Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge comfort.^[1] It is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and be able to store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either living in the wild or in a domesticated environment. As an alternative to the definition of "home" as a physical locale, home may be perceived to have no physical definition--instead, home may relate instead to a mental or emotional state of refuge or comfort.
There are certain cultures in which members lack permanent homes, such as with nomadic people.

Contents [hide] 1 Terminology 2 Psychological impact 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Terminology

Many wetlands are home to birds such as these Northern Shoveler ducks.

A houseboat on Lake Union in Seattle, Washington

The word "home" can be used for various types of residential community institutions in which people can live, such as nursing homes, group homes (orphanages for children, retirement homes for seniors, prisons for criminals, treatment facilities, etc.), and foster homes.
In computer terminology, a 'home' may refer to a starting view that branches off into other tasks, e.g. a homepage or a desktop. Many such home pages on the internet start with introductory information, recent news or events, and links to subpages. "Home" may also refer to a home directory which contains the personal files of a given user of the computer system.

[edit] Psychological impact

Since it can be said that humans are generally creatures of habit, the state of a person's home has been known to physiologically influence their behavior, emotions, and overall mental health.^{[citation needed]}
Some people may become homesick when they leave their home over an extended period of time. Sometimes homesickness can cause a person to feel actual symptoms of illness.
It has been argued that psychologically "The strongest sense of home commonly coincides geographically with a dwelling. Usually the sense of home attenuates as one moves away from that point, but it does not do so in a fixed or regular way."^[2] Furthermore, places like homes can trigger self-reflection, thoughts about who one is or used to be or who one might become. These types of reflections also occur in places where there is a collective historical identity, such as Gettysburg or Ground Zero.^[3]
In the past the mother was the person who ran the household. The house was a place for women's work more than anywhere else. However, in the modern sense, these duties are now shared between mother and father. In Western countries, the home has become a place for more equality in duties, the roles are shared and the burden of maintaining the household is a shared family responsibility.