made a trip to visit a childhood home, and for one of three primary reasons: they want to reconnect with their childhood; they’re going through a crisis or problem, and they want to reflect on their past; or they have unfinished business leftover from their childhood years. Most of the time, those who did it were glad they’d returned, only a few were not, and suggests the emotional baggage they’d left behind was still there and continued to upset them.
Okay, so that answers the question about visiting your childhood home. What about if you want to live there? David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety, sees moving back as an opportunity for growth.
“Sometimes, issues that people are facing or have faced from childhood are coming back and haunting them in ways they don't realize…Going back to those memories can help us to deal with them head-on and actually move past them.”
So, what am I looking for by wanting to move back to my childhood home?
There are some practical reasons like thwarting real estate developers. The property includes several acres of land, and for years my mom and dad have fielded inquiries from these people more than likely hoping they’d sell it so they could knock down their house and put up several in its place, walking away with a nifty profit. Nope, not on my watch.
There’s the comfort factor, for sure. I know it. I know the land, the town, the neighbors, and I have family who live close by. What could be more reassuring than this?
There’s also the issue of legacy and continuity. My father built this house along with his father, several cousins, and two of his uncles. There is a piece of my dad and his family in every corner. I want to honor his memory by restoring it and maintaining it, hoping I can also eventually pass it on to someone else, someone younger, in the family. And I’m not alone. Plenty of people want to hold on to their family’s history.
Is this all of it, though? Might there be something more, maybe something emotional happening I want to deal with?
Burger calls our childhood home a place to heal and where we can finish our unfinished business. He devotes an entire chapter to it, including the idea that we should visit all the important places of our childhood as part of our journey of self-discovery.
When I initially returned to my hometown in 2012 (David and I rented a small apartment in addition to maintaining our home in MA), I didn't think the impetus for the journey was mine. I thought I was making the trip to be closer to my folks. Three years before my dad’s stroke, I knew something wasn’t right. They were getting older, and they’d stopped sharing with me. They were hiding things, mostly about their health, and I wanted to be there for them.
What if the apartment was more than this? What if it was my way of finishing our unfinished business? Or my path to self-discovery?
Burger states when a physical place is associated with positive experiences, and particularly between the ages of 5-12, it makes us happy when we come in contact with it again. My early childhood was a happy one. Yes, my parents fought, but it wasn’t about me or with me until I was twelve. That was when I tried to exert some control over my life (as do many twelve-year-olds). It was also when my mom began to struggle with this new me. In all fairness, it didn’t help when I decided I'd die on that hill. So we fought. And I eventually left.
Maybe the very act of returning and caring for them helped me resolve whatever emotional baggage I carried with me when I initially moved out. Maybe doing this helped me take control of the more painful memories of the past, resolve these experiences, and reduce their impact.
“The point is not to go back to a house and live in the past,” Burger says, “but to incorporate its significance and the opportunities it offers into your new, current life.”
Or maybe I’ve been able to trump the more negative memories with kinder, more loving ones. It still begs the question, will it feel strange when I finally get there? Will I feel like I’m living in their shadow or with their ghosts? I don’t think so. We plan to make changes to the house—some necessary, some because it's what we want. All in all, it seems like I’ve already moved on. I'm more at home in this house than in any place I’ve ever lived.
Caring for my parents was hard, but I don’t regret a single moment of it. I helped them transition into the next world. What could bring more meaning into your world? Or a whole new wealth of familial memories?
What about you? Do you dream of visiting your childhood home? Maybe moving back into it? Or would you be perfectly fine if you never saw the place again? I’d love to hear what you think.
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As always, thank you so much for reading!
Until next month! Cheers!
Maria
What a wonderful, thought-provoking read! You’ve made me think about the importance of my first childhood home.