Who Gets the Big Bedroom?

[Awks]

I've 2 lovely dd's (22 and 14). Dd1 has been at uni for 3 years and is now elsewhere starting a years postgrad. She's a bit of a home bird and didn't really settle in at uni so came home a fair bit back to her big bedroom This rankled with dd2 as she was still stuck in the boxroom while her big sis flitted between uni and home. They had occasional words about whether this was fair or not, and my view was that dd1 had to come to the decision herself to swap rooms.

Anyhow she's now gone off to start her postgrad and is living in a family owned palace free of charge, living the life of riley and expecting dd2 to still stay in the boxroom.

AIBU to just tell her she has to swap? There will obviously always be a room for her here, it will just be smaller?

Does it BoomBoom? Gawd it sounds like my dd2 is sleeping in a thimble. When I say boxroom I truly don't mean bed plus 12". I mean a smaller bedroom than her sister.

BoomBoom you honestly need not fret that I love one girl less than the other.

As soon as I left home, my brother had my room - to have it any other way would have been wrong! He was in a box room and he had to wait a long time to get some decent space!

I have a theory (which I am admittedly yet to trial) that the eldest should move to the smaller bedroom once they finish their last lot of school exams to make way for the younger sibling - all the more motivation for them to move on and find their own space in the big wide world.

When youngest finishes exams, they can be moved to the smallest room to make way for glorified hobby/guest suite/room of meditation and contemplation/pool room or whatever you may please, now that you children have all reached adulthood.

Fine to keep a bed for your 18 year old child, but if they want to live for free, they do not get the pick of the rooms.

I get that losing your room when you go off to uni could for some be traumatic, so they can lose it earlier, as soon as their last exam is over.

When I went to uni my Mum got a lodger into my room, so I slept in the little office/den during the holidays. I am not even a tiny bit bitter about it. It was fine, and certainly did not show any lack of love or regard by my Mum. We were very close at the time, and remain very close.

I think it's a shame DD2 had to wait so long. This kind of stuff rankles and sometimes comes back to mar adult relationships (personal experience being an overcompliant younger sister).

My DSIS didn't swap to my bigger room until she was in her late twenties. She never wanted to. Her little room was HERS. My room was always also the guest room.

She only swapped because she moved out for a bit and had a double bed in her flat. Flat mate married and she hated/couldn't afford being on her own.

Another one feeling sorry for DD2 and struggling to understand why she wasn't given the bigger room when DD1 started university. Sounds like DD2 is not only second in birth order but in pecking order in the family.
Starting university is a time of new independence and most kids understand that just as they move on with their lives it is unreasonable to expect everyone else at home to continue on in exactly the same way as if they were still there.
Yes - buy DD2 lovely new bedding. She deserves it, for putting up with the smaller room even though DD1 wasn't there for the majority of time. At 18 surely DD1 was able to understand that while there was always a bed for her it wouldn't be in the larger room?

Swap. Definitely. When I went to uni my parents moved house to a place which didn't even HAVE a bedroom for me. I now sleep on the sofa bed when I visit. If I'd kept a big bedroom and my db had been confined to the box room after I'd left there would have been hell to pay... Frankly I think you should give your dd2 some sort of reward for phenomenal patience in a very unfair situation.

Your DD may be a homebird, but she's old enough now that she should be starting to build her own nest elsewhere. Even if it's a regularly changing series of rental properties (like pretty much everyone else her age), it's a vital part of independence. She clearly won't make the choice on her own so you need to give her a bit of a push to start her own home and her own life away from your house.

I think you were wrong not to swop three years ago.