Especially if they’ve been boomeranging with you! We moved to our house when DS was born so it’s the only home he’s known. He did live across the country for three years after college but has been back with us for a couple of years while he searched for and started a new job (been a year now working). As some of you know, we are moving to San Diego from Chicagoland and sold our house to a builder.
DS has rented his own apartment and has been slowly moving things over. It’s been quite a process because he’s had to make decisions about all the stuff that he’d left here, on top of the whole emotional angst of saying goodbye to his home. (Sensitive guy that he is.) We’re boxing and shipping several boxes of his mementos etc. which will end up stored in our garage (some because I want to keep it; some because he does but doesn’t have room to store it).
Sometimes I feel guilty about kicking the birdie out of the next then destroying the nest. Sometimes I feel resentful because we’ve known for almost six months that this day was coming so it’s not exactly a surprise! I’m the one who wanted this move; best thing for all of us; it’s been 10 years since I realized we could do it, and five years since DH took it seriously. I still have my own emotions to deal with but am kind of tip toeing around DS’s feelings so as not to upset him.
Anyway, DS was wondering how other adult children felt about such a situation and asked me to check in with my bff’s on the interwebs.
We told D2 we would sell the family home after she left for college. Little did we know that it would sell immediately and we would have to be out by Thanksgiving. So she didn’t ever get to “say goodbye” to her house. She was VERY upset. Very very upset. We moved to a rental for three months over Thanksgiving and Christmas (an enormous mansion which was vacant and for sale, really too big), which she hated and felt scared to sleep in. She said she worried that if someone broke in, we’d never hear her screaming, so she deadbolted herself into her room at night. It was upstairs with the five other bedrooms, while DH and I were downstairs. D1’s bedroom was also upstairs, but across the house from D2’s, so it didn’t seem at all like they were near each other. That was one big house!
We finally found our next house, which DH and I love. She likes it much better as it is smaller and cozier, she feels very safe, and she is now content. But she of course doesn’t have the emotional attachment to it that she had for our family home.
D1 was sad and nostalgic for our family home, but is four years older than D2 and understood the whole thing better. She never complained but has made it clear she doesn’t think of our new house as “home.” I get it.
During my first year of graduate school, I still had most of my possessions at my mom’s house because I had never been asked to get them out of there.
Then my mother and stepfather decided to move to another part of the country on very short notice. It was the middle of the semester and I could not come home to make arrangements for my possessions. So they decided which of my stuff to keep (by giving it to nearby relatives for temporary storage) and which to throw away. I lost a lot of things that were meaningful or useful – books, photographs, letters, even some out-of-season clothing that I needed and had intended to pick up at Thanksgiving.
If you have to move when your kid is unavailable to help, don’t do it the way my family did. Find some way to store EVERYTHING that belongs to your kid until the kid can sort through it.
Wow, Nrdsb4, that must have been rough! We sold our house in December and got a six month post possession agreement so have known all along that “everything must go”. DH is such a packrat that I feel storing DS’s stuff makes very little difference. My only requirement is that he’s reviewed it before I’ll agree to take it. We’ve actually had some nice nostalgic times going over all the old stuff, most of which he didn’t even know I kept. So at this point we’re both comfortable that nothing meaningful has been discarded.
I did alert DS that someday he will have to clear out our new house, and then he can throw everything out.
Kids had plenty of notice, including the celebration of “our last Christmas in this house.” DS was “boomeranging” with us, and was part of the house hunt/selection. DD way on the other side of the country. When she visited us in the new place, I asked how she felt. She looked around and said… “eh… it’s still all of our STUFF.”
Having said goodbye to the old place, she was ready for the new… as long as it wasn’t TOO new
BTW we never regretted the move. The new place is smaller, but more intimate. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff. I admit, we miss the old neighborhood a bit, but have fun getting to know the new one. The move signified we entered a whole new period of our lives - with a house to match.
We moved 2 times from the childhood home. The first move was the hardest for kid #1, she is a sensitive person and it was painful for her and my husband. The second time was much better but we are technically in the same city, both kids can come back and feel at home. Their high school friends are here.
My parents, literally, designed and built and moved in to their home when I was 2 or 3 yrs old. It was very emotionally tough when they decided to sell when I was 37. It was not only the family home, but my parents built it. It is still tough imagining other people living there.
But it turned out to be a very good decision. They moved to an adult community. A one story house in a gated community with pool, golf course and many other activities not far from the Jersey Shore.
Sadly my Dad died about 6 or 7 months after they moved in. My Mom was devastated but learned to live. She volunteered for various things, traveled extensively and had a great group of friends. She got a “Hero” of the year award in her local Toms River newspaper.
We had a great ‘home’ in which we raised the kids, it was in the community where we were most involved and invested We have lived in our current house almost as long as we lived in the ‘home’ yet it does not feel the same as it is the empty nest house. I thought I would never love a home as much as I loved that one, but for a variety of unexpected reasons, I love this house the best of all. Even better D1 & D2 do, too. That was a surprise, every kid resented when we sold that home, they each had their own room with their own girly decor, chosen by them, it was a wonderful house. Funny, too, old friends tell me it was still called the Somemom’s house for many years after the new people moved in.
I think it was difficult to adapt to the changes, but it worked. Two of my DDs were able to spend a significant transitional time in this house after university and that made it more home for them. Also, when we have been out of town, we have invited out adult kids to entertain their friends here & when they do that it helps them become more invested
D2 did the most amazing thing, in our prior home, when she left for university she offered and then helped move D3 into D2’s old bedroom, it was a nicer room and it was an extremely generous offer to not have her room just the way she left it when she came home. When we moved to our current house D2 ended up with her stuff in the basement, it was a much smaller home and the other two sisters were using the rooms. I was proud of D2 not whining (much), it’s rough emotionally when they are trying to figure out who and what they are as adults, to not have that rock of 'home."
