When Dorothy, in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz says to herself “there’s no place like home”, I find myself identifying with her desires. Even if I get the chance to live in some kind of fabled green emerald city where everyone loves me because I saved the day, like Dorothy, I still would want to go home. There is, indeed, no place like home for me, because it is the place where I feel the safest and most loved.
One of the fondest and earliest memories I have of home is when my sister and I made salty hot chocolate for my parents during family movie night. Even as young children, we knew, of course, that hot chocolate was supposed to be sweet, not salty. It was family movie night, however, and we had made hot drinks for our parents before, to their delight — but we had also just watched a television show that featured salty drink pranks. I cannot remember clearly how much salt my sister put into the drinks (it was her idea, I swear), but what really stuck with me was the way my parents reacted. The drinks were salty, and they still tried to pretend they tasted nice, at least for a while. We were mystified — did the drinks not taste salty? It was just that my parents wanted to show appreciation for our efforts even if, for some strange reason, we mistook salt for sugar. So we confessed, everyone had a laugh, and movie night continued. There was no scolding. As children, we knew we were safe and loved.
Not everything goes smoothly in a home like ours, though. We have our difficult times, especially when the world is in the shape it is right now. My parents both work, but my father’s income has been unstable in recent times and both of them are understandably stressed out about it since it is his income that has always been higher. We all are worried, in a way, but as a teenager I can only imagine what kinds of stresses adults deal with. Sometimes one parent will come home overworked and irritable about something, but as children who are more used to the reliability of parental love, it can be a bit of a shock to the system when it happens. When we were much younger, and when our parents were more secure in their jobs, they would still occasionally arrive home in an irritable state, but we were less able to understand it. Still, the atmosphere of safety and love has prevailed through these difficult times, because one parent would almost unfailingly step up to provide us with that security whenever the other one would falter. If one of them snapped at us for no good reason, the other parent would, in a quiet moment, reassure us that “Daddy didn’t mean it, he still loves you”, or “Mummy is overworked now, but she still loves you”.
Even though my family is not perfect, home has been a place of love and security, and there is no place like it for me. With a home environment like that, is it any surprise that I feel together with Dorothy when she wants to go home at the end of The Wizard of Oz?
(548 words)
Note: I wrote this with a teenager’s voice, and I tried to anchor it in the 21st century. This is, however, more or less about my own family, with some fictional elements. One thing’s true though — my imperfect family might be irritating at times (heh), but they’re lovely!
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