# I Can't Go Home Again. Literally. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 18, 2017, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691 "2017-04-18T10:51:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/21 "2017-04-21T14:13:00Z")
> [@AngelSoft](#): > > I sadly can’t even imagine growing up in the same home. By the time I was 12 we’d been in at least ten different homes, the same amount again by the time I was 18. I don’t know. To me, the idea of a family living in the same house for the entirety of the kids’ childhood is something that only happened in the 50s/60s. And now only happens if the parents are rich or reasonably well off. I’m nearly 40 and my daughter who’s 9 has already lived in 3 different homes/towns. I think it’s really telling about how the American life at least has changed that this just seems strange rather than the norm. It seems to me that moving frequently, including during childhood, may be more of an American thing. While moving isn’t unusual at all in Europe, I have a hard time thinking of classmates who moved more than once or twice when I was a kid. More than three would have been an awful lot. It was pretty much standard for almost all of my friends to stay in the same house throughout their childhood. It may be different nowadays. > [@romansperson](#): > > I really don’t feel any nostalgia for the house itself - it was a typical '60s tract house and nothing special - but I still have friends that live there and now I don’t see them as often, and that bothers us both. If I were to assess the house itself honestly, I’d have to admit that it wasn’t particularly great. I remember my dad conducting a perpetually losing fight against a pool of water that would accumalute on a platform above the living room. It was rather damp. I was also frustrated at it being smaller than all the neighbouring houses :D. But the atmosphere was warm. Cosy and quiet. And the garden really was great for kids. But first and foremost the memories, of course. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > My parents still live in the house in which I grew up (since age 9, anyway). I visited recently, and had occasion to go upstairs where the kids’ bedrooms were. It was a bit depressing. > > I visit my parents at home from time to time (though they probably visit me more often) but I usually don’t go past the first floor. So my memories of that second floor are mostly of a place full of life, with noise and kids going here and there, doing this and that. Now, a stillness pervades the entire place. My younger siblings left possessions which are still in various drawers and closets, presumably untouched for years and years. > > It was like walking through a ghost town. Same thing for me in a way. My bedroom was turned into a storage room about ten years ago. It really bears little ressemblance to what it was when I grew up. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/22 "2017-04-21T16:59:55Z")
Another recent “childhood home” loss. Two weeks ago. My mom lived there almost 60 years. Now in a “senior village”. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![turner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@turner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/23 "2017-04-22T03:59:55Z")
Yeah, this is hard. The only time I saw my dad cry is when he left our house–the only real home we kids knew. He kept it up meticulously. We were the only house on the street without a garage. Dad planted a garden and flowers instead. It was a beautiful back yard and the house had pine doors and cabinets that he kept well varnished. The bathroom door had a dark streak running through it that looked like a tree trunk with a man’s face in it. Creepy, but cool. Dad was going blind and mom was on oxygen so we convinced them to go into assisted living. We sold it to a couple who, in my opinion ruined it. They not only put in a garage, but an ugly one, they finished the basement in a really weird way that didn’t efficiently use the space–basically making two cramped rooms and a “bowling alley” main area for a laundry room/craft area. Sold the house about 7 years later for $100K less than they paid for it, so with the remodel, they probably took a bath financially. I shouldn’t care, but the way the ruined my child hood home kind of made me glad they lost money. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/24 "2017-04-22T04:18:17Z")
My mother still lives in my childhood home. My dad is in a nursing home, and I pray that he gets to see the house one last time before he passes. They bought the house in 1961 for $19,000. My brother was born in 1964, and I was born in 1970. The house is in New York. I live in Maryland with my wife and son, my brother is in North Carolina with his wife and son. We rarely get back there, the last time we were all at home was for Thanksgiving of 2014. I don’t know what will happen when my father dies. My mom is to stubborn to give up the house, but it is far too big for her. The funny thing is that even though I own my own house, and it is my “Home”, I always know that there is a house in New York that i can go back to if my life takes a shit. I know it will be a sad day when my mom sells that house. Every other house in the neighborhood has been replaced with a McMansion when it gets sold, and it will be no different. But, as of now, I can still visit on Google maps. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/25 "2017-04-22T04:42:33Z")
When I was about 20 years old, I happened to drive by the apartment building I lived in when I was a baby - and it was gone! :eek: A business in the neighborhood was expanding, and bought the property for the lot. It had apparently declined in quality anyway since I had lived there. My parents still live in the same house they moved into, and have been there for more than 50 years. My sibs and I have spent the past few years trying to convince them to sell that house and move to an apartment (it doesn’t HAVE to be a senior facility!) but they don’t want to. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691/26 "2017-04-22T10:16:22Z")
Not MY childhood home, but someone’s: About a quarter mile from me, there was a house on a corner lot next to a used car lot. The house went up for sale and the used car dealership bought it and expanded their lot onto the property - but left the house alone. Now there’s a parking lot full of cars and trucks surrounding a 50s brick bungalow. Surreal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-go-home-again-literally/784691.md?page=1)