What do you miss about your parents and their house?

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I've lived away from home for 4 years, and the visits always seem too short. What things do you miss about your parents and the abode that you grew up in?

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

Answers

I miss my mom's cooking and how it would smell up the whole house (in the best way possible). I wish I had a woodburning stove in our apartment, because the everything about the one in my parents' house is AWESOME. I miss the jingle of my parents' keys, and the slamming of their car door (a very unique sound, I always know when they've arrived at my apartment because of it).

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

Enjoy what you have, Erika! :) I've moved over 20 times in my 26 years, with most of the moves being before I was 14 years old. I always lived in apartments when I was a kid. I hate when people ask me where I'm from. I just say the state I lived in, and leave it at that :) Luckily, my dad lives really close to me now, so I get to see him a lot. My mom lives in another state though, and I've only seen her 3 times in 12 years. That pretty much sucks. So enjoy having both of your parents in the same place-- you're lucky!

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

I don't miss anything about the home(s)I grew up in. Sometimes I'm nostalgic for the days when someone else was in charge of the crappy jobs, like paying the bills and keeping the house from falling down around your ears, but we all get tired of being the grown-up. I enjoy visiting my parents, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to live with them again. I think people who have parents that can cook and perhaps those who basically grew up in one town may have a different perspective.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

I miss how my mom used to make a healthy breakfast for me every morning, and the big dinners she would make. I loved how if she saw something interesting in the grocery store she would buy it and serve it to us - she would make us roast duck, or a huge roast beef, or buffalo burgers. She makes really good sandwiches too.

I miss how my dad would always forget that I was his daughter and just think of me as his buddy. Mom didn't appreciate it when he would let me watch R-rated movies with him when I was 8 years old, or when he would give me some of his beer. Except now it kind of backfires, when he tries to talk about sex. I have to keep reminding him that talking about sex means that I have to accept the fact that he has sex with my mother, which we all know doesn't happen.

I also miss my parents house, which is on a small lake, with a kick- ass pool and hot tub. We had the greatest parties during the summer.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000


Oh, good topic idea, Erika!

I grew up with my dad, my brothers, my aunt and uncle, and several cousins (in a very large house which had been a tiny apartment building before.) I miss the way we all joked around and teased each other and cursed like bastards. I miss running up and down the wooden stairs. I miss looking out my second-story window. I miss being able to walk down to the neighborhood grocery store and see friends or family members all the way there and back. I miss just knowing my neighbors. I miss the chickens everyone had which eventually started running wild through parking lots and stuff. I miss...

apparently I miss more than I thought at first.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000



I miss waking up on holidays and running into the kitchen where my mom would have gifts for us. SHe was really into holidays...every single one of them. I mean, we got stuff for St. Patricks Day. Nothing big or anything, but like green underwear or something. I'm 29 and I *still* get an easter basket. I live out of state now and sometimes she'll mail me stuff in advance, but it's not the same.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

I lived at home til I was 28, with the exception of college and one year in SF with my best friend, so by the time I moved out "for real", I was very ready to have my own space. I'm an only child, and while my parents and I have always enjoyed a very close, great relationship, after a certain point it was getting to where I couldn't stand being around Mom and Dad for long stretches of time. I had a lot of guilt about that, til my mom finally reassured me, You're SUPPOSED to feel that way, I did when I was even younger than you.

My parents live in the house I grew up in, the only house I have ever known. The neighborhood has changed a lot since I was a kid, but the key, important neighbors with whom we are friends are still there, having lived in their respective houses for the last 35 or so years, same as my folks. The city, Novato, is only 30 minutes from where I live in SF, so I see my parents and the house often (I do most of my laundry there-- they like me to, saying laundromats are too expensive, bless 'em). It never fails to amaze me how familiar I am with everything there...I walk in, and the house has a scent that I've known my entire life. Even turning my key in the doorknob feels and sounds familiar; I can see and feel and hear it in my head right now, imagining it. My bedroom smells different now that most of my stuff's not in it, it smells like Mom's new computer. My parents' room has the same blue-and-green shag carpeting they bought when I was in grade school, and on my mom's side if you get down and sniff, it's all my dog Truffle, right there. It's where she used to sleep, til she died 2 years ago, and my parents and I agreed we need that patch of grimy carpet, because none of us is ready to let go of her, so it's not been shampooed and won't be in the foreseeable future. Similarly, on the edge of my parents' doorjamb (against which Truffle liked to rub, as she walked by), there's a small buildup of dirt (Truffle also liked rolling around in the backyard ;-) ), and none of us wants to get rid of it, we like the reminder of our Baby Dog. :-)

