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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU TO throw all her junk onto her bed?

117 replies

WestEndVBroadway · 03/05/2018 20:50

Really fed up with trying to get my DD to tidy her room . I just found 6 (yes 6) pairs of pyjamas on her bedroom floor or thrown on a chair. Her dressing table and chest of drawers were littered with odds and sods and rubbish such as crisp wrappers and tissues. I just scooped up everything that should not have been there, and dumped it in her bed. She is now sulking that I touched her stuff. I told her that as she HAS to tidy up now she may as well do it properly.

OP posts:
speakout · 03/05/2018 21:52

OP you are not respecting her stuff and yet you expect her to respect yours.

Double standards here.

Aridane · 03/05/2018 21:52

I would think as long as there is no food, crockery or soiled sanitary wear in her room, it doesn’t matter

Italiangreyhound · 03/05/2018 21:53

How old is she?

Personally, having had lots of rows about bedroom tidiness with dd (13), I have chosen to let her keep it pretty much how she wants and focus on other stuff.

However, my exceptions are food and wrappers (I tell her they attract spiders - do they?), the bin being emptied and the window being opened occasionally to let the aroma of teenager out!

I agree "Pick your battles."

delilahbucket · 03/05/2018 21:53

I once came home from school to find ALL of my stuff in bin liners when I was about 10. I was distraught. I tidied it away though!

raindropsandsunshine · 03/05/2018 21:55

It must be hard not to be irritated and show it! I remember having a terribly messy room but aside from the occasional mention, my parents didn't interfere. At about 17 I started to care and look after it though, through wanting to do it, not as a duty to please my parents.

I don't know how I'll be when I have teens, it's going to be hard to let them be!

Shedmicehugh1 · 03/05/2018 21:56

It’s her room, leave her to it, shut the door! Mess anywhere else in the house, then yea, dump in her room!

speakout · 03/05/2018 21:57

I don't find it hard to have a teen with a messy bedroom.

It's trivial in the grand scheme of things.

immortalmarble · 03/05/2018 21:57

I’d keep out of her room to be honest.

Redpriestandmozart · 03/05/2018 22:00

I came home from school one day to my bedroom tidy and the window opened to air the room. When I went to close the window I saw that all my clothes had been thrown out the window and they were blowing in the wind between ours and the neighbours garden!! As a teenage I was mortified and it was the biggest incentive to cleaning my bedroom!!!

MissCherryCakeyBun · 03/05/2018 22:04

Do you pay her pocket money? If so until she stops taking your stuff stop Paying it also consider stopping paying for data on her phone. She can sort her life out and not treat the family home like a doss house

It is your house and you deserve your stuff to be respected not pinched and stored in a shit hole. I'm with you on this, I left home at 16 paid my rent and bills and coped....and managed to do that and keep my room tidy in the shared house I lived in

Stand up for yourself, the fact is if it was husbands or parents behaving like this to you people would tell you to LTB or if your parents were horders or had dementia.....

PoorYorick · 03/05/2018 22:05

This actually annoys me still all these years later. It's her space. As long as she's clean, tidy and respectable in the communal areas, and as long as she's keeping her room clean so it's not attracting insects or anything....in other words, if she's not affecting anyone else...why is it anyone else's business what she does in her own space?

I was untidy as a kid but always clean and contained my mess in my bedroom. Nobody else's concern.

jasjas1973 · 03/05/2018 22:09

I am hoping that one day my DD bedroom will make me as fortune as there must be things growing under her bed that solve antibiotic resistance bacteria forever.

She works hard at school, has AAB predicted for her A levels, has 2 unconditional offers out of 5 she has applied for and is a lovely person, she is rarely rude and doesn't answer back, we get on really well...... if the price for all that is a shit tip for a bedroom, i ll take it.

TheIsland · 03/05/2018 22:12

I was messy like that. I wanted someone to help me tidy rather than just shout but I wouldn’t have been able to communicate that as a teenager.

Uniquack · 03/05/2018 22:21

My dad used to empty my room of every single thing except the furniture and dump it in the garden lol. Then I had to take everything back inside and put it all away in the right places/tidy up. I learnt my lesson very quickly Grin.

bananasplits50 · 03/05/2018 22:22

My DD is 14 and goes through phases of tidying up her room. I used to tidy it up when she was younger but now she doesn't like her bed being made or me touching her things. However when it gets in a state I scoop everything up and pile it up in the middle of her floor. That is usually enough for her to do a clear out. When she does do it, the room is spotless. So I am fairly relaxed about it

Willow2017 · 03/05/2018 22:24

I collect up every thing lying about and dump it in the middle of the floor. They know to tidy up or i will bin it. They get told to tidy up thier usual mess regularly. But I get fed up every now and then when they havent done a damm thing and blitz it myself and dump it all for them to sort out. Its either that or god knows what state it would be in or what would be growing in bowls, plates, rubbish and clothes😀😀
I dont want mouldy areas in any of the rooms in my house thanks (and it does get mould patches quickly if not ventilated and too much crap on windowsill) Leaving crap lying around, floor dirty, dust and sticky messes from fruit leavings lying around, dirty plates and cups etc is rank.

