Why did E.T. go home?

E.T. went home for financial reasons.

At the end of the movie E.T., E.T. went home in his spaceship. The kid in the movie was really sad about this. I don’t know what the kid was so sad about. What did he think was going to happen?

E.T. isn’t from earth. E.T. lived on a far distant alien planet, where he probably paid into some form of alien social security and has a pension. Did the kid really think that E.T. was going to turn his back on all that money?

E.T. paid into that alien Social Security system because he expected to receive a benefit, because one of these days E.T. is going to be old. When that happens, those alien Social Security checks are going to look a lot more appealing than Reese’s Pieces and bike basket rides.