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Original poster

Is your parents house still your 'home?'

162 replies

seekinglondonlife · 29/01/2022 09:07

Saw something on another thread that made me think how lovely it must be to go to your parents house and still feel it is home.
Although we are close, I have quite a formal relationship with my DM and step dad. I don't have a house key, when I visit them I ring the doorbell and wait for them to answer the door, even if I can see them through the window. My old bedroom has been turned into a room for one of my siblings (he lives an hour away) and the box room is now a bedroom for his dd. None of the other dgc have ever spent a night in their house.
Weirdly I feel much more comfortable in DHs family home.

OP posts:
jowly · 29/01/2022 09:35

I've lost both my parents and have therefore sold their home, which was theirs from before their wedding to their death. For almost 60 years I referred to it as 'home', despite living in the house I live in now for 35 years.

It's fairly close by and I avoid seeing it. Although I'm happy it's now a family home for someone else, it'll always be mine in my heart.

Camomila · 29/01/2022 09:35

Yes, it's the house I grew up in and I pop round most days (live back in my home town).

I've lived in a variety of student halls, house shares and rented flats but they have all felt temporary... 3 years has been the most we've stayed in one.

I've been in this flat 3 years (with DH and DC) but hope to buy at the end of the year...and then that house/flat will feel like home.

StrawberryPot · 29/01/2022 09:37

My parents moved a few times when I was a child. When I left school at 18 and went to university they moved again. Although they had 2 spare bedrooms I didn't have a dedicated bedroom anymore and wouldn't always sleep in the same one when I visited.

They lived in that house for 34 years and I ended up living 250 miles away with my dh and 3 dcs.

Nevertheless, when visiting my dps I always referred to 'going home'. Wherever my lovely mum and dad were just felt like home to me. Sadly they're no longer alive.

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Abraxan · 29/01/2022 09:38

I've never lived in my parent's current home. They've moved twice since I left home, Moët recently about 3 years ago.

Whilst I feel welcome and relaxed there, it's never been my home. I've only ever stayed for a couple of nights at a time, and due to covid not that often either,

jowly · 29/01/2022 09:38

I still have the back door key I've had since I was a teenager too Wink Although I have no doubt the door went as part of renovations

Original poster
seekinglondonlife · 29/01/2022 09:39

@jowly I feel like that about my grandparents home. They've been dead 20 years now but my dc (who never met them) still know 'granny and granda' s house' and comment when we drive past. I get very annoyed when then 'new' owners make changes to the house!

OP posts:
PiffleWiffleWoozle · 29/01/2022 09:40

No, but I feel relaxed and welcome and looked after there.

It’s 100% not my home though, it’s theirs.

I know you say you are not asking if it’s the home you grew up in OP, but I do feel that makes a difference as to how/whether I would see it as my home too.

Original poster
seekinglondonlife · 29/01/2022 09:41

[hugs] @StrawberryPot. I always want my dc to feel like that.

OP posts:
Peachandpearl · 29/01/2022 09:42

My parents have moved twice since I left home, and downsized so they have less space and bedrooms than I do. I don't have a key or anything. They don't have a key to mine either. We are close and spend lots of time together, though.

Inspectorslack · 29/01/2022 09:44

No. My dad is remarried and my mum is dead and I’m not welcome.

My adult DC treat my house as home which I love. Walk in without knocking and have keys. Only one still lives here.

They even bring their washing (DD and fake tanned top yesterday! Mum you’re so good at this could you get the marks out for me I’m scared to wash it in case I set the stain)

HeadNorth · 29/01/2022 09:46

God no. My parents divorced when I was a teen and both remarried, so their houses have always been their homes with their new partners and I wouldn't say I was ever particularly welcome.

In contrast, my DDs (late teens/early twenties) still have their bedrooms with a lot of their stuff still in and can come 'home' whenever they want for a bit of TLC. Having experienced that rootless feeling it is a priority for me that my daughters always know they have a safe anchorage.

BalladOfBarryAndFreda · 29/01/2022 09:47

No, we moved around a lot when I was a child and I left home as a teen and so no ‘family home’ in that sense. I do feel like a guest in my mother’s house.

