AIBU - daughter's messy room (with pics)

[mrsm43s]

So my daughter is 12, and her room is always messy. It drives me bonkers, and I'm constantly biting my tongue about it!

So, at 12 what is reasonable? I generally just shut the door to her room and walk on past, because the mess bothers me. Consequently the floor is rarely hoovered and the room rarely cleaned. She also loses/damages (her own) possessions as a result of the mess (e.g. losing one glove, facewash spilt on a book, accidentally sits on and snaps ruler etc). When this happens she either goes without, or replaces items with her own money.

She's not allowed food or drink in her room (apart from water bottle) because of the mess.

Her floor is generally clear in the middle, but mess and clutter round the edges of the room and on every surface, bed rarely made, and often has stuff (books, clothes etc) in it. She'll empty the bin or go and get washing when prompted and will strip and change the bed when asked. She'll shuffle round and tidy up a bit if pressed, but honestly not to what I would consider an acceptable standard.

Her room is a good size 13'x11' although the clutter makes it look small. Her brother is in the 6' x 6' box room by luck of birth order. His room is cluttered, but kept tidier than his sister's.

She's a great girl, polite, well behaved, achieving highly at school. She's busy with lots of extra curriculars and puts loads of effort into her school work. Do I let this slide? Is this level of mess acceptable for a 12 year old? I appreciate it could be far worse!

I'm glad all the other comments agree with my first thought of 'but that's very clean and tidy for a 12 YOs room'. This is what I was expecting to see.

Her room is super tidy but if you have brought her up to be tidier than that I can see why you are getting pissed off. 12 is a tricky age, so let this go and save your battling energy for something more serumious if you can xx

I was expecting worse too. Meet halfway as to where it is now. My 12 year old DD would only leave her dirty knickers in the floor once, no excuses for that really. The problem is this could get worse. I stopped pocket money for a while (it lasted a fortnight).

Sorry posted too soon...

Now at 15 & 18 their rooms are clean and tidy more often than not, they don't just bring down their washing but they also put the machine on and they have realised that life is calmer and easier when things are clean and tidy.

It's odd - i was spectacularly messy in my room (though not food!) all the way through my teens, uni, multiple flat shares, until I finally lived on my own in my early 30's when I became a neat freak overnight and have stayed that way apart from some designated places like clothes on my bedside chair

I think it was some kind of reaction to not having control in shared houses

You should see my 22 year old DS' room.

I wish that was my 14 yr olds room 😮

Think it's a case of pick your battles to be fair.

It is her personal space, you risk rebellion /non cooperation if you impose your tidy standards upon her. I would agree basic standards with her to be honest. So maybe

1. Dirty washing in laundry basket
2. Curtains opened in morning
3. Room tidied on such and such a day (once a week)

My son has to have a tidy room by 5pm on a Friday, if not he doesn't get money!

I also do dusting/hoovering. I don't make ds do it.

I grew up with a mother who had very high standards....... Produced me, a very lazy messy person who has spent all my adult life struggling to keep on top of stuff. Ridiculous as it sounds, I wish she hadn't been tidying my room as soon as it dropped below her high standards. Kids need to learn, the basics......

I think it looks great for a teenagers room, I can never see the floor in my teenage DD room 😂😂

I dont think thats messy at all.

Is this a reverse? That's tidy - you should see my room at 32!

thats not messy, my 10 yr old room is a mess! i can barely get in there and have refused to tidy it. I will only put clean washing away as if i leave it for her it ends up on the floor and mixed in with the other dirty stuff!

That's quite tidy.

With all due respect, please chill out. She's 12 years old, keeping her room pretty tidy, and has other things like homework, and a life, to concentrate on.

As PPs have said - that really isn't a messy room!!

Agree with the others, it's her room and it's pretty tidy anyway.
I don't even have an issue with pants/clothes on the floor at mine, I just ask all dirty washing is brought down on Saturday morning. I was the messiest at her age and very house-proud now.

Mine likes her room very tidy if she is having friends over and it's her job to tidy it up on those regular occasions, other than that it's her space not mine.

Well, I guess I'd better get off mumsnet and tidy up, because your daughters room is significantly tidier than mine is right now

Same!
OP for a 12 yo I'd say that that room is miraculously tidy. Yabu.

If this is your only only issue with her then I would let it go. Seriously! That room looks totally fine, ok a bit of paper and some clutter, believe me that is NOTHING!

You should see my 14 year old's bedroom! Overflowing bin (I refuse to empty it as it's her responsibility) and then she has bearded dragons in the room and sometimes the 'food' goes on walkabout.
I refuse to chase after it!
I want to see how long it takes her to get fed up and clean it up.
Urghh!

Well, I guess I'll leave her to it.

I think one of my main issues is that she's lucky to have the big room while her brother has the box room, and she doesn't seem to treat it with respect. I think he'd be over the moon to have her room and would look after it. Maybe that's because he has the small one though!

It's very, very cluttered, perhaps the photos don't show that - but unmade bed with random stuff in it, unopened curtains hiding clutter on windowsill, desk she can't use as covered in clutter, clutter on top of every surface. Floor fairly clear though, but piles of clothes/shoes/clutter around edges of room.

But it seems that is all normal (or maybe even good given the clear floor) for a 12 year old. I'll keep nagging for washing, bin emptying etc, and perhaps add in a least once a week (or maybe once a fortnight?) that she has to hoover.

Overall, she is a delight, and there's much worse she could do than have a messy room! I'll continue to count myself lucky :)

I used to leave DS' clean washing in a pile outside his dfoor for him to put away. Of course all he did was keep taking clean clothes off the pile and wearing those.

My daughter is 12
I would be very happy if her room was only that messy!!
I would also be very happy if she didn't keep nicking my touché eclat and leaving the lid off on her bedroom floor
Mess is ok as long as it's vaguely clean and non smelly

Oh yeah - the disrespect drives me mad as well.
But if you could see my 19 YO DD room.....
Your DD room looks pretty tidy to me!

That looks totally normal!

Blimey, I think you know by now you need to let it slide op!

She sounds like a great girl and her room looks pretty good.

I get that the clutter annoys you. But some people like clutter! And young girls have a lot of 'stuff'. I know I did.

Christ you should see my in laws house, Marie Kondo would pass out!

She's doing fine. She would be exactly the same in the smaller room. You could ask for one thing at a time. Perhaps one Sunday afternoon she could clear the windowsill so that you can give it a wipe over, the following week, the desk for the same reason. At least that way things get cleaned every so often. Having said all that, she's doing things when asked, that's good, she's a delight in all other respects that's fabulous and she's doing well at school, that's amazing and on top of that she does extra curricular stuff. I'd count your blessings!

I don't think you should put pictures of her room on the internet. I just think it's an invasion of privacy and I would of been horrified had my mum done the same to me at that age! (not that the Internet was around then!)
She sounds a good kid, leave her be.