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Original poster

Do your parents still live in your childhood home?

72 replies

KingKhazi · 26/07/2023 17:20

The thread about how many times have you moved inspired me.

My parents divorced when I was 3 and haven't seen my dad since. I've never really had a childhood home as we moved house every 2-3 years. My mum has lived in 3 properties since i Ieft home. I find it quite sad really as i don't feel particularly comfortable at my mums house as its not mine if that makes sense and I feel like a guest really. I never stay over and only really spend a couple of hours there. She feels the same at mine.

OP posts:
carparkcow · 26/07/2023 17:27

I don't have one either, similar to you.

I also feel quite sad about it and it's why I was really keen to find our 'forever home' before we started our family. I have no intention of moving now as I want my kids to be able to come home as adults and have that experience that I feel I missed out on. Unless we win the lottery in which case I'll be moving to the Maldives and bugger the kids memories

HirplesWithHaggis · 26/07/2023 17:30

My parents and all four of us DC moved into a new build in 1971, when I was 9 and my siblings 11, 6 and 4. Mum is still there.

Izzabellasasperella · 26/07/2023 17:30

No but I do😀
My Dad died and the house was too much for my Mum so she moved out and we rent it from her.
Space for all us, secure and the view is fabulous 😀

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Cherrysoup · 26/07/2023 17:32

Nope, she just downsized.

SockQueen · 26/07/2023 17:32

My parents still live in the house we moved into when I was 10, so not my one and only childhood home, but I still have "my" bedroom there etc.

Merrow · 26/07/2023 17:32

Yes, they still have the house I came home to after being born! I love it. Although my room has been converted into a room for the grandchildren, and I've been relegated to a sofa bed downstairs.

CeilingFanny · 26/07/2023 17:33

We moved into my main childhood home and I lived there for the next 22 years. My parents are still there but I don’t visit much as have tricky relationship with one parent. I do love the house though, it’s a special feeling being back there.

BorneoBound · 26/07/2023 17:35

My parents lived in the same house my entire life, until last year. I'm not sad though as they moved nearly 100 miles to live less than a mile from me 😊

TeenDivided · 26/07/2023 17:36

Yes. They have been there over 60 years now. (DF is in his 90s, in the last month he cut down a dead tree and dug out the stump.)

TrueScrumptious · 26/07/2023 17:38

Sort of. We moved to the house when I was 13 and my parents are still there 45 years later. We lived in two other houses before that. The first was 0-8 in age for me. Then 8-13.

Wenfy · 26/07/2023 17:38

My parents don’t live in my childhood home but this new home feels homelier & has better memories (ie I wasn’t dragged two flights of stairs by my hair in this one). But to be honest I’ve never been at home with my parents - home is and always has been my house.

LittleLegsKeepGoing · 26/07/2023 17:40

My mother still lives in the house my parents bought when I was 7, my gran still lives in the house she moved into as a newly wed and my aunty still lives in the first house she moved into when she left home. All 3 homes are family childhood homes for me and thick with mostly wonderful memories when I visit.

I've failed to do the same by my children because we haven't managed to get on the property ladder but hopefully my mother's home will have rich memories for them as adult like my gran's does for me.

Mummysalwaysright · 26/07/2023 17:43

Memories aside, I loathe the idea of staying in the same house forever. Apart from anything, once the DC have flown the nest I'd quite like to downsize. Think of all the time cleaning I'll save.

I've had various family members downsize and seem to really benefit from it, vs. my parents who never did and ended up really stranded and dependent on others. People need to plan ahead.

Plus downsizing frees up family size houses for actual families, rather than elderly couples who live by the expectation that "the whole family" might want to come and stay once or twice a year.

weegiemum · 26/07/2023 17:43

No, we had a 6 bed house (lots of siblings) so once we left home my parents downsized to a smaller bungalow in the country, they've lived there much longer now than they did in the "family home". All their 12 grandchildren know it as G&Gs house and it has a lovely big garden and plenty space for grandchildren to stay for a couple of days.

I wasn't upset when they moved, but I was when my Gran sold her house, I'd lived there as a small child and was much more attached!

knottsberryfarm · 26/07/2023 17:46

Sadly they have both passed away now but when my dad died a few years ago he has been living in the house they bought when they got married in 1957. It was hard to let go.

Finnegans · 26/07/2023 17:47

Don’t fall into the trap of over-idealising the childhood home, OP. My parents still live in mine, and, even with only two of them living there, it’s feels almost as as inconvenient, tiny and uncomfortable as it was in my childhood, when 12 of us lived in that cramped single-storey cottage. No privacy, all rooms tiny and leading out of one another, a horrible place to have periods or a stomach upset as to get from the bedrooms to the bathroom involved having to walk through both living room and kitchen, and all activities in bedroom or bathroom audible in rest of the house, nowhere to sit without someone pushing past your chair to get past or get something out of a drawer, and my parents (both from poor backgrounds — it was my father’s childhood home too) have no idea why their adult children stay in hotels rather than with them. My SIL refuses to stay there.

DeedlessIndeed · 26/07/2023 17:51

Yes! Still in the same house they lived in when I was born.
I don't think they'll ever move, and I can't blame them.

We don't live nearby, but I still say that I'm going "home" etc when I travel down to see my family.

I find it a deeply emotional place to visit. I feel a mixture of comfort and nostaliga/wistfulness/sadness when I'm there.

I couldn't wait to leave, but I am also incredibly sad at the thought of it being sold to someone else.

heatdeath · 26/07/2023 17:51

Nope! They are in their 7th in the last 25 years … they moved most recently 18 months ago & already getting itchy feet!

I just counted - I lived in 9 houses between birth & 18, then 7 before I got married (moved every year during university & early working years) Since then we’ve only lived in two different places & have no plans to move but that’s out of convenience rather than any great emotional connection to our house! I’m fairly unsentimental.

BackupFail · 26/07/2023 17:53

My mum does. Her and my dad moved in about 50 years ago when she was pregnant with me (I'm the eldest). They split up when I was a teen. After a couple of years he married my stepmother and moved in to her house. She still lives in that house (he's dead now)
I have only ever lived in 3 houses. My mums, one shared house for a few years in my 20's and then me and my husband bought the house we currently live in the year before we got married.

TeamsInterview · 26/07/2023 17:53

Yes , they've been there for 66 years.

Piscesmumma1978 · 26/07/2023 17:53

Yes. They've lived there for 36 years.

They're separated now but can't afford to buy alone.

Toddlerteaplease · 26/07/2023 17:54

They did until 3 weeks ago. They bought it of plan when they married in 1977. I found it a bigger wrench then they did. Even though I moved out 20 years ago. T

MachineBee · 26/07/2023 17:54

Nope. They moved when I was about 30 - to downsize and pay off their endowment mortgage as the insurance policy didn’t cover the capital sum.

I can’t get excited about family forever homes. I’ve tended to move about every 10-15 years (I’m in my 60s now) and will soon be moving to pay off mortgage and retire in a more suitable property for my old age. Houses only become homes when you live in them and make them comfortable. The moment you leave they are just houses again.

Nimbus9000 · 26/07/2023 17:56

Yes mine do. I was born in the sitting room 😂

Toddlerteaplease · 26/07/2023 17:57

It still feels odd to me that at 41 I have my own home! (And I do not have value butter in the fridge, as my dad predicted that I would!

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