To think daughter is ungrateful/expects too much

[Pompom42]

Have a teenage daughter she's 13.
She currently shares a bedroom with her younger sister. The younger sister is 3 but isn't really sleeping in there atm she still sleeps in my room with me.
We have a 2 bed bungalow which is not tiny but not large either. But we are all on the one floor so I appreciate we do get in each other's way at times.
Just recently she keeps saying to me "wish I didn't have to share a room with my sister".
Whilst it isn't ideal as I said youngest isn't sleeping in there. It's a nice room and was all decorated and new beds etc 2 years ago.
Now she's started saying "this house is tiny, when can we move?"
"All my friends houses are bigger, this house is really really tiny compared to theres"
I've said to her tonight I can't afford anything else. We live in a naice area and at the time it was this house or nothing. We have a drive and a garden and it's in a pretty village.
For some reason it's made me feel really upset. AIBU in thinking she's spoilt? Or is this normal teenage behaviour?
What about years ago when you had families of 6 children all living in a 3 bed house.
What can I say to her?

@icerebel she said no relationship break up. So I assume a partner?

PurpleNovember I was living in a 3 bed house when pregnant with second child. Why just assume I've always lived here? I'm not stupid to think oh I know what I'll just have another child when I really don't have the room.
Circumstances are I couldn't stay there.

We could forgo the holidays but I like to make memories with them. Family member had a really horrific accident which made me realise how short life really is.

But as your family grows up, shouldn’t they be brought into the decision making process and allowed to have their own views on how family life should be? You can make all the memories you want, but your daughter’s memories of childhood won’t be of that trip to Spain, it will be of having to share a room with her toddler sister at 13 or annoying 6 year old at 16 and how mum just didn’t care enough to hear her.

If there was absolutely no way at all it could happen then fair enough, she has to live with it. But even then empathising with her and understanding her instead of branding her spoiled would be a better way.

If the problem is you have other priorities for the spare cash which pays for the luxuries like holidays, Netflix and big tellys, I think she is old enough to have a view on those priorities and you owe it to her even just to do the figures on what life would look like for a while if you built a small extension. You’d get 4 x 4 extension for around 20-25k. You could borrow that for about 300 quid a month.

All the people assuming that a) the OP split with her partner and b) she chose to have another child when she didn't have the room for it, have you considered that maybe the OP's partner has died which has caused the change in circumstances, and she's not saying that as she doesn't want to talk about it?

I'm not saying that IS the case, just there are various reasons why people's circumstances change, sometimes quite dramatically, and many posters seem to be judging her about her situation.

Oh and doing conversions isn't an option if you don't have the money, or if you live in rented.

@ayeplesandbaynaynays

Ops posts are full of I, and her first post says her youngest shares with her, there hasn't I believe been any mention of a partner. Which if the case would make even more sense to give the eldest the smaller room to herself, and the Op to share with the 3 year old in the larger room.

Yabbers sorry but you're in the wrong here.

Agree @icerebel but she seems to have corrected this later on in thread. Confusing

I can understand things coming out in the wrong way at that age - I never had to share a room with him, but there's 12.5 years between me and my brother, and I was an only child until then.

I adored him, I'd begged for a sibling for years, but he was also the worst thing that had ever happened to my teenage self. When circumstances meant we moved to a smaller house, and then my other brother came along (also very much adored, then and now), and I had to move from my small single to a room barely big enough for my bed, a bookcase and a chest of drawers, yeah, I did resent it. I did have a (teeny tiny) space to get away, but the rest of the house was occupied by them.

I empathize with her. Once they are sharing full time, if, as PPs have suggested, there's a way of giving her somewhere to hole away - even a decent garden shed hooked up to the electrics with a desk in it for studying in - that would be what I'd aim to do.

Anecdotally, on the "it was different in the past", my grandmother (5th of 6) shared a bed with her youngest sister until she moved out. Not in the very distant past - this was the 40s and 50s. Times really do change.

God, I’d have hated to be forced to share a room with anyone

I’m guessing you live in a very expensive part of the country if she’s shown you a rental for £5k?? Is moving somewhere cheaper an option? If you do live somewhere like that (I lived in Herts/Kent/Beds and my most expensive rental was £895 for a 2 bed flat, mortgage of £1200 on a 4 bed detached, can only think you must be in Kensington or similar - a quick google of my old town in Herts shows 3 beds for around £1300 to rent) then she will have friends who don’t have to share or have to know the value of things. It’s not on their radar.

TBH it wasn’t on mine at that age and when I look back now after a childhood of “We can’t afford xxxx” or “Do you have any idea how much we pay out every month?”. Of course I bloody didn’t! I was a child, as your DD is.

"having to share a room with her toddler sister at 13 or annoying 6 year old at 16 and how mum just didn’t care enough to hear her"

Repeat after me" not being able to afford things is not the same as not caring". I suppose you think those poor people should have the good taste not to breed, darling?

OFFS.' Only' around 300 quid a month? Because we all have that just lying about waiting to be spent. All the holidays she mentioned will have cost a fraction of £4000 a year and if you can't afford it one year you choose not to go. You can't choose not to pay off a secured loan.

