To not want to give dd2 the big bedroom.

[Maisyblue]

Dd1 goes to uni in September and obviously will only need her bedroom in the holidays. 10 year old dd2 therefore asks if she can have her bedroom because it's much larger. Aibu to say it's still dd1s room and it's not fair to move all her stuff into much smaller dd2s room?

My family did something similar to this when I left for university. I hated it at first but it helped me stop thinking of my mother's house as home and lessened the amount of holiday time I spent there, so sped up the growing up process.

I think your DD1 would be happier if you let her move out first and then further down the line, when she's settled, you had the conversation.

On the face of it, dd1 sounds quite selfish, but there could be more going on.
Is her uni a long way away? Is she scared she won't like it? Perhaps she would agree happily to swapping after the first term when she's made friends and enjoying the course.

If she just expects that the room will always be hers then that's completely out of line.

I think a safety net for a few weeks for a possibly scared young adult is not too unreasonable.

DD1 definitely needs to get a grip. Can't believe that she thinks it is reasonable to expect DD2 to stay in the cramped smaller room while the big room remains untouched, waiting for the favoured child to return. As a younger sister myself, that is how I would have seen it, anyway.

Ds1 is off to university too, ds2 is having ds1's room as he has had to share with ds3 for the last 12 years.

Ds1 accepts this, we're going to renovate the garage and put a bed in there for him so he'll have his own space when he comes home.

let dd2 have the room, dd1 has to accept she's not in charge.

Presumably DD1 is being at least partially funded by yourselves whilst at uni? She has to accept that that comes with some maturity and sacrifices all round.

Poor DD2.

I agree that dd2 should have the big room. It's crazy to leave a spacious room unused for most of the year, and doing so would send the message to dd2 that not only is dd1 more important than dd2, dd1's left behind stuff is more worthy of space than dd2.

However, I would do the swap after Christmas rather than now. Dd1 probably feels scared about what lies ahead. By Christmas she'll have found her feet. In the meantime dd2 can sort through her stuff and start to plan.

Is DD1 paying rent for her room? If not, then she has no right to insist that it is kept as her room. If DD2 has had to be in the small room for ages, I think she is now due the bigger room. She will be more comfortable and she'll probably be happier.
My 20-year-old son has recently moved out, and although he's kept some stuff here, we will now be using his bedroom for putting some of our stuff into thus giving us more space (we're in a flat, so we need the room to be honest!).

YABU. Let dd2 have the room, she's living at home full time. Seems a bit weird to let dd1 have it when she doesn't even live there most of the year.

The thing is, if she's in halls then that's not really her home. I mean she stays there, but there are rules as to how she can decorate it, what she can do in it, surrounded by people she's never met before. It's still someone else's property, and she'll only be there for a few months at a time! It will feel temporary to her, that's how the cookie crumbles. At the same time, she's been pushed into the her little sister's room at her parents' house, her stuff has either been chucked out or put in the loft. It's been made clear to her that she is a lesser priority and less welcome there too. Maybe she wouldn't care, maybe she's excited about university and won't look back. If she's feeling insecure and worried about it, she may find it very unsettling to find she doesn't know where she belongs anymore.

There is not a magic switch when you turn eighteen, you still rely on your family as much as you did the day before when you were seventeen. You are still as unable/able to pay rent as you were the day before. Because she has made the choice to leave home and take a step toward her adult life, she has been told she is less relevant, and is told that it was her decision to do this, she has decided to leave so now she must deal with the consequences.

For what it's worth, I do think DD2 should have the bigger room but not until DD1 doesn't need it anymore. As long as it is a source of comfort and stability she could keep it. I'd say by New Year her old life at home will probably seem childish compared to the one she's leading at uni. When she comes home in that holiday, swap the rooms then. DD2 has waited years for her "turn" anyway, three months isn't so long now.

Everything StevesBollock said...

Mine swapped as soon as the older one left for university, why wouldn't he? He has spent more and more time at uni over the four years he was there, it would have been daft to leave his brother in a smaller room.
BUT, he is now coming home after finishing uni, his younger brother is to start his final year, I'm leaving it up to the two of them to sort out what happens now!!

Ds3 can't wait for one of his brothers to move out so that he can have a bigger room. There is no way I would expect him to stay in his little room whilst they kept their's for holidays.

Could you afford to re-decorate the rooms and get some storage units for dd1.

I've just asked younger son! He says DS1 can have the larger room in September when DS2's off to uni again, as long as he cleans it out first! He will have the smaller room for the holidays

I have sensible sons!!

