What comes to mind when you think of the word "home"? What images? What feelings? We all know what home is, yet the word means something very different to each of us. Home is more than a physical structure or space, a set of possessions, and a place to eat and sleep. Home is also a set of feelings, unique to each of us, that can be triggered at any time and anywhere by a smell, a sound, or a look from a loved one. Home is the center of our emotional lives.

Home can be safety, warm hugs, big smiles, laughter, and leisurely breakfasts with big pots of coffee. It can be the sound of a spouse singing in the shower, of a son or daughter squealing in delight. It can be a regular seat at the kitchen table; family and family secrets; privacy; comfort when the world feels unpredictable and one feels unsteady; a place where one can be alone without feeling lonely; can cry, yell, and scream in sadness or frustration. It can be one's apartment, a best friend's porch, and a mother's house.

Home can be a place to grow, to grow up, and to learn, dinner with family, and learning how to help in the kitchen, mud pies in the back yard, and learning how to clean up after oneself. Home can be a place to enjoy the present and dream about the future; where one can have the freedom to be who one is, and to imagine who one could become.

With generous support from the Fannie Mae Foundation, ZERO TO THREE and The Better Homes Fund have partnered to produce a special issue of Zero to Three on homes and homelessness. In this first article we invite you to reflect on the meanings and experiences of home for you, and for infants, toddlers, and their families. Additional articles include a retrospective look at the HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment) Inventory, an observation tool that is used to assess a child's home environment; family homelessness or near homelessness in Appalachia, rural Montana, and urban Massachusetts; and model programs that work in partnership with homeless families to address the underlying causes of homelessness.

The meaning of home for infants and toddlers
Think of a baby you know very well. What do you imagine home means or feels like for him or her? How about for a toddler you know? Of course we can only speculate, and although we recognize that there are significant differences in each child's experience of home, we have generalized some of our speculations in order to help contemplate why a safe and stable home is so important for very young children.

Infants. Home, for the very young infant, is mother's¹ arms, breast, smell, and voice; her encouraging smiles and sounds; the everyday feeding, diapering, and nap-time routines they share; her footsteps and soothing touch when he feels scared, lonely, or bored. Home for a very young infant has little to do with physical space or structure, it is the safety, comfort, and predictability that his mother provides.

For the older infant, just beginning to crawl out on her own, Mom becomes "home base." The newly mobile adventurer is interested in exploring her broadening world, but still needs to feel connected to her mother. She will visually or physically "check in" with Mom every few minutes—either looking up for eye contact and a smile, or moving to make physical contact to cuddle, or get a hug or a kiss. Then she is ready for another short adventure into the inviting expanse beyond Mom's lap.

Toddlers. As children grow older and as their sense of the world expands, their ideas of home also grow. Toddlers begin to differentiate multiple relationships, as well as to develop a more sophisticated appreciation of their surroundings. As toddlers begin to move out into the world to explore, they require the security of "home folk"—parents, extended family, staff at their child care center—to return to for help interpreting the world, mediating its message, and protecting them. Toddlers are also starting to appreciate the physical environment that makes up their home. In the following story, we see how Rachel, 22 months old, appreciates the safety and predictability of her "home-house."

Rachel
Rachel and her parents moved to a new home directly across the street from their current home. Her parents spent weeks preparing her for the move. In anticipation, they repeatedly visited the new home and talked about where Rachel would sleep, where her parents would sleep, where her toys would be kept, and where the family dog would sleep.

When her family moved, Rachel quickly settled into her new space. She did not appear distressed aside from a few nights of disrupted sleep. She proudly showed visitors her new room and the space for her toys. However, after the first few weeks, Rachel began to ask to go see her old house. She longingly looked out the window across to the old house and said plaintively, "I want to go see my home-house." For the next several months, she referred to her new house as "my new house" and the old house as "my home-house." Each time she walked by, she asked again to see her old house. She clearly wanted to return to her "home-house."

Even at 22 months, Rachel distinguished between a home and a house. Although she anticipated the move and was cognitively prepared by her parents, she seemed sad and uneasy. Despite the fact that Rachel moved with her parents, her toys, her pets, and all the household belongings, she felt a sense of loss for her "home-house."

What did her "home-house" mean to her? Perhaps she experienced it as a predictable and familiar set of sounds: the dog pattering down the hall, the coffee grinder in the kitchen next to her bedroom wall, or the position of the kitchen table so she could look at the brightly colored calendar on the wall. Whatever the specifics were for Rachel, she had an internal construct of her home that was more than possessions and people. And she was able to communicate her sense of loss.