Privilege and unconsidered wealth just rampaging all over this thread.

It's not a character failing of hers to want a three year old-free bedroom. Jesus. Also she doesn't need to be grateful to you for having a house/food/clothes, you're her parent.

Well she did just spend 120 on a coat for her dd ...

My dd is 13, and was sharing with her sister who is 11, until this August. They had a small room, so it was getting a bit much but our attic room was DHs office and storage space. She went through a phase of moaning about everyone else’s large houses, own bathrooms etc. We have jigged it around and DH still has a desk in the attic which he uses during the day, but it is her room now. However , if it hadn’t been workable then she would have had to accept it. It is only recently that we’ve expected each child to have their own room. Even in wealthy households children often shared sleeping space. It is nice to have your own space but not essential. Also as your little one is in with you, she has her own room anyway, really.
13 year olds can sound very spoilt, all you can do is keep pointing out the reality of things and what she can be grateful for. I think it is a phase in growing up.

As pp said before, why not give teen the small single to herself, and you and toddler have the double? My DC would love to still sleep with me if they had the choice and they are 8. That gets you to 18 and oldest one may go to uni etc by then and free up room for youngest.

TBH - I would think that having your own bedroom is quite a recent thing in the history of the world.

I would think that most ordinary people, unless they were an only child, have had to share a room with a sibling whether they wanted to or not - people just didn't have the room to give four, five, six children their own space.

I think that if Pompom decided to forgo holidays and rent a larger home, then her DD would get huffy because "X is going to France/ Y is going to Disneyland/ Z is off ski-ing - why do we never go anywhere?"

Who knows- this may be the spur she needs to work hard at school and get herself a really well-paid job so she can have as much space as she wants for the rest of her life.

And good for her!

My Grannie, an only child, had her own room. Her mother had been one of seven , in a little cottage, so there must have been children everywhere !

I’m sorry but a 13 year old is not entitled to her own room!
I shared with 2 sisters one older and one younger whilst the boy sibling had his own room.
My 2 DC’s are lucky to have their own rooms plus we have two spare it’s because im better off than my parents were.
teenagers are always going to want what their friends have but it’s not always doable she just needs to make do with what seems like a lovely house...

PurpleNovember "I agree the daughters need their own rooms, but suggesting OP gives up her room is ridiculous...."

Why? according to op she is virtually doing so already. And op has her own room, its called the living room.

I wouldn't have a child if I knew I couldn't afford to give them their own room, but as I said, I know circumstances change and I don't know your situation. What I'm saying is I definitely wouldn't have kids thinking I could make them share a bedroom forever.

I think this could go in the dictionary under a definition of 'Precious"

Do you ever actually think about how real people who don't have as much money as you actually live their lives? Do you think they can only have one child? or no children?

I am well off (now) and I am finding many of the comments on this thread about what a 13 year old is entitled to really upsetting. The 13 year old is entitled to love, support, and as much privacy as the family can give her. As is the 3 year old and the mother.

That people think you should have 2 children if you can't give them 2 bedrooms - words fail me.

I don't know anyone of my parents generation who had a room of their own. None of my cousins or friends had a room of their own.

Ideally kids would have a room of their own but with current house prices etc that will be hard. Do you really need to limit your family to one child because you only have one spare bedroom?

And op has her own room, its called the living room.

Have you ever lived in a house?

It's a teenager sharing a room with a tiny tot that is so difficult, 11 and 13 year olds, etc, often do but that is a really big age gap and a thirteen year old needs some privacy. No point in talking about how things were in years gone by, we are now in 2018 and people expect a little space.

I'd say convert the loft into a bedroom with en suite and go without holiday next year. Might not have to go without holiday but just have one on the cheap. It will be worth it and means the house will be worth more too.

Separate bedrooms for the children with decent storage in each so that they can be completely self-contained. And you keep your clothes in one of the wardrobes in the bedrooms. And you have a sofa-bed in the sitting room. It's perfectly do-able and works really well. If you can't move to a bigger place, this is how you are going to live together. I"ve done it, it works fine.

entropynow

OP is suggesting she thinks her daughter may be acting spoiled for wanting her own room. That suggests she isn’t really listening to her. They’ve had a fight about it. Forget how you view it, or how the OP views it, at 13, with hormones flying all over the place, when she’s been told she just has to get on with it, believe me the 13 year old will think mum just doesn’t care.

If you had actually read what I wrote instead of jumping in with your “privileged” shit, you will see the word IF in there. As in if you can’t afford it she’ll have to live with it but it’s important to make sure her daughter knows her mum is on her side and actually gets that it’s a problem.

And IF she does the figures could she find the cash? A couple of holidays a year don’t come cheap. OP is obviously not on the breadline counting every penny. She is prioritising her money.

Perhaps lose the chip on your shoulder before lashing out?

In the past few weeks mine have said:

"Oh, yes, blow MORE money on fucking coffee, no wonder we've never been outside Devon" (we went to France last year, and Rome the year before)

"£10 for food for the whole day, how the hell am I supposed to go out on that, it's Dad's fault for taking up smoking again, no wonder we can't afford anything"

"Yes, I do need a new phone case. Yes, I do like that one."