Boomers Value Roots

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal’s online edition (subscription only) today entitled “Old Kid on the Block.” The article talks about a trend among baby boomers in particular to buy back their childhood homes. The reasoning seems to be this:

Trying to satisfy a longing for meaningful roots and connections, some Americans are buying their childhood homes. Often the buyers are baby boomers, perhaps the last generation to have childhoods so centered around a single house. In the case of adult children who inherit a house, moving in can be emotionally easier than selling. There are also some realists who say the financial benefits of buying from aging parents, in terms of generous deals and tax breaks, are a factor -- especially in today's real-estate market.

The article showcases a few families who have made this purchase; one fellow even went so far as to remodel the entire house to make it be exactly as it was when he was growing up. This involved removing walls and a bathroom that had been installed by subsequent owners, and trying to find or duplicate his mother’s wallpaper.

It goes on:

Americans over age 40 are more likely to feel a strong connection to childhood homes because they grew up in an era when families spent many years in the same house, building neighborhood bonds, says Gary Melton, director of the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson University. Because the average child today switches homes every five to seven years, according to U.S. Census data, "the significance attached to any one place won't be as great" when today's kids are older, he says.

Kevin Keim, director of the Charles W. Moore Center for the Study of Place in Austin, Texas, suspects that people who buy childhood homes are searching for parenting role models in an age of broken families. Moving back to a childhood home gives people a sense of comfort, says Mr. Keim, even more so if their parents' marriage was healthy. They see the childhood home as "a symbol of the notion of family." There can be risks, though. Because leaving the nest has always been the American way, Mr. Keim says, those who buy childhood homes may be viewed by others as stuck in the past, or somehow dependent on mom and dad.


Well, yes, I did have that thought about the guy that remodeled back to the original; I mean, really now, removing a bathroom?! We Americans put a pretty high value on having lots of bathrooms.

Apparently there are certain years more conducive to bonding with a house than others:

In terms of building an attachment to a house and neighborhood, ages 9 to 12 are formative years, says Claudia Coulton, a social-sciences professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

I can attest to that; The Mister and I moved twice during those formative years of our kids’ lives, and did we ever receive some grief about abandoning those sticks and bricks! Of course, it isn’t really the house itself, or the floor plan; it’s the memories that were made there: swimming parties, losing a fingertip, sleepovers, and mundane trivia.

But when people talk about living in one house for a long time, I immediately think of my mother-in-law. Her parents moved into the family home when she was 7. She left to go to college for 2 years in California, then came back and got married and stayed at this house while her husband went off to the war for 18 months. When he returned, they moved into their own house and started a family. Soon after The Mister was born, she and her new family moved back in to the home, and she has been there ever since – a total of 65 years in one house! Talk about roots!

She can tell you about every addition and subtraction to the house, from adding the den to subtracting the sleeping porches. She knows when every tree was planted, even the ones that no longer exist. I suspect she has many pictures in her memory of the house at different stages of its existence, landscaping and colors.

We’ve had many a family celebration in that house, and I know that it’s a very meaningful place to all three of the sons, which is why they have vowed that it will never be sold.

We are all about roots. When The Mister had his first visions of Morrison Ranch, his goal was to facilitate community and agriculture, two of the largest roots of his upbringing. We hope that there might be several families in Morrison Ranch that make those great memories in great houses; and who knows? Maybe someday the kids that are growing up here today will be the homeowners of tomorrow.