To feel like I've let my kids down..

Your children are actually incredibly fortunate, to have a roof over their heads, a cosy home and a mum who loves them. An awful lot of people would kill for what you have.

Well I live in a 2 bed terrace with a back yard, on my own, with 2 kids who share a room. I don't consider myself to have 'let my kids down".

The self pitying talk is disingenuous - you are jealous of your friend. But you certainly know that there are plenty of kids out there that have it worse you are trying to frame it as 'poor me'.
You need to get a grip and some perspective.

If your children have a home , food , the things they need and love from parents you aren't letting them down

IMO DC couldn't care less about the size of a home or the amenities. Having love, security and being given time by their parent(s) is what is needed.

I thought my house was big too lol. It really doesn’t matter to kids, they may go “oh wow thats nice” but they then move on. Why not do up your garden a bit and make a play area for her outside. Buy a second hand mud kitchen or something.

I’m around people who have a lot more than us but it doesn’t bother me, we are a close happy family. My home growing up was miserable and it really focuses your mind on what matters in a home. DD is loved and her parents are happily married and like each other and her. You don’t understand how important that is to a persons wellbeing unless you didn’t have it. Feeling the love and the laughter is way more important than the size of the home that it happens in.

Comparison is the thief of joy 🌸 I can assure you you haven’t failed them

Maybe your kids will remember the childhood home being cosy and warm and full of love?

We don’t have the biggest garden, but we go to the park, spend weekends at National Trust properties with loads of land to run round in, walking in woods etc.

My house is a good size, the kids have way too many toys, and I can assure you they hardly play with them at all! Kids get bored of what they have, your daughter will have loved going to the other child’s house, but I’m sure the child that has everything is probably bored of playing with them.

Make memories about the non material ‘stuff’. Bake cupcakes, have a cinema night with popcorn, play board games. This is what they will remember x

I'm wondering if it's to do with the COL and prices for everything soaring, suddenly the middle classes can't afford massive detached houses and private schools and now are being subjected to the horrors of terraces and state schools like us poorer folk have always done 😂

your set up sounds very similar to mine op and I am SO thankful because so many of my friends can’t get on the property ladder or get flats or live in much cheaper area. Also op the cost of living is high! And keeping up a big house costs money. Your friend is incredibly lucky. Good for her. Try not to let it eat you up. It sounds like you have other stressors going on.

Do you feel like your parents have let you down by not giving you your family home?

Totally get it OP, especially when it comes to your children - you want the best for them and sometimes things don't seem fair

Everyone is right though, it doesn't matter - your house sounds lovely and normal and much better than those living in bedsits with multiple children and shared bathroom facilities. All your children care about is that the time and love you share

Yes I was also thinking that the OP seems to have forgotten that owning her own house makes her privelidged in the first place....we also have a similar sized home by the sounds of it, but we don't even own it!!
I definitely am not failing my kids though.People need to stop holding themselves to ridiculously high standards.

OP I was fortunate to have had a fantastically happy childhood. We grew up in a 2 bed semi, sharing rooms. Family of 4.
For context, not that long ago, I'm a 90s child.
My childhood home holds such fond memories for me.
I have absolutely no memory of being cramped, not having space for toys and the like.

Your doing amazing - your kids have a secure home. Don't be suckered into the comparison game.

Dont feel bad OP!
I shared a bedroom with my younger brother until i was 12, and my DS2 grew up in a bedroom 9ft x 6ft, and we're all fine, no lasting damage!

You have not let your children down at all. It's natural to be a bit envious sometimes happens to us all. Your children are loved and you are giving them what you can. ❤️

Jealousy is a destructive emotion OP.

Millions of people in this country could say you have more than them and its not fair.

Around the world billions could say it.

Your friend has more than you. So what.

Perhaps read the fable "The Fisherman and his Wife"

I don't know, it's crazy. It's like a wave of discontented adults convinced that subjecting their children to the local state school and living in an average home is the modern day equivalent of Angela's Ashes.

I live in a rented council flat with my DS if that makes you feel better.

What is with all these threads lately of people moaning about completely ridiculous things? Your home sounds perfectly fine.

If you have a secure home that you can afford, that you will eventually own outright and keeps you comfortable then it seems more like a grievance of vanity and status anxiety than any actual hardship.

There will always be something that other people have that you don't. As PP have said, it's the quality of your relationship with your children that matters more. If you can bring them up to be content with what they have they will benefit from that.

I know some very unhappy people who grew up in big beautiful houses and also some who grew up with very little (materially) who have become well adjusted adults.

You're not letting them down, just because they enjoy something doesn't mean they need to have it all the time- I liked swings but I didn't need one because I could go use them at the park. Kids just don't see things that way, at least I didn't.
I grew up sharing a bedroom with my mum in a houseshare, before we graduated to our studio flat and then halfway through secondary school we got a 1 bed flat.
I did love each move, getting to have things like my own bed and a kitchen table were really nice. But I was still a happy kid in the house share and the studio and it didn't really matter that the space was small.
When the weather was nice we could play in the park and run around there and when it wasn't we lived near a library with toys and I could read and play there. Your childs world doesn't have to fit in your home. Like of course lots of room and having money is massively beneficial and nice but its not essential and not having that definitely does not mean you are letting your kids down. My Mum gave me everything she could and I will always be grateful for that, she definitely didn't 'let me down' because we didn't have a garden.

I feel like this too. I can't afford to house them adequately. I am such a failure. ☹️

I grew up in a 2 bedroom council flat with mum and dad and brother until I was 12.

I have nothing but happy memories.

It’s all relative - at least your children have a secure home that you can make all the improvements to that you want.
so many children don’t have that.
yes, of course it would always be nicer to have a better/ larger/ nicer/ better location home (we do have a lovely big house and my DC still comment on how his friend has an even larger house (marginally), and how ours is too small - never comments on those friends who live as a family of four in a 2 bed flat though, or those that live in a pretty standard 3 bed semi…)

I grew up in a small 3 bed semi until I was 14 but one of my friends had the “second largest house” in the expensive area of town. The grandparents owned the “most expensive house”. They had an outdoor swimming pool, jacuzzi room and an “extra” garden with a croquet lawn. Miserable home though. The dad was rarely home and he beat up his wife. She left when my friend was 12 and she didn’t see her dad after that. They moved to a tiny home and her mum became a yoga teacher. Also, think of all the cleaning!

i totally get how you are feeling. I also have a small house and ds (11) has occasionally mentioned it. But we have more sleepovers than his friends in big houses and I think he appreciates that even more. Even if you set them up to camp out in the lounge of bedrooms are too small. I also tell him friends are always welcome and get some inexpensive snacks in that he knows they can help themselves to. I grew up in a big house but very rural so I could never just casually have friends round or have friends call for me or meet them at the shops. I also remember driving past high rise flats with little balconies with flowers on and thinking how lovely it’d be to live there amongst other people in a little flat. I also felt a bit sorry for friends who had an adults lounge and a children’s tv room as it felt like the children didn’t get to spend time in the special room with their parents.

What is important to children is very different to what is important to adults.

Too many children in the country have no home and empty tummy's. Your children have their own bed, food and love. They are very very lucky.