Page 16 | To be surprised these children don’t have proper beds?

FlappyValley · 2023-02-23T22:14:08+00:00

Out of DC’s friends whose houses we’ve visited, I’ve seen three who don’t have proper beds, just a mattress on the floor. I’m really surprised because these aren’t poor families by any means (professional jobs, foreign holidays, nice clothes, etc) and the parents all have beds themselves! AIBU to think a bed is one of the most basic things you’d buy your child if your standard of living is generally good? Or is this totally normal?

thismamayogi · 26/02/2023 14:11

ijphoo · 26/02/2023 07:51

I know the example given in this situation is of children of affluent parents who, for some unknown reason, sleep on mattresses on the floor. However, there are families where having a bed is something of a luxury. When this happens, it can be really difficult on so many levels.

A close relative had serious financial problems. She was married with two primary aged sons. The family rented a house that, quite frankly, was in a deplorable condition. It was damp, it was cold, and everything seemed to be broken. The landlord was full of promises to repair, but very slow to respond.

Due to the cold and damp, the boys and their mother slept in the living room downstairs. The room was small, but they put a sofa-bed in the room, so the boys could huddle up together for warmth. Mum also slept in the room downstairs , on a bed made of two chairs a sleeping bag. The youngest son had additional needs, and would not sleep without his mum being near. Dad slept upstairs in the least damp bedroom.

The boys worried about friends coming to the house and asking where the beds were, or commenting on other things (cold, mould, the smell and so on). The eldest did invite a friend he trusted around and, unfortunately, the friend decided to gain a few laughs at school by telling the whole class what the house was like. The eldest said nothing, the teacher did nothing, and the friendship ended.

Both boys did not sleep well. Mum had to get up early for work, and that disturbed them, and the living room looked out onto a busy street that was noisy even at night. When they went to secondary school, at least one of the boys would spend lunch break asleep in the sick room with headaches brought on by fatigue. Neither child reached his full potential.

So, I know this is a somewhat light-hearted thread, but I just thought I would beat my drum to say there really are issues with deprivation and poverty in this country, and there really are families where sleeping in a warm bed is a luxury.

I hear you.

however, much of this thread hasn’t been “lighthearted”.
I have been berated for having five kids when I can’t give them beds (seriously), and other such mud slinging has gone on. Basically the impression I have been left with is that there is a cohort of extremely narrow minded and affluent people on here who think a bedstead is a basic requirement for any child, though I find myself wondering how many of them spend lots of quality time with those kids or have ever asked any of them if they consider their bedstead to be the pinnacle of parental provision.

trash such as myself and other dangerous ‘alternatives’ have tried hard to put forward the case that this is utter nonsense and have spoken of dangerous ideas such as poverty, children being independent or exercising choice, or about how some things such as healthy food, love and attention might be more worthwhile than raised beds. Or have mentioned cosleeping safety (shock horror).

Really someone ought to sort me out and put me in my place before I reveal my kids have never all owned matching duvet sets or been on a family holiday - I am a danger to society!

ReadersD1gest · 26/02/2023 14:17

here who think a bedstead is a basic requirement for any child, though I find myself wondering how many of them spend lots of quality time with those kids or have ever asked any of them if they consider their bedstead to be the pinnacle of parental provision
Are you seriously suggesting people use the provision of life's basic necessities to their children as having done their job; no other interaction necessary??
I can't believe the utter foolishness of your post 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫
You wonder how many who provide beds spend quality time with their kids like there was a direct correlation... 🤯

GreenFritillary · 26/02/2023 17:27

No, ReadersD1gest, that wasn't what thismamayogi was suggesting. People on here have questioned her priorities, that she tries to give each child, especially the one with unusual needs, exactly what seems right at that moment, rather than putting bed-buying first.

Unless he decided to sleep somewhere else in the flat that night, our DS slept on a mattress on a garden lounger at the height of our bed, jammed safely between us and the wall, until he was eight, when we were lucky enough to get a maisonette and he got his own room. His cabin bed at that point was a present from a grandmother. He had a buggy but he never had a cot or a pram or any new clothes for years - he always looked good in his choice of his second hand ones.

If beds are the priority that some people describe, how far down their list, for instance, does 'time-wasting' come, when it entails silently focusing on a child who wants your attention while he thinks something out, because it helps him think more clearly if he feels safely surrounded by your love and attention? Or helping him act out visiting a French boulangerie, giving him his lines sotto voce while acting the part of the baker?

Perhaps one of thismamayogi's DC is dying for a musical instrument and another for a full range of coloured drawing pastels, or she sees a second-hand set of Cuisenaire rods for sale, and any spare cash goes on that sort of thing. (I'm projecting our situation on to her.)

Should she struggle to find time and energy to earn money to buy beds in her odd spare hour? Or lie around on those mattresses cuddling and listening to her kids?

thismamayogi · 26/02/2023 18:00

GreenFritillary · 26/02/2023 17:27

No, ReadersD1gest, that wasn't what thismamayogi was suggesting. People on here have questioned her priorities, that she tries to give each child, especially the one with unusual needs, exactly what seems right at that moment, rather than putting bed-buying first.

Unless he decided to sleep somewhere else in the flat that night, our DS slept on a mattress on a garden lounger at the height of our bed, jammed safely between us and the wall, until he was eight, when we were lucky enough to get a maisonette and he got his own room. His cabin bed at that point was a present from a grandmother. He had a buggy but he never had a cot or a pram or any new clothes for years - he always looked good in his choice of his second hand ones.

If beds are the priority that some people describe, how far down their list, for instance, does 'time-wasting' come, when it entails silently focusing on a child who wants your attention while he thinks something out, because it helps him think more clearly if he feels safely surrounded by your love and attention? Or helping him act out visiting a French boulangerie, giving him his lines sotto voce while acting the part of the baker?