However, my adult children do have a sense of ‘family home’ as we still live in their childhood (babyhood for the youngest) home. The youngest still has a bedroom here. We repurposed the older ones’ bedrooms around 4 years after they moved out.

Ariela · 29/01/2022 09:47

No, but it lives on in my memories. Theirs and a few neighbours were flattened - they all had big gardens - and is now a mini estate of tiny, modern terraces.

Inspectorslack · 29/01/2022 09:48

Also. I’m divorced and they don’t view their dads house as home.

MrsTimRiggins · 29/01/2022 09:48

No… but I’m not a guest there either. I’m somewhere in between. I don’t knock (the door isn’t ever locked so no need for a key!), I put the kettle on as and when and I know I can just show up unannounced whenever but I don’t think of it as home, I don’t have somewhere of ‘mine’ to stay anymore and I don’t help myself to stuff in the cupboards… anymore! It was different when she still owned the ‘family home’, where we’d all grown up and the only home I’d lived in until I moved out when I was 19. She sold that about a year ago.
That said, I’m now 28, married and have a baby so I hardly need a place to crash at my mums anymore 😂

BalladOfBarryAndFreda · 29/01/2022 09:49

Same here, @HeadNorth. My children feeling like home is always here is really important to me.

NoSquirrels · 29/01/2022 09:49

Yes, absolutely. I love it there. I’d like my children to feel the same about their home, although who knows if that will be this house. I suspect it’s harder to feel exactly the same if you don’t grow up in a house though?

wendz86 · 29/01/2022 09:49

I have a key and stay there when they aren’t there sometimes as my best friends live near them . I feel at home there . Hope I can do the same for my kids .

Luckystar1 · 29/01/2022 09:49

No. My parents still live in my childhood home, but I don’t feel particularly comfortable there. I haven’t been beyond the kitchen of the house in 5 years. My children have never been in the living room there, my parents are proud of the fact that the children don’t know there’s a TV there… (my eldest child is 7).

So, no. I really, really hope my children don’t end up feeling like that about our house.

KurtWilde · 29/01/2022 09:49

I have 2 older DC and they still refer to this house as 'home' which is what I always hoped they'd do. They both have keys, let themselves in (with partners and babies), and it's like they never left. Younger DC are always thrilled to get home and find everyone is 'home' again. I hope they always feel that way.

My parents house still feels like my home to a certain extent. I was still living at home when I had my first DD, and had to move back home twice after leaving nasty relationships. So it does feel like going home when I get settled in with my mum for a natter, especially at Christmas. It's not quite the same since we lost my dad, and I have a sibling living at home who's pretty much taken over. But while my mum is still with us, yeah it feels like home to me.

noblegreenk · 29/01/2022 09:51

It was when my mum was still alive, but when she passed away it didn't feel like my home anymore. My Dad still lives there but, I realised that my Mum was my home rather than the house iyswim.

ExtremelyDetermined · 29/01/2022 09:53

It's not "home" any more, that would be a bit weird at my age (50s) but it is still where I grew up, I still have a few bits and bobs there and have keys, I can wander around it and feel perfectly at home and so can my DCs. We let ourselves in when we arrive (they leave the door unlocked when they are expecting us). Very similar at DFILs which was not DH's childhood home.

KittenKong · 29/01/2022 09:53

It was - mum sadly sold it to some kid who was an absolute @@@@ to me when I was at school and that added insult to injury. It was a beautiful old house. Also supposedly haunted (mwahahaha).

Em8725 · 29/01/2022 09:53

My mum moved once I moved out so I don’t have a bedroom or a key, but we are always welcome. (None of my siblings who live there have a key either, there just aren’t any spares).

We are welcome to pop in whenever, staying the night is never too much trouble. Mum cooks for us when we go, gets food in especially for my children. It will always be home to me. Home is more about the people in it than the house.

Iwonder08 · 29/01/2022 09:55

No, it is not my home and it shouldn't be one. Technically one of my parents' home is owned by me as I paid for it when they divorced and yet I don't feel like it is my home either. No new partners on either side so no step dynamic to consider. Adult people should have their own homes. I don't subscribe to the mentality of many young people treating their parents home like their own. I saw the thread OP was talking about. It is shocking that the young person in question hasn't realised himself that if a new wife lives with his dad her opinion also counts.

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