Our house was a beautiful double-storey Edwardian in a bayside suburb of Melbourne. My parents had been lucky enough to buy in 1989, when you could still get houses in that neighbourhood for a relative song. When we moved in, it had just one storey and needed work. An upstairs was added and the entire back of the house extended. We made it ours and lived there for 25 years.
When my parents decided last year to sell the house I had grown up in, I was surprised and a little mortified by how heartbroken I felt.
After all, I was 30. Definitely an adult, even if that had somehow happened when I wasn't looking. And as far as problems go, this was a good one to have. It meant I'd had a happy childhood in a comfortable home, something many people never experience. I felt I didn't have the right to feel as deeply sad about the matter as I did.
I tried to figure out why the sale was hitting me so hard. For one, I had lived at the family base far longer than I ever intended. First to save money, and then, after I spent it all while living overseas, to come home and build up my bank balance again. Maybe this prolonged stay was the reason for my (possibly unhealthy) attachment.
Mixed up in the sorrow of losing a place that had been in my life for almost as long as I could remember was a sudden anxiety about the future. Now that there was going to be no fundamental family "home," a shared, meaningful place filled with memories, I started to wonder if I could ever replicate what my parents had created. The constant commentary on soaring house prices and Generation Y's dire prospects didn't help.
Friends who had been through the same experience reported similar emotions. One said she and her sisters were still upset that "we lost our family HQ." Another said she had recurring dreams where she crept into her childhood home late at night and fell asleep in her old bedroom. In one of the dreams, the new owner discovered her and said he wouldn't report her if she left immediately.
"I grieved for that house as though it were a person," she said.
In addition to the nostalgia and the grief, this friend worried that she would never be able to afford to buy in the same suburb where she was raised, and where she had always wanted to bring up her own children.
In a 2009 report on Australian social trends, the Australian Bureau of Statistics noted that young adults aged between 20-34 years were delaying leaving the nest for longer than previous generations. More than a quarter of young men and nearly a fifth of young women were still living at home, and those who were moving out tended to rent, not buy.
It's a trend that Stephen Tickell, director, auctioneer and senior agent at Hocking Stuart Brighton, has seen firsthand.
"The options to leave the family home are not only emotionally challenging, but financially challenging as well," Mr Tickell says.
"It's a full house in many suburban homes these days, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight, given the greater barriers to entry into the real estate market for the younger generation… Unless mum and dad are financially capable of assisting their first purchase, the prospects for this younger generation are daunting."
It's a situation that is creating difficulties for parents nearing retirement age as well, he explains.
"On the flipside, it's not unusual to get a phone call from mums and dads who have come the point of no return, wanting to sell the house so they can get on and enjoy their life without the encumbrance of the kid who will never leave home otherwise. Cruel as this might seem, it is a reality, and a major factor when empty nesters consider their future housing options."
When parents sell the houses their children grew up in before their offspring get around to buying their own residence, can it heighten the sense of sorrow the younger generation feels at saying goodbye?
Clinical psychologist Sally-Anne McCormack believes that the process of saying goodbye to a home can definitely trigger a grieving period, "especially if you don't have any choice in it."
"A home is not just a house. It's a place where we have created memories. Things have happened, both good and bad, and we have this attachment not so much to the house itself but for the memories we have from when we were there."
When young adults see their parents sell the family home, she explains that often it can feel like they're losing a back up plan as well.
"If everything went pear shaped in your life, for example, you know that you could return to the place that you grew up in – even if you never would," says Ms McCormack. "So there's that sense of comfort, and when your parents move on you don't actually have that anymore… I think that contributes to the loss as well, you're losing a safety net."
For those struggling with bidding a home farewell, Ms McCormack has a few suggestions. First, if there's something from the house that you can take, like a lampshade or some flowers from the garden, do so. She also recommends taking lots of photos, writing in a journal and sharing stories with loved ones, as well as taking the time to properly say goodbye. Most of all, focus on the positives of your new situation and the things that are remaining the same.
"For those who are experiencing loss, try to remind yourself that the house was just a framework around the love and support that you had, and they're not gone; you're just creating a new framework."
Article written by Erin Munro and originally published on news.domain.com.au.