Over the years, sometimes I have tried to walk into our house (feels weird to call it "their house") with a totally objective POV, like a stranger's perspective. The things that look so totally normal and unnoticable to me probably seem completely different to someone who's not been in and out of there for 34 years. Mom's (inherited) pitcher collection; the framed photos scattered on the mantel, the old stereo cabinet, the low wooden chest, and the old upright piano; the drawings and paintings on every wall of the house, left over from Mom's years as an artist, interspersed with yet more photos, mostly taken by me and Dad. The carpet in the living room (where you enter) and hall is original to the house, making it 40 years old. My parents and I never even notice the big, faded orange spot where I spilled powdered paint years ago as a kid and then tried to "wash it out" (oops). For YEARS my mom got a bang out of letting traveling rug-cleaner salesmen who wanted to do a demo in our house have a crack at the Orange Spot. None of them ever budged the thing. ;-)

I miss the way the house used to feel when I was a kid, in summertime. I miss 10am sunshine in the family room. I miss the leafy green lushness of the backyard, seen through my bedroom window, and the singing of our own resident mockingbirds, for years and years.
But I'm lucky-- whenever I miss any of it too much, I just drive up there and hang out for a day or two, at which time I'm always ready to come home to my own flat, cable TV, and the peaceful silence that comes with living alone. :-)

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000


The house: the woods behind it (which aren't there anymore and, in fact, I'm talking about my childhood house, not the condo my mom is in now), free food and free rent / utilities.

I generally don't like spending a lot of time at my parent's house now, as the bed is hard, the a/c and heat don't work well, bedtime is at 10 PM, the bathtub leaks if you fill it too high, there is no junk food, no cable, no VCR, no call waiting...in short, none of the amenities I'm used to, and I don't live a very posh lifestyl ein the first place. Visits also turn into Improvement Seminars, where I'm told that everything I am and do is wrong or could be better.

All that aside, there's nothing that replaces a mother's love, and I keep going home with that as the only draw. Which says a lot, I hope. It's a long trek and I'm well-aware I'll be uncomfortable and criticized for days on end, but I go anyway because, heck, it's MOM. :) And I love her.

Plus I get to see my grandmother, and her love is even more unconditional. :)

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000


I miss how my friends and my brothers' friends would always come over to just sit around and shoot the shit or watch our catalogue of Seinfeld episodes. If I was on my way out the door and then found out my brothers' friends were coming over, I'd change my plans so I could stay home. I miss laughing so hard it hurts at least once an hour.

And I miss my dogs and my funny-as-hell Dad. Sob.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000


My Mom's house, the house I lived in from ages 6-18, is so wonderful. It's a big Victorian on a brick paved street with lots of trees. There's a lovely garden full of flowers and a little water garden with fish and frogs. The whole house has so much personal meaning for me, the place *is* my mom. She singlehandedly painted and papered and decorated the whole house. She refinished and upholstered the furniture, she framed the prints on the wall, she made the wreath on the door. She is so resourceful and creative and she has great style; the place is so lovely and she did it all herself on a shoestring. I really miss my white cat, Frisky, who died a couple of years ago. She'd been a member of the family since I was 3 and it still feels strange to go home and not find her there, too. There's a small marble abstract statue on our porch that my brother made that sits by the door. When I pull up in front of the house I always think that it is Frisky siting there, waiting to be let back in.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000


Latest conversation with mother:

Mother: I called you this week.
Me: I know, I got it--I called you back when I got in, at 11PM, even though I knew you wouldn't be up. But you'd called all week, and I wasn't home before 10PM even once, so I figured it was important.
Mother: Your brother said he called you all week and left a LOT of messages.
Me: He left one. Thursday. What's up?
Mother: (implying that I was at home but just ignoring her calls and my brother's calls) We wanted him to drive you down here (6 hour car trip) with his wife for the weekend.
Me: (Stifling urge to shriek about the idea of being trapped in a car with my brother and sister in law for 12 hours total, plus being at my family's mercy with no vehicle for an entire weekend...which would be hell) You know we're trying to find a new place to lie, since our landlord is terminally ill and selling the house. It took three months and looking at 487 houses LAST time to find one we all agreed on. I can't come home right now.
Mother: But we had SUCH FUN! I wish you could have come.
Me: But I couldn't.
Mother: (disbelief evident) Right. Well, aren't you going to ask what we did?
Me: Sure. What did you do.
Mother: (tells me that they spent HOURS discussingmy grandmother's will, family politics, my father's death--which is a painful subject for me--etc.)
Me: That does sound like fun, all right.
Mother: (ignoring me) And we went to go get some greasy barbeque pork in the 110oF weather, and then we went to the mall to buy your brother some ugly yuppie shirts, and then your sister, oops, I meant SISTER-In-LAW and I bonded over porcelain pig statuettes, and then we went and picked out matching Peter Pan collar blouses with bow ties, and ate an iceberg salad for lunch, and then we all talked about the will and your father's death (which happened 20 years ago & which was devastating to you) and evil relatives some more, and then I went on a big Improvement Kick and told your brother and Sister-in-law everything they were doing wrong that they would be able to do better if only they listened to me, and then we all went out to a snooty private club and met people we only know socially who don't give a damn if we live or die, and then we walked out on the dock over the stinking marsh at low tide and your grandmother fell, and then...
Me: Hold up. My grandmother fell? What?
Mother: (launches into hour-long story about how my poor grandmother fell down, and they rushed her to the ER, and she was repeating herself and acting funny, etc.)
Me: Oh my god!
Mother: (latches onto my concern, implies that my grandmother is not long for this world, and if only I had come down this weekend, as it might be the last time I see my grandmother alive, etc.)
Me: (Struggling not to get defensive) I'm sorry I was working so late and that I had to go find a place to live this weekend. Which we didn't do, as my roommates have no clue what they want or where they want to go or even if they want to rent rather than buy.
Mother: It's just that we had SO MUCH FUN and we MISSED you.
Me: Well, is she okay?
Mother: We went over to her house SUnday and spent twelve hours working in the yard in the summer sun, and cleaning 20-year-old piles of dust from one corner to the other, and it was FUN! I know you are sensitive to dust and all, but we chatted and talked some more about the will and your father's death, and your grandmother, we spent lots of time with her beacuse she's due to die at ANY MINUTE and YOU will have missed your chance to see her because you're SELFISH and don't love your family. It was SUCH fun. You should have come. Your brother called you a hundred times. I called, and you didn't call me back. We missed you. He was going to drive you, I know that would have been FUN! You could listen to horrible music for twelve hours, and talk about collecting porcelain pigs, and about accounting, and buying houses (oh, you can't, because you have no money and I don't help you financially like I help them, because they are married and you are single and therefore not worthy of assistance in any serious degree, but once you get a ma-yun, THEN I'll help you), and they'd ask you all about who you're dating and what you like doing on the weekend and they wouldn't find any of it interesting. But you'd have had FUN!
Me: (groaning in agony) I'm sure.
Mother: (talks for another hour about father's death, getting into excruciating detail until I'm in tears, then winds me up about my grandmother until I think she's going to die at any second, then complains about my diet even though she hasn't seen me eat anything in fifteen years, and complains about my neighborhood, and complains about a number of things she disapproves of, then hangs up.)

Shit.

Then I talk to my grandmother five minutes later, and she's okay, and I end up feeling better. Even though we, once again, talk about my father's death.

This, to elaborate on my earlier semi- snarky "thanks but no thanks" posting. I love my mother, but she gets me SO UPSET. (I ALLOW her to get me upset, I should clarify, and I haven't found the emotional tools to keep her from winding me up so badly.) Argh.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2000


I and my three siblings and my two parents grew up in one house and then we moved away in 1987. My parents have been in another house since, and we all lived there, but not for long. But when I think of going home, I think of going there, cause it's where my parents are, even though I didn't grow up there. I'm 700 miles from my family and although I talk to most of them a lot, or email or whatever, I only see them four or five times a year and it's not enough.

I love that there's *always* coffee on at my parents. They always have ice cream in the freezer. There's always food in the fridge, and they have really comfortable couches and a huge tv and a lot of cotton throws. I'm generally not there an hour when I take a nap. Sometimes my mother makes me do work as if I still live there, and generally I do it even though I'm annoyed, but mostly it's very comforting to be there.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2000


i guess i dont miss to much cuz ma just lives like 2 houses down. i see her evrey day!

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2000

I don't really miss anything about the house I grew up in. I had some pretty traumatic times there and that's where my father died, so the house itself doesn't mean much to me. I really like the yard though. I'll miss spending time in the yard when she sells the house. I've already disconnected myself from the actual house.

My mother isn't much of a cook, which she freely admits, but there are a few things that she makes that I really like. When I go to see her, she usually makes one of my favourites if I give her enough notice. When she comes to see me, she usually brings along one of my favourite dishes.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000


I miss staying away from the house all day and surfing/pickin up chicksters and drinkin beers. Then sneakin back to the freezer in the back and stealin frozen hamburger patties and dogs then goin back to the beachfire and cookin them up and drinkin more brews and then goin surfin necked! Wooooohoooo! Long live surfin! Ouch. Just pulled a muscle. Mebee I'm gettin too old for this. Old Surf Dog

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2000


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