I recommend giving DD1 a bit of settling in time first for all the reasons StevesBollocks mentioned. Even if your DDs don't officially swap rooms for a while, DD2 will probably start storing a few things in the other room and taking friends there, whilst DD1's not there to notice.

Dd1 would definitely be out as shes moving out so why wouldnt she be. I would definitely give room to dc2

My nephew is getting his sister's room when she goes to uni this year. He loves it as it's got a balcony and a fireplace feature and is rather cool. His sister doesn't mind as she's only home in holidays and said that he deserves the nice room now.

I'd let her keep it until Christmas, she may be feeling anxious about what would happen if she hated it at uni and I didn't work out.

I'd also be trying to work out with her what her reasons are for clinging on to the room.

Your dd2 can always use her sisters rooms for sleepovers til then anyway.

I did wonder whether being an elder or younger child affected the view! As a younger child I always had the smallest room and resented it! My two sons when younger either chose the room they wanted or spent 6 months in one and then swapped!

Of course DD2 should have the bigger room. In most of the families I know, the younger ones get the chance to have the bigger rooms once the older siblings go away. That makes it fair- it means that all siblings have a chance at having the best rooms.

Also, DD2 is 10- she probably has a lot of room taken up by toys and books, having friends round. Whereas DD1 is 18- what exactly is all this 'stuff' she has? By the time I was 18, I had half the 'stuff' I had at 10. That Barbie house took up a lot of room.... Plus, at 18 I was only ever in my room to sleep, or to lie in bed reading.

Tell DD1 that DD2 is moving to the big room. Then offer to let DD1 decorate the smaller room in a more grown up way that she likes, and get some good storage solutions for all her 'stuff'.

DD1 is an adult now, an adult who is going to be living away from home for a significant amount of time. She is going to have two rooms. Of course university is a big transition, and she should be reassured that she always has a place at home, but it seems rather mean of her to expect that her 10 year old sister should remain in the little room for always.

If I was DD2 I would feel incredibly overlooked and feel it was favouritism

I used the term 'little sister' because I'm trying to write from the perspective of DD1, not because I regard younger siblings as little or inconsequential. The overwhelming majority of this thread have said something along the lines of she's an adult, swap rooms as soon as possible, pushing her out the door as fast as possible because DD2 has been so hard done by all these years. Yes, as an older child (and I have said that I know I can read too much into these things) I felt like some PPs were unnecessarily callous to DD1. If what has been suggested were done to me I would be very hurt by it. At not point did I say she should have the room forever, in fact " I do think DD2 should have the room" and soon she will give it up. Are you a younger sibling by any chance?

If the room is so detrimental to DD2s well being, why has she been living in it for so long? It's relatively easy to swap rooms every year or two, they could have been taking it in turns their whole lives. They haven't. DD2 will get the big room in the very near future. But how horrible to think that her family is thinking "We are so looking forward to you going, everything is going to be better now that you're gone. Just living in the room that you were, which was probably allocated by your parents at least to a certain extent, was doing DD2 wrong".

It is not about her things having somewhere pretty to sit, it's about DD2 having somewhere that is familiar and hers until she finds her feet. Maybe she'll call two weeks after she's started saying she doesn't care anymore, and that would be fantastic, everybody's happy! I think it will take a bit longer than that.

Tbh, I would be ashamed of my child and wonder where I'd gone wrong if at 18 (!) she was stamping her foot and insisting her room be left empty for at least half the year instead of her 10yo sibling moving from her cramped room into it.

OP, I don't understand why your dd1 has to 'give the go ahead' - it's not her decision to make, surely? Your house, your decision. I would make it clear the smaller room would be kept for her and she would always be welcome there, but that it is now her sister's turn to have a bit more space. Keeping the big room for dd1 on the assumption that she will want to return frequently/return home after graduating isn't exactly sending a message of confidence in her - moving her sister into the big room while keeping a small bolt hole for her is a way of saying it's time for her to go forth into the world now and you are sure she will manage it marvellously, but that you are always there in time of need.

I think you should give it 'til Xmas or Easter when your DD1 has had a term or two to settle in to Uni and then let DD2 have the room.

By then she may see things differently as she realises that Uni is her 'new life' with new friends, new social life, new experiences etc.

Soften the blow a bit maybe by letting her decide on decor for her new 'smaller' room?

When I left for Uni my brother moved straight into my room and my Mum turned his room into her sewing room (which still had a bed so I still had somewhere to sleep when I came home)!