We’re in the process of buying a new house - kids are rising senior and sophomore. It is in the same town, but not the neighborhood or familiar part of town to them. We took them yesterday to see the house. They think I’m crazy being concerned about their feelings of the move and leaving the home they grew up in. They’ll both get rooms in the new place, but S is convinced he’ll never live there so it doesn’t matter. Both are happy for us and get why we want to move.
My parents designed and built their house in 1973. We moved in when I was in 5th grade. Mom told me just yesterday that she and Dad have put their names on a waiting list for a senior living community in Austin. The list is 3 or 4 years long, but it still means I won’t see “my” house many more times. It does make me sad!
We sold the childhood home two and a half years ago, when S1 was 27 and S2 was 22. S1 – my sensitive one – was a bit sad, but we bought just across town, so whenever they come home all of their friends are here. In many ways this new house is a much, much better house and property and we all recognize that, so I don’t think either of them are sad about the move. S1 has hardly any stuff remaining with us and S2 is slowly but surely getting his stuff to his own house.
However, my own story is different: I left for college on September 14, 1966 and my parents moved from my childhood home on September 17, 1966. Of course I knew the move was coming – it’s not as if they sold it without telling me! – but when I came home at Thanksgiving, to a NYC apartment I had never seen before, it was obvious that the intention was that I was to come home only for brief vacations. My room was their den/second bedroom in the apartment and, if they were watching television, I had to kick them out if I wanted to go to sleep. Because the apartment was in the City and I grew up in the 'burbs, I wound up spending most of my vacations at a friend’s house – I’d go there a day or two after returning home and spend a good week or ten days there.
I don’t recommend getting rid of the childhood home within days of the last kid leaving for college.
We still own the childhood home, but we spend every weekend and most of the summer at the home we intend to retire to, or move to sooner if we can find work there. It’s not so much that the kids will resent us selling the childhood home (it’s falling apart around us and not worth fixing up, no one really needs to be here) as that we will be moving away from THEM, as they both live nearby–S in same town, D one town over. We all like visiting back and forth. And hopefully with grandkids soon, we do want to be in their lives.
However, the eventual only home is not that far away (2 1/2 hour drive) and near the place they grew up vacationing at. They come down to visit fairly often, so are reconciled that even if we’re not close einough for a quick cup of coffee, we have room for visits any time, and also beach.
I’m the same as romangypsieyes…I bought their house! Actually it wasn’t my childhood home, we moved several times. But this was the home they purchased while i was a junior in college (in the same neighbhorhood as they had lived for years and I had since I was 13) and we loved it. Big, perfect lot…best lot in the neighbhoorhood I think. Anyway, they lived their 17 years and when they decided to sell and move out of state it was upsetting not only had them gone…but not to have “home” to go to anymore. So we bought it and have been there 20 years…longer than them. It’s been terrific neighborhood…much like Somemom’s. Kids have their friends, we do, too! Leaving is not on the horizon right now, but I see it in the next 5-10 years. This is the only home my kids have ever known, and I’m sure there will be great sadness for everyone.
The layout of the home is just not conducive for large amounts of people in the FR, and the surrounding area is becoming less and less desirable. We have a LR and DR that rarely is used…I’m just not crazy about the layout anymore. I told everyone when my friends all start to move out…we’re outta there, too. I’m not going to be the last man standing.
We’ve been in our current home 15 years and our boys grew up here. One is now graduating from college and the second just finished freshman year. I thought this would be it, our forever home where our boys would bring back girlfriends, spouses, grandchildren. But about a year or so ago, we came to the realization that we really want to live in a different area altogether. We LOVE our home and it’s layout and want to get something similar but elsewhere. Also much further south where the weather is somewhat kinder in the Winter months!
The boys have heard us talk about a move for about a year now and are mentally getting prepared. We are not even sure if we are moving before the younger one finishes college or not. We’re aiming for moving after he finishes his Junior year or the Spring of his Senior year. (Because of his major, he graduates in August) It’s still up in the air. So approx. 2-3 years from now.
We both work form home and have separate home offices, so we don’t need to find jobs.
What we have been doing, however, is our “one bag a week” to the garbage. We’re trying hard to sell, throw away, consolidate, give away, etc. now, slowly, since my H is also a pack rat and it will take the next few years to keep emptying out everything!
After thinking we’d never move again, we are excited at the prospect of living somewhere else. Not the move itself, since that is so much work! And getting new Doctors, Dentists, etc. Yucch. We also will not downsize. We like our space. Our home is currently 3100 square feet and we would look for something similar, or slightly smaller. And we hope to find something on water. If not, then we’ll put a water feature in our backyard!
Something we thought we’d never do, and now we are excited at the prospect of living somewhere else.
It’s unpleasant, obviously, but it may be better than the alternative – moving a high school senior to a different community and a different school.
A family on my street faced this dilemma. One of the parents was offered an excellent new job 2 hours away from home when their only child was about to start his last year of high school. The other parent ran a home-based business and had no objection to moving, but both parents were concerned about moving their child at that point in his education. So the parent accepted the new job and did the long commute for more than a year so that the child wouldn’t have to change schools. A “for sale” sign went up the week he graduated.
The only thing I really regret about selling our home right after D2 left was that we had to be out so fast. We offered to fly her home to spend a last weekend there, but she declined. We tried to lease it back from the new owner over Thanksgiving, but they said it would cost us $500 a day or something crazy like that.
In our case, D2 and D1 still have their own bedrooms and ensuites in the new house, with their own furniture and decor. Your situation sounds a little more extreme to me, and I could understand you not feeling at home at all.