My house my rules. When they can afford thier own place then they can live in a pigsty if they want too.

speakout · 03/05/2018 22:25

But those who go and pile things up- or worse- can't you see that as intrusive.
My DD has loads of piles of schoolwork for exams, personal stuff, letters photos etc.
Although messy she knows where a lot of her stuff is, University forms, work things.

To go and scoop that up into a pile would be a huge invasion of privacy and personal space,

I would hate someone to do that with my belongings.

Fairynormal · 03/05/2018 22:25

I was a very untidy child, I shared a bedroom with my younger and much tidier sister, my Mum tried all sorts of things, nothing seemed to work. Until one day, as I was walking home from school with my huge group of friends, my Mum was at my bedroom window emptying my drawers and wardrobe all over the garden! Oh the shame! Xxx

GetOffTheTableMabel · 03/05/2018 22:29

I have a very messy 17 year old. This is a rented house & we have given an undertaking to keep it in a reasonable state. This means that, at the very least, it can’t be left to get mouldy. She has an en suite (while has improved our relationship no end). I don’t go in her room but we have a cleaner once a fortnight & she has to leave it in a decent state for cleaning. I make this an issue of respect for professional cleaners, rather than mum fussing. Respect is a big thing for her. She’d hate to be accused of treating someone else in a rude, entitled way so it works.

StoneStripes · 03/05/2018 22:29

Its really not 'enlightened' attitudes for parents to allow their children to treat their bedroom like a rubbish dump. Parents are not doing them any favours. Its not a question of a "battle of wills". Its basic respect and self-respect you are teaching; you are actually helping them. Bedrooms don't have to be palaces - but some semblance of cleanliness and order should be expected by parents. I don't know how old your DD is OP but "sulking" because you "touched" her dirty and chaotic bedroom sounds very brattish behavour to me. I haven't got specific ideas how to go about trying to resolve this issue, but I do recommend a book I read last year Surviving Your Child's Adolescence by Carl Pickhardt - the best I've read and I've read loads Hmm including the awful "Get Out of My Life...: But First Take Me and Alex Into Town" that everyone raves about.

Good luck!

MMcanny · 03/05/2018 22:34

Do the rooms of these untidy children have laundry baskets and bins? Are your own rooms immaculate at all times? I found sorting these issues encouraged my own kids to be neat and tidy. I also remember using my own teenage job money to buy my own laundry hamper and bin and then having the cleanest room in the house.

Ivorbig1 · 03/05/2018 22:35

Absolutely ridiculous to say “keep out of your daughter’s room”. I feel very uncomfortable at the idea that at 16 my dc’s room is out of bounds to me. What worked for me was to threaten to clean it myself, I wish I had done it earlier, it worked a treat. She didn’t want me doing it.
You need to find her currency, withhold until she looks after her room.

Willow2017 · 03/05/2018 22:53

My kids dont have any personal/private letters etc in thier rooms.
Its all the dirty washing, rubbish that never made it to laundry bag or bin and toys, books, dvds lying around all over the place i pile up. If they cant take care of stuff then there is no point in having it!

It doesnt take long to put something away once used. A lot less time than doing the whole roon from scratch cos its a pigsty.

Original poster
WestEndVBroadway · 04/05/2018 06:58

Well, a few differences of opinion here. While I appreciate the idea that I should let here do what she wants in her own space, I am not sure that it really teaches the right sort of independence. To those saying that it would be acceptable for me to demand that it was tidy if she was younger, what difference should her age make. I really think it is double standards for us to expect a younger child to keep their stuff tidy, but once they get to 16 (when they should be more mature) we should say thatvit is their space to keep how they choose.

OP posts:
PoorYorick · 04/05/2018 06:59

I feel very uncomfortable at the idea that at 16 my dc’s room is out of bounds to me.

I can't understand people who think that young people on the verge of adulthood are unreasonable for wanting their privacy to be respected.

Dirt is one thing. If the room is actually unhygienic, yes, take action. If it's just messy, and the mess is contained in their personal space, have some respect and leave them to it.

My room was always clean, I cleaned it weekly myself. No old food or dirty clothes. It was just cluttered. I had a lot of hobbies. But the clutter was always contained. Yet my parents still saw fit to walk in whenever they liked, my father didn't even think he needed to knock. Nasty and intrusive and disrespectful.