Rachel was fortunate to live in stability, reasonable material comfort, and with parents who were a safe and nurturing "emotional-home" for her. They were able to prepare Rachel for this big change, and were responsive to her needs as she made the difficult transition. For Rachel, the stress precipitated by the move will likely dissipate.

Compare Rachel's story to that of Leah, who is also 22 months old.

Leah
Leah moved with her 22-year-old mother, Sarah, into a shelter for abused women. Prior to the move, Leah and her mother lived with Leah's father in a two-bedroom apartment in a run-down building. During the four years Sarah and her boyfriend were together, he had been episodically violent and abusive toward her. Although Leah had never been hit, she heard her parents fight. In the most recent incident, she directly witnessed her father slap and punch her mother. Her mother, fearing for her life, managed to escape with Leah, and sought help from the police, who took her to the local shelter.

When asked about Leah's reactions to the violence and the move, Sarah replied that Leah was terribly frightened, screaming in her crib as her parents fought. Leah had difficulty sleeping in the shelter and refused to let her mother out of her sight. She did not talk much, nor did she play with other children in the shelter. Her mother thought she missed her toys at home and the pet cat, about whom she asked repeatedly. Sarah also mentioned that living in the shelter with a child was hard. She felt she had to keep Leah quiet all the time, and because there were limits on kitchen privileges, she was sometimes unable to feed Leah when she was hungry.

Sarah also described her own trauma: she was unable to sleep because she had flashbacks about the abuse, and she remained terrified that her boyfriend would find her. She did not explain the move to Leah, nor did she talk about the future. She said that she couldn't worry much about Leah other than meeting her basic physical needs, because she had to think about where they would go after her time at the shelter was up.

Leah has probably never experienced her physical home as a safe and nurturing place and likely experiences her mother only erratically as an emotional-home. Leah lives in a persistent state of crisis; her behavior is not surprising. Rachel is able to cope with the loss of her home-house by talking about it with her parents. Leah is unable to express her loss with words. She screams and cries out for help, has trouble sleeping, and will not let her mother out of her sight.

Sarah's and Leah's relationship has never been "housed" in a safe and stable environment. It is likely that Sarah has never been able to be with Leah without constant fear for her own safety. Sarah's life has always been fraught with tension and anxiety, and as a result, she has experienced inconsistent interactions with her daughter.

Community—another kind of home
A community can be another kind of home to a family. Neighbors, an extended family, the congregation of a church or synagogue, a parenting group, or a special circle of friends can feel like home—safe, secure, supportive, and loving. When we are with our "community-home," we belong. We are respected, valued, and sometimes even protected.

We share many of our happiest moments—weddings, holidays, births, accomplishments, or warm and inspiring conversations that make us feel wonderful—with our "community-home." Whether it's pride in our race, ethnicity, or family history; motivation to keep our neighborhoods safe and clean; moral or religious beliefs; specific parenting styles; or a desire for a certain type of friendship; our community is often organized around a common identity, belief, mission, or activity.

Most of us invest ourselves and rely on the investments of other community members in times of need. Whether it's a shoulder to cry on, a ride to work when our car is broken, help with child care when a family member is ill, assistance paying our rent or finding a job, or even a safe place to sleep when our family is in trouble, we look to our community for support. If it is strong and stable enough, our "community-home" can be a safety net for our family; it can help us get through a minor or even a major crisis.

But, what happens when our "community-home" is not strong enough or doesn't have enough resources to see our family through a crisis? What if, for example, our car breaks down, there's nobody to drive us to work, and no money to fix the car? What if we lose our job, can't find another, and can't pay the rent? What if most of the people in our community-home are struggling as much as we are and have very few resources to share? What if we become homeless?

Homelessness—the loss of the safe haven where we feel physically and emotionally safe, accepted, and loved—is beyond what most of us can imagine. But, in the complete issue of Zero to Three, you can learn more about the complexity of the causes and effects of homelessness, and the hope provided by some promising initiatives to ensure or restore homes, in all their intricate meanings.

¹ For the sake of this generalization we have chosen to speak about the mother as the figure who primarily mediates the world for her child. It certainly could be a father, grandparent, other primary caregiver, or some combination of caregivers.

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To request a copy of the August/September, 1998 issue of Zero to Three or for further information please contact:

Erica Lurie-Hurvitz
ZERO TO THREE
phone: 202-638-1144
fax: 202-638-0851
e-mail: E.Lurie@zerotothree.org

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Betsy McAlister Groves works on the Child Witness to Violence Project at Boston Medical Center. Ellen Bassuk works at The Better Homes Fund in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Erica Lurie-Hurvitz and Claire Vallotton work for the National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families.

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