to think that once your dcs have left for university that they have effectively 'left'?

[IveToldYouTwice]

Have name changed as dd is a spy when it comes to mumsnet. I know times are different now but I left home when I was around 17. Never went back but obviously went to visit every now and then but stopped having a room at home.

Dd went to university last year. This year, her second year, she has rented a house for 12 months with her friends so effectively she will be living there. She also has a job in the city where she's at university. I still have other dcs at home. Her university is in a different city to where we live, around 2 hours away.

Her room is not being used for the majority of the year now so I want to redecorate it and use it for guests as we often have people visiting (family/friends) and our house is tiny and this is now the only spare room. This has been met with wails of horror about how I'm kicking her out and how she doesn't have a 'home' any more. She does, of course, but her room will now become the guest room and she's welcome to come and stay whenever she likes.

Neither exh nor dp think I am being harsh as we had exactly the same arrangement with our parents (exh did come back a lot more often but dp left home and started working when he was 18).

So AIBU?

Yabu

DC1 camw hone after uni for a year before getting a mortgage with his girlfriend. DC2 finished uni a year ago still house sharing and working in Uni city. Both their bedrooms are still effectively theirs but only visit now.

Yabu
My parents did this to my room and turned it into a ‘guest room’. I felt very unwelcome, especially as all of my personal belongings were relegated to boxes. I did move out properly but because I felt really unwelcome and unwanted. Your dd is still a child at 17.
The only time this is ok is if you have more kids than rooms and are rearranging rooms to make space.

I think YABU, but then I was in halls and had to come home in the holidays. I also went back there straight after uni as it wasn't easy to find a job straight away.

YABU absolutely. Most of my friends who went to uni went back home to live for a while after graduating.

YA technically NBU as it is your house, but if you want your daughter to still feel welcome in her home - which it is, her student home is classified as a term-time address - then you should leave her room as is. Maybe if you're desperate to do up her room then tell her it's a treat for her, a 'grown up room' that's still hers rather than as a guest room?

Student digs aren't "home". She needs to feel she has a permanent place somewhere. You could negotiate a compromise with her, belongings packed away when she isn't there so you can use the space for visitors, but it's a bit insensitive to just erase her presence with new decor.

YANBU

If they move home it will be as adults so it’s good to draw a line under the teenage child years.

Yabu- I went home every holiday and worked at home . There just aren’t enough houses for kids to be housed separately from parents every 18 years . I think part of the housing crisis can be contributed to young people leaving home very young . In Ireland, North and south it’s not uncommon to move back home and stay until you get married or you buy a house . Perhaps that’s why I don’t have any friends or family renting . They lived at home and saved for their own properties.

I think you are being a bit unreasonable by doing this after her first year, if she had finished her degree and got a job and was living away from home ywnbu, but she is still studying and doesn't know yet where she will be living/working when she finishes her degree. Calling her room a guest room sends a definite message that she would not be welcome back to live with you for more than a few days.

limited

YABVU. What a horrible thing to propose. It's your DD's bedroom till she moves out permanently into her own home. She needs her bedroom to store her clothes and other belongings, and more importantly she needs somewhere to call 'home'. If you're that pushed for space for your stuff rent space in a storage facility.

When your relatives come to stay with you while she's away they can sleep in her bedroom but it's still HER bedroom.
Your priorities are very skewed when it come to family. So selfish.

by PP who suggest the OP offer her DD a "grown up" room. That's the way you'd talk to a 5 yr old, not a university student.

Some of you evidently have huge houses, if you can keep endless rooms empty for vast tracts of time on the off-chance that your adult children want to re-occupy them.

Most people don't have this luxury. The OP doesn't. She's never suggested that her DD is unwelcome; she just wants to be able to redecorate and use her room for guests if need be. If my teenagers' bedrooms are anything to go by, redecoration wouldn't be unreasonable. All this business about "your daughter comes first" is all very well (and, on the whole, correct) - but where does it stop? Does this mean you're supposed to keep shrine-bedrooms for your children when they're 50something with adult children of their own? OP, YANBU.

PS telling the OP to rent a storage facility is on a par with telling someone with a full time job, a tippy house and no spare money that all they need is to pay a cleaner/nanny/au pair.

Hmm but my parents split when I was 12 and I had a step when I left home at 18. From that day I didn't have my "own" room and it was made very clear they wanted their own lives.

Our dc are 24 and 21. DS came back after uni then moved into a rented flat with friends, then came back for his masters. He will move out in the autumn but will always have his room at home. I may take over some of his wardrobe.

DD will also have a room at home throughout and after uni. She is only away for 24/26 weeks though.

DH is nearly 60 and still has his room at home with his school exercise books on the shelves. His sisters' room now has a double bed but their books are still there (and some clothes and toys).
Guess who grew up more secure.
Thankfully my dad and grandparents gave me a deposit for a flat when I was 21.

I think you're definitely being unreasonable!!!

Am currently clearing my
Mas house after her death. The most difficult decisions are ludicrously about childhood art of mine which she had on a shelf in what had been my room (and which still was whenever I stayed, as her child not ‘a guest’). Although largely meaningless to me when she was alive now I just think how very lovely she kept something of me in that room for my whole life.

Obvs for some it’s financially or logistically impossible to keep rooms unused or underused or even to stay in same flat/house when kids go off when young but where it is I think very young adults more often than not appreciate it !
Good luck finding your way through this with you daughter op.

YANBU at all

YABVU..... she hasn't left home, she's away from home studying.

yabu. They haven't left home until they have finished studying, have a proper job and can afford to move out.

Ha ha ha @HeadintheiClouds The reason DS's room is unpleasant is precisely because he is there! Teenage boy. 'Inspirational' song lyric posters on the walls mainly referencing the word 'fuck', furniture broken because of the inappropriate way he's treated it, trails of debris all around ....

YABVU and I can see why she’s upset. She’s studying not left home. I’d feel like you couldn’t wait to see the back of me if that was proposed.

DH is nearly 60 and still has his room at home with his school exercise books on the shelves. His sisters' room now has a double bed but their books are still there (and some clothes and toys). Guess who grew up more secure.

@OhTheRoses same age as my husband. Last week he and his mum reminisced over watching the moon landing together. She still has his toy space helmet from that time.

She lives alone in a top floor, three bed flat. It's very nice, but no mansion.

She has obviously redecorated once or twice in the more than 30 years since my husband and his younger brother moved out, but when people come to stay, including us, many of their things are still there, just neatly tidied away.

My MIL is an extremely practical woman, but it's no problem. It's interesting to see all these Sixties and Seventies toys and books. She hasn't kept all of them, just the special ones.

The rooms aren't shrines, and she doesn't expect them to come home. She'd welcome them but she'd be sad, because that would mean something had gone wrong. Though guests are guests, her sons will always be her children and have a home with her as long as she lives.

My twins have just graduated and are both back living at home.

I'd be gutted if I was your DD tbh.

That sounds really sweet, limited