We invest a lot in the idea of home. Even if we don’t think about it, the old residence claims us. Our roots are to be found there—the place where some of our most intense experiences and feelings occurred.

At its best, “There’s no place like home.” At its worst, no dwelling is as destructive. I’ll address both sides, in order.

Our neighborhood is the location of firsts: the first place we lived, the first day of school, our first friends, our first love, our first victories and failures.

One of my best memories came early, when I had my mom and dad to myself much of the time. The folks and I went to a drive-in movie (a spot where you enjoyed films from your car, parked in a giant lot in front of an enormous movie screen).

The film was The House of Wax. It was summertime in 1953, and I was six years old.

I was small enough to lie across the car’s back seat (in the time before seat belts). Sleepy after a long day of play, I half-listened to my parents’ conversation as we returned home.

The rhythm of the car and the sense of safety that comes from the illusion of parental omnipotence and perfect benevolence made me feel as happy as I ever have been.

My bed beckoned, waiting for me in the refuge called home.

They sing songs about love, and almost as many about the innocence of such experiences and places.

Remember Homer’s Odyssey? Odysseus is sidetracked on his return from the Trojan War.

Over 10 years, he escapes the Cyclops, the Sirens, and all manner of trials and nemesis to return to Ithaca, his kingdom. His wife Penelope waits for him, fending off the advances of suitors who want her (and Odysseus’s estate) for their own.

Telemachus, his son, also waits. When Odysseus reaches Ithaca, he must battle the suitors and defeat them with the help of his only child.

Mankind hopes for family who will take our side. These are the relatives and friends who remember us and will always be there for us. People who have unending faith in us. People who love us and still exist in a place called home, long after we departed.

Think of The Wizard of Oz. It’s the same story, with a young woman, Dorothy, as the heroine.

Swept away from home by forces beyond her control, she searches for allies to help her find the “Wizard of Oz,” who can transport her to Kansas. Similar to Odysseus, she encounters an evil witch who makes her life miserable. Dorothy must survive many trials to return where she belongs.

Many of us, properly motivated, might write an autobiography about our quest for something worthwhile and the hurdles we overcame to reach a happy ending. The average life can have a heroic quality.

At last, Dorothy finds herself returned to the family farm in Kansas, where Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the people who love her reside. The movie ends with her words: “There’s no place like home.”

When comfortable, we often say we feel at home. In baseball, our goal is to score more runs than the opposition. How? By crossing home plate more often than they do. Doing it at one blow is called a home run.

Sports teams play better on their home field, supported by their loyal fans, stand-ins for family. And a part of our heart breaks when the stadiums of our youth are torn down and replaced.

We go to high school and college homecoming and to class reunions to encounter the old, friendly faces tied to us by the memory of home. Of course, these places and people age, but we still care about them.

Home is a place most humans idealize. Parents are rarely as perfect as we imagine them to be in retrospect. The good old days improve with age and distance.

The home (and the family therein) can also become a concept that is (like politics) “the last refuge of scoundrels.” In corrupt families, loyalty is placed above morality and decency. One member of the home covers for the others’ hateful, abusive, or illegal actions.

In such situations, the authority of parents, in particular, will trump any possibility of fairness.

Denial reigns in this group of blood and bloodied relations. Pity the individual who comprehends things as they are. The clarity of his vision requires that he be treated as an outcast.

Home and family have such a claim on us that we do not always recognize their dark side.

Blood relatives who are cruel, abusive, or dishonest demand the illusion of a loving group for fear of losing control and being exposed. Some other members, usually children, can be comforted by accepting that view to the point of moral blindness.

Unlike the Wizard, an unmasked kinsman, the scoundrel behind the curtain is not benign.

The loyalty, love, and attachment attributed to family are fitting for those who demonstrate caring and affection, not make-believe. In those families less satisfactory and less honest, most of a lifetime can pass before realizing what home was really like.

Home, then, seems like a den of thieves.

Harold Pinter’s play, The Homecoming, lifts the veil on such a place.

Watch it only if you dare.

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The first painting is Your Hands are Like Two Shovels, Digging in Me, 2021-22, by Julie Mehretu. The second is Untitled by Joan Mitchell, 1959.