Where Children Sleep around the world

[HolyHellaciousHeck]

Interesting photos. I remember the first version of this book & browsing it in a bookshop years ago. There was a little kid from a gun nut family in America whose bedroom was full of weapons and camo, and a little girl in Japan who had so much Sylvanian Families that I, a grown woman at the time, felt jealous. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/19/childrens-bedrooms-around-the-world-james-mollison-photographs

Found the gun nut one.

Jesus

Millie's house in Wales looks equal parts cosy and worryingly damp.

The Kentucky one is Awful

Goodness. Some of those are shocking.

I was fairly judgemental when I saw some of these. I am not a tidy or orderly person but that level of chaos is surely notifiable? (Obviously I’m talking about some of the Western rooms, the war-torn places just broke my heart).

Fuck me. Many of those are horrific.

That Welsh one… you can tell they are the kind of people that make Daily Mail readers despise ‘eco-warriors’ 😂

I’m not the tidiest person in the world by any stretch of the imagination but the idea of clutter all around you like that actually makes my head hurt.

Yes, the war torn ones obviously sad. The traditional/nomadic ones mostly look clean and functional.

It’s the ones where people have effectively chosen to live in squalor that are really grim.

I don’t understand how you can let you child live in such a squalor like the Kentucky one? I mean poverty sure, but the worn torn/ mud hut families have made far better attempts at organising or keeping room usable

@Caspianberg I think the Kentucky one was an abusive household with drug users etc. So sad that a child has to grow up in chaos.

I actually prefer the non-Western rooms, I like co-sleeping to make younger children feel safe, and there’s a communality about their lives in general that I am quite envious of.

I remember something similar about the food that children eat on a day! Loved these series!

That little Welsh girl should be doing some proper learning instead of just playing and doing pictures. How do parents expect their children to cope in a modern industrial society if they can't read or write? Do they expect her to just exist alongside them for ever?

Yes at first glance I thought it looked cozy and exciting to have an attic room then I read the blurb and realised the whole house is probably like this and she gets no escape or view of normality due to being home schooled and living off grid. Love that the wee reindeer herder still has a smart phone though.

I wanted to pick up the jig saws and games on the floor so people (all the family) could get out of bed more easily.

I agree. They are doing her no favours at all.

It’s shocking to see such poverty in the US when it’s held up by so many as a beacon. They really do need to do so much more about the opioid crisis, it seems to be decimating some areas.
Good to see that they start them hound on misogyny in Canada, imagine your 8 year old having a poster on the wall saying ‘Lactatia’. 😐
The one I like the look of the most is the Mongolian boys, it looks so cosy. I’m sure he’d disagree with me on occasions though!

I must remember to post this next time someone starts a thread asking if it's ok to have two children share a bedroom

Alex's room is heartbreaking. The soot everywhere. In the richest land on earth.

I'd put money on the Welsh girl's parents being trustifarians from over the border. There's no way a rural Welsh family would live like that!
Hope the American kid does join the army, might be the making of him. Poor Lilia from India, already doing all the jobs 'cos she's a girl ☹️

Not surprisingly they have a drag queen from Canada - and that welsh kid - they live off grid, are home schooled and done have time to clear up that cowp?

I’m so confused as to why some of this families took part?
The poor American boy and Welsh girl clearly being neglected/abused, you can see it on their faces too, poor babes, I just don’t know why they’d want that out there/ how it helps anything. I guess they were paid?

The family living in a camp is heartbreaking. Again I find the face of the wee girl terribly sad. I think having their faces adds so much to just the photos of the room and descriptions.

Really interesting. I love the Romanian and Mongolian rooms.

The father of the American boy in the trailer died of an Opioid overdose. Looking at the place I'm sure he wasn't the only one with an addiction. For an insight into the American Opioid crisis it's worth reading Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead or one of the many documentaries on the subject. It's caused by over prescription of pain killers the supply of which is then cut off when the insurance money runs out. Unscrupulous doctors running 'pill mills' then make out prescriptions - for money of course.

I imagine the Welsh family believe their way of life is the right one and people who waste time tidying up are the stupid ones.

It was noticeable that the really poor people in the camp and in India had clean, tidy homes within the best of their means.