This is an interesting topic for our discussion HJ.
Let me begin by sharing my cultural perception.
I was raised in a culture where girls leave their family home when they are getting married. Prior to that, girls will stay at home with parents. They may leave their fmaily home for education yet they were expected to return once completed. This was the culture I was raised.
It was the same for me Lily. Although when it came to the opportunity to leave home for my career I was “not allowed” to go interstate as my parents considered I was too young to do that. Back in my day 1972-73 and only 17 years of age it was expected I would do as my parents told me.
I think it was discouraged to live with your partner prior to the marriage. This was seen as a immoral act of younger generations. Such perspective may be ease in the modern society yet my parents clearly showed they discourage it.
Yes, it was the same belief back in my day too. There were all sorts of opinions about the type of “woman” who lived with a man before marriage. Sounds so funny today doesn’t it. When I did leave home, and it was to share a flat with my brother (that was acceptable to my parents) and then when my brother decided to travel overseas and it was expected that I would more home, and that was not something I wanted to do, I asked the person I’d been seeing for six months to move in. He said he could yet he would make “an honest woman of me” and would marry me. I said yes, as it meant I didn’t have to move home. Crazy when you think about it in todays context.
What about boys?
Boys were also encouraged to stay with their parents until marriage. Majority of cases, they are more likely to live with parents until they have children. Yes, boys only leaves family home when they are ready to build their own family and home. This means that you can find multiple generation household in the culture I have grow up with.
Wow, not in my “world”. My three older brothers were encouraged to do whatever they wanted and travel wherever they wanted. They all moved out of home early for their careers. They lived with their partners and did marry. One brother never married and yet had relationships and children and my parents accepted that.
My brother and my sister-in-law lived with my parents for first few years of their marriage. Then, eventually, they moved out to start their own living and family. In some cases, they may live with parents permanently. Eventually, they become the next owner of the house. Yes, boys were considered as those who take the responsibility of caring for aging parents.
Yes, my brothers believed they would take ownership of the family home once my parents passed or had to leave and go into care. That caused considerable division between them. It was me the youngest and the daughter who was expected to care for my parents near the end. That was still expected of me even when I was living in Queensland and my parents and brothers were living in South Australia.
Now, let me share my experience of leaving my family home before marriage.
The first time when I left my family home was for the education purpose. It was a great opportunity for me to have a bit of taste to live in a shared accomodation. It was a time when I felt isolation and learned solidarity.
After 5 years of living apart, I have returned to my family home, to my parents. I realised that even though we were living together for so long, five years had influenced how I want to live my life. Family dynamic had changed. My family roles were changed as well. I was so uncomfortable to live so called “same old”.
Oh yes, I hear you with this one. Once I left home I never returned to live for a length of time. I may have stayed for a couple of nights but that was it. I found I was being treated as a child and not allowed to be who I was becoming. It was very uncomfortable for me too when I was there. Trying to show respect for my parents while “being an adult” caused internal conflict for me.
Years later, I had an opportunity to leave family home again. This time to live with my brother’s family. I still live with them today.
When I distance myself from my family home, I saw how I was carefully nurtured in a narrow world. When I lived at my family home, I didn’t need to do housework. Yes, my mother complained but when you get through that storm, it will be done by ‘a fairly’ in a sunny day. Yes, I didn’t want to admit but I was a spoiled child.
It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.
Ann Landers
When I started living with my brother’s family, I didn’t know how to clean my toilet. I didn’t know how to clean a basin. I didn’t know how to wipe a mirror or a window. I was quite okay with dust because that was the environment I used to live in. My clothes were washed clean and ironed by my parents. Yes, I was spoiled yet moving out of family home, it reminded me I was still a child.
Wow, thank you for sharing so much about this. I was expected to learn how to be a “good wife and mother” so I was taught the way you had to do all these things and more AND to do them the “right” way. Which I later learned was my mother’s way. There is no right and wrong way to clean or keep a house. Yet, I believed what I was “taught” for many years until I choose to “do things differently”. Bit like hanging out the washing. Did you know there was only one way to do that? I’m laughing and being a little sarcastic.
Moving out of family home gave me an opportunity to become a human being responsible to their own act. Even though I had to wash my own clothes, clean my own room, and cook for myself, I felt I am living every moment of what life or living suppose to be. Yet, it is that sense of fulfilment that I am living my everyday life in the way I wanted to live.
Yes, moving out of home for me gave me a whole sense of what life can be and so much freedom to discover a world I had not known and truly spread my wings and started me on my exploration for all that it out there for us. My whole life is about learning, growing, exploring, tripping, falling, flying, creating, challenging, changing, choosing, and sometimes just BEing in the moment and taking it all in.
So, my life after moving out of fmaily home, for the first time, my mum asked me to consider living with them again. I asked for a reason and she said “I finally realised how much house work you have helped us. I finally felt that you were contributing so much!”
Whilst I was living in my family home, as I was a fulltime student I couldn’t financially contribute toward household expences, I contributed by doing housework for mum. It might be little tasks like mop the floor, or washing up dishes. It was great to hear that doing these housework tasks helped my mum in some way.
Even though I have left family home for about 8 years now, when things happened, my parents still ask me to consider returning home. For me, having a family home is two side of the coin. On a side, it is the freedom and on the other, it is the sense of security that I have a family home to return to if necessary.
Life isn’t always smooth. If it were, we would never grow and develop as human beings. If we succeed, we are envied; if we fail, we are ridiculed and attacked. Sadly, this is how people are. Unexpected grief and suffering may lie ahead of you. But it is precisely when you encounter such trying times that you must not be defeated. Never give up! Never retreat!
Daisaku Ikeda
As you said HJ, there’s nothing only good nor bad. Everything is may be and it all depends on how we percieve what’s happening around us. Leaving family home wasn’t good or bad for me. It was part of growth in my life.
In Conversation 