Perhaps one of thismamayogi's DC is dying for a musical instrument and another for a full range of coloured drawing pastels, or she sees a second-hand set of Cuisenaire rods for sale, and any spare cash goes on that sort of thing. (I'm projecting our situation on to her.)

Should she struggle to find time and energy to earn money to buy beds in her odd spare hour? Or lie around on those mattresses cuddling and listening to her kids?

Thank you so much for understanding. Exactly this.
I was not making a judgement on the time spent by the raised bed buying families - it is their business, your business, and undoubtedly spent on perfectly reasonable, wonderful priorities - because we each have them. I respect that fully. I don’t know what they are. I was talking of my own situation exactly as @GreenFritillary has perceived.

I have a neurodiverse teenager who is the most difficult person imaginable to live with - her siblings have watched her have the sort of suicidal meltdowns I would censor on the telly if they came on before the watershed and my kids were up - they have lived through that since birth. This simply means I have a very particular perspective on OUR life, that cannot be communicated easily here and no need - but if you have a child who self harms and curses and hates themself and finds day to day life so hard that there are no solutions - and they need to say, sleep on the floor or with an uncovered duvet or whatever, it means you p caring about other things. If your other kids have put up with stuff they shouldn’t have to and you want to all come out stronger and they just need to know you are there, then you are there. And nothing else much matters.

until this thread, it has rarely occurred to me that my kids could be considered deprived for not having bedsteads; it made me think. but I do often beat up on myself if I’ve had a hard day with my eldest and they haven’t seen my happy face enough. So that becomes what I do, over and above absolutely anything else.

I actually very often sleep right on the floor myself, if my kids need me close to comfort them or my husband is too exhausted to be disturbed in the night by the constant needs. Just on the floor with a blanket. Hasn’t killed me yet.

i could leave them all and go “work” at some futile endeavour so the government would pay a stranger to care for them instead of me - and then they could all have beds.

My priorities are different.

and yes, my seven year old daughter’s urgent need for a rainbocorn will trump her “need” for a bed when I have managed to save something week on week for a while. Because that is what will make her smile and she can still sleep safe.

I was simply shocked to be called out for birthing babies who are not destined to sleep on a proper bed. Mostly because I choose to be with them over and above other things.

ReadersD1gest · 26/02/2023 20:09

No, ReadersD1gest, that wasn't what thismamayogi was suggesting. People on here have questioned her priorities, that she tries to give each child, especially the one with unusual needs, exactly what seems right at that moment, rather than putting bed-buying first
I read her post, she phrased it rather differently... She questioned whether those patting themselves on the back (as if!) for providing their child with a bed actually spent as much quality time with their kids as she did.
Bizarre. There is NO CORRELATION WHATSOEVER.

thismamayogi · 26/02/2023 23:56

ReadersD1gest · 26/02/2023 20:09

No, ReadersD1gest, that wasn't what thismamayogi was suggesting. People on here have questioned her priorities, that she tries to give each child, especially the one with unusual needs, exactly what seems right at that moment, rather than putting bed-buying first
I read her post, she phrased it rather differently... She questioned whether those patting themselves on the back (as if!) for providing their child with a bed actually spent as much quality time with their kids as she did.
Bizarre. There is NO CORRELATION WHATSOEVER.

Accepted - There is no correlation.
you have not understood the way I was writing - using sarcasm at the same time as obliquely referring to the way I have been dressed down - I was feeling pretty fed up to be told there’s a correlation between not being able to provide a child with a bed and making a bad decision about having a child at all….. there is no correlation.

my point was to draw attention to this as well as the assumption that not providing a bed equates to not providing - hence saying I wonder if those who suggest this are the perfect people who provide everything their kids possibly need by extension - as in am i to presume that bed provision definitely DOES correlate to time with kids (which I could be attacked for investing in over bed buying) and that in all these instances children have been approached every time and asked what their own take on their bed situation is - so that the bed providers are confident that their kids feel ultimately served by this and their peers without have iterated that they feel deprived. I tried to encase all that into a quickly typed sentence rather than spell it out. So actually GreenFritillary picked up on what I was trying to communicate rather well.

whatever. I have better things to do than defend myself to someone still intent on making sure how useless and depraved I am understood to be, afraid I have made a baseless attack when all I was doing was making a point. If you bothered to pick up the nuance or take a broader or more imaginative view, you might just about pick up that I try my best, have a full plate, and am not exactly lazing around popping out babies carelessly who I then ignore/mistreat/cannot look after properly and am contributing to the ills of society and “overpopulation” which is basically what has been suggested by some,
all off the back of not buying beds, being poor and having five kids.

at the end of the day, if only the affluent are supposed to be “allowed” to have larger families and having babies is boiled down to cost and calculations, my point is that how much further does the utilitarianism go. What else is going to be judged and quantified.

lavendery · 27/02/2023 08:58

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 25/02/2023 14:43

The BO sweat thing is only true of certain East Asians. And even then it’s lowered, not non existent.
I don’t think it can be a blanket claim that Asians don’t that a sweaty stinky thing.

That smelly gene is non functional in 80-95% of East Asians (up to 100% in countries such as Korea - that's why you can't find deodorant there!), but only 2% of Europeans. As a previous poster suggested that'll be Prince Andrew 😂😂

lavendery · 27/02/2023 09:07

I think the key thing is that not having a bed doesn't actually affect quality of sleep in most people; it seems to help many sleep better. Hygiene concerns can easily be overcome, e.g. regular area cleaning and airing.

If your child didn't have a duvet or a desk for instance, that might actually impact their quality of life.