WHY do we have a soft corner for our birth place even if we may be living away for the better part of life?

Question

One may have spent just 15-20 years before migrating to another place where one leads the entire adult life - where one contributes to the society and draws from the society - and yet the special feeling for the place of birth not only continues, but also grows with age. Also it does not become out of mind due to being out of sight.
Can some one provide an in-depth analysis of the reasons for this please?

Answer 1

That sentiment is an outstanding form of appreciation for the beautiful beginnings of our lives. I will be brief so, generally speaking, it has to do with the fact that it is the place at which our foundations of defining oneself were established. We can belong nowhwere else but at our place of birth.

Answer 2

There is a saying in India " Janani,Janmabhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi" The mother and Motherland are far above the Heavens in esteem. Most of the culture have fostered the concept of a Motherland or Fatherland. Where both these terms are absent, nostalgia for the homeland is missing. If you want an exact feel of how much deep this can run , ask any jew who went to Israel after it was formed , or a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon dreaming of someday returning to the homeland.

The main reason for this nostalgia is the cultural roots. While one may go away to a land several thousand kilometers away and settle there for reasons of employment and education, etc, the culture never leaves us.We may absorb a few good virtues from the new place , but we retain and nurture what we brought with us. Whenever this is threatened, we tend to tie up with those closest to us in cultural values. An Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Nepali or Sri Lankan , while at home,may criticize each other, but when they land in Montreal or New Jersey , they behave as if they belong to the same family. I remember an American settled relative of mine who called me up frantically to fix up treatment facilities for his Pakistani friend's father in a reputed Indian hospital . During his early American citizenship, it was a fashion for him to run down everything Indian. But when his Pakistani friend started telling him how his parents admired the Collective Indian culture of which they were a part till partition in 1947, my relative started to think, but refused to change his views. As he became older, his views mellowed and he started feeling pride in the Harappan remains in Pakistan as common heritage. Need I say I am delighted at this change.

I had a Pathan friend serving as Watchman in a mill . Though he had never seen Afghanistan , he would be nostalgic about that country and would pray everyday for a chance in his lifetime to reach there.
I think it is more the Culture and not the Geography that constitutes the nostalgic element

Answer 3

It is not because of the place of birth, that you attach so much of a sentiment. If you are born in a place and spent the formative years of your life, then you always have a very warm feeling towards the place and the people who lived there with you. It is but natural. The early period is the most impressionable period in life. Every feeling that you feel later, whether love, hatred,etc emanated in that situation. In the boyhood, the influence of the peer group is very predominant and hard to forget. Every thing that we come across can be related to the experience of the boyhood. Love, especially is a very special feeling. It is sowed and it germinates in that stage of life. The early life is a nursery of life.

Answer 4

Childhood usually holds happy memories. Usually when we are younger our extended family - aunts, uncles, cousins - are around whereas later everyone begins to disperse.

When I go back to my hometown, I always visit the cemetery where many relatives are buried, go past my old home (sometimes circling the block several times to get a good look without attracting too much attention by stopping my car in front of the house for too long), drive around my old haunts, etc.

It's called nostalgia.

Answer 5

Singer/Songwriter James Taylor has written very successful songs about his childhood home in North Carolina.

"Carolina In My Mind", was partially written while he was recording with the Beatles in England...

..."You must forgive me, if I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind."

In other words...."There's no place like home", even if you are with the Beatles...

In "Copperline" (also about his home in NC), he sings...

"Tried to go back, as if I could...
All spec house and plywood..."

In other words, going back can never be the same.

He recently made the statement that he still goes back to Carolina in his dreams.

It is a human phenomena, I think.

Answer 6

Our first memories are usually the ones that matter the most to us. Because our first memories occur in the place or country we are born in, we become attached to that place and are proud to have been born there. =)

Answer 7

Because we Indians believe Ma(mother) and Mathru bhoomi (mother land)are equally respected and loveable.It is an inherent attitude which comes by birth it self.

Answer 8

Out of sight is out of mind is referred to only to some persons and things but for mother and motherland there is no question of forgetting. The memories of mother for a person will be with him until he dies, same way his memories with his motherland also dies with him only. As we grow, often we will think of our mother and motherland also comes with her.

Answer 9

Because Nature has implanted in your breast, a sacred and indisoluble attachement towards that country where you derived your birth and infant nuture

Answer 10

THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR BIRTH PLACE AND BIRTH FAMILY
We all have eternal soft corner for our birth place for the very reasons we always remain fond of our parents no matter how much hard time they might have given us, even when they are dead they remain our birth givers and retain a special place in our soul as they are someone we chose as souls to incarnate through. And that remains a simple truth that help us greatly while trying to heal our self or simple finding our wholeness which is respecting and accepting all that we were and all that we are today because of the experiences created by them or through them. Sometimes we don’t have pleasant experiences with our families of origin that is when the tool of forgiveness and self compassion comes in when we use the gift of our birth truly to see in them the life lesson we chose to learn through them, sometimes early is tough so that we could build some character through it, and it singularly makes sure that we do not miss our life lesson while we are here on this planet, as our past always remains in our minds as reminder what we chose to come here to do, as in the past trauma or tribulation lie embedded our birth vision and also our future potential, our destiny which is what we are all here to figure out to actualize.

Having said that is also important to know that if we are not proud of who we were or who we chose to come through, we can never begin to see the gift embedded in it. As we are not just the product of roots, or our parents, or our immediate birth circumstances, we are also a culmination of lifetimes of existence of our individual soul and somehow this particular family in this part of Universe suited our exact growth needs, we chose so because we wanted to grow as soul into our own light.

It is a wonder then that in each civilization we have thanksgiving festivals and ceremonies in each civilization so that we can thank those who survived so that we could have a chance at life. And the truth is that in our genes lies their indelible legacy of courage, survival instinct and of course their love for life.

Even adopted children want to look up for their birth parents and their roots at some point in their life. For unless you make peace with your roots you are always at a risk of being blown away by the storms or tribulations of life and never find our roots within, which is our spiritual roots, or simply our divine roots in our divine self.

That is why you must have noticed that people, who cannot accept or heal where they come from, can never get any self respect in life no matter how hard they try. So they end up trying too hard to impress others, because they themselves don’t respect the choices they made as a soul to incarnate through. A birth place is the place we first set foot on the mother earth. Our first connection with our physical self occurred at the place we fondly called our birth place.

Yet it is also important to know that there comes a point in our life when we need to be transplanted to find deeper roots, most of us who have come out of our home town or birth places know that only because we managed to fin dour roots again have we ever managed to get our self esteem back, as birth places have this habit of keeping you feeling like a child, just as birth mothers do, they always see you as the little toddler who once frolicked around in shorts and funny hairdos.