Well, my dad recently retired and paid off the home I was born and raised in. He and my mom feel that selling it, and buying a more expensive, nicer home will be a better investment than any stocks/bonds/CDs/whatever, so they’re saying goodbye to the home I spent my childhood in.
They built this house themselves. My now-deceased grandfather helped my dad with the brick work, and helped him build the deck in the back. I remember a lot of stories my dad told me about working on the house, building it from the ground up, with help from my grandfather. I remember helping my parents remodel certain rooms, and them letting me draw on the walls before they put up wallpaper. It breaks my heart to know that another family will rip down that wallpaper and see my drawings and not know what the hell they’re there for.
I have tons of beautiful memories from growing up in that neighborhood. My best friend lived 5 houses down. A field across the street served as our football field when the weather was nice. We climbed all the trees around the house whenever we got the chance. My dad built my playground from scratch, and it still sits in the side yard.
My parents aren’t nearly as attached to the house as I am, I guess. They’re selling it. I’m not looking forward to helping them move at all. I think seeing my house empty will creep me out. Knowing that another family will live there really rubs me the wrong way. I haven’t lived there in 7 or 8 years myself, but I still consider it MY house.
Any other Dopers seen their parents move out of their childhood home? Did it bother you or not?
Not only did my parents move out of my childhood home, they did it without giving me the new address! When I was 9 mos pregnant with my oldest daughter! I knew they were moving of course, but not the exact date of removal. So when I called for some Mommy sympathy because I just knew this baby was never going to be born (she’s getting married this Saturday), I got the “this number has been disconnected recording”. It did give me the new # and I bawled my mom out for not telling me. It’s not nice to move to Cleveland and find out your parents moved when you were gone. I know how you feel though. I still miss that house. Even though I’ve moved many, many, many times since then.
I couldn’t wait to move out of my parents’ house to go to college. Now I can’t wait for them to sell it so I don’t have to listen to my mom whine about how expensive it is to keep up.
No emotional attachments here. I’ll be glad never to have to set foot in it again.
I didn’t have a problem when the house i grew up in was sold.
BUT, when my grandmother died and her house was sold, that really bothered me. My grandfather built that house and we celebrated all major holidays there.
Even now, 20 odd years later, it’s still weird to drive by it and not be able to go in.
If I was in a different place in my life, I would. I’m 25 and unmarried, scraping by and fixing up my $80,000 home. They’d be asking in the vicinity of $210,000, and I just can’t even hope to afford anywhere close to that right now. If I had a wife who made significantly more than I do, I’d be considering it.
looking back, i think we moved every 5 years! I never liked any of the homes so no love lost here.
Maybe it’s not such a good thing to become so attached to a place, perhaps you WANT to cling to your past, but maybe you shouldn’t… maybe it prevents you from establishing your own history–in this phase of your life–with your own place.
I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to actually settle into a “childhood” home and develop fond memories. I grew up in a military family and we moved on average every 18 months. Hell, I went to three different highschools! Such a life made me very adaptable to new situations, with an uncanny ability to turn my back and walk away with few regrets. But I never experienced a feeling of being “at home” anywhere, and I don’t know if that is a good thing.
I think I know how you feel, Wasson. When I was in college my parents moved out of the house we had lived in since I was 8. My father designed that house, and I remember it being built, and the whole family would go there on the weekends and work on the lot before we moved in. Most of my childhood memories are from things that happened in and around that house, so it was pretty tough when the parents moved out, but life moves on.
Over the years I’ve been back to my old home town a few times, and each time I drive past the old house and wonder what it looks like inside these days, and what they did with that og-awful wallpaper I used to have in my room. But I haven’t lost the memories of the old place, and my parents have had some pretty nice houses in some cool places since they left (not to mention the four years they spent living on a sailboat).
Take a lot of pictures of the old place, then say goodbye and enjoy whatever comes along next.
After my Dad died, I bought out my stepmother and now live in the house I was raised in. You know all the quirks and and where the creeky floorboards are, you can walk through it in the dark.
The fun part is making it mine. Changing the wall paper or finally ripping up the carpet and exposing the hardwood floors. My parents grew up with money tight in old houses. To have wall to wall carpet was a sign of success.
The agony is changing some things. Redoing the landscaping and tearing out the rose bushes my Mom planted was heartbreaking.
Maybe I never grew up, or I have a horrible memory and can’t stand the idea of ever learing a new phone number.