Moving Back in With My Parents... With a Toddler
As printed in My Village News November 2020.
We just moved house for the first time in almost four years, leaving our inner-city apartment and the only home our toddler has ever known.
It was big logistically but now we’re on the other end I realise it’s also taken an emotional toll. I keep telling Matilda’s family and kindy carers that the change has been big for her but I realise now it’s actually really impacted me. I see now how much our homes dictate our sense of self. We settle in, make new routines and build a life revolving around the location and type of house we live in.
For the three of us in our three bedroom unit, it meant frequent bursts to the riverside park out front, weekend walks to the markets, casual play dates with the same kids we’d see at our nearby playground, bike rides to the City Botanic Gardens and CityCat trips to the art galleries.
Life in our little enclave became an identity and now it’s been abruptly severed I feel eerily untethered. Probably also because I’m writing this column from the desk of my teenage bedroom.
We have moved in with my parents to save a bit of money in the transition to our new house nearby. And while I’m grateful for the option, the grandparents’ help, their happy company and the space their home provides I can’t shake uneasy feeling of being ungrounded. In their house I feel the flashbacks of my hormonal teenage self and it’s uncomfortable, like bumping into an ex-boyfriend. Everyday.
On the rise of millennial moving home due to Covid, American Psychologist Susan Anderer says it could set young adults up for long-term inertia, “It’s harder to envision who you want to become surrounded by your old self,” she says. But onward and upward and here’s to a couple of months of making new routines with babysitters on-tap.
Spot on illustration of exasperated mum via Grace Farris.
