Sharing a room is a 'sign of poverty'?

[DesTeeny]

A close friend has said that sharing a room as children is a sign of poverty.

AIBU to think this just isn't true?

Context: We have the opportunity to be mortgage free in a 3 bed house through inheritance, our two DC (3 & 1 both girls) will share a room and we will keep a spare room.

Spare room is for family/friends visiting as we have no nearby relatives so we have people to stay often but will be used as a 'break out' room for DC if they need space. We will set it up with a desk for homework, and a day bed to read and relax on, but it is quite a small box room so it seemed sensible to have DC share a very large room (15*13ft) rather than one DC have a huge room and one have a tiny one.

The room is big enough for a day bed so for example my Mum will be able to stay, or our nieces and nephews on a day bed and a pull out, but other than a desk and a day bed there's no room for anything else.

The alternative was that we use the inheritance to take out a mortgage on a 4+ bed house, but we don't see the point as the house we have is a large 3 bed and will suit our needs entirely (from our perspective).

However, close friend has said that sharing a room is a "sign of poverty" and can't believe we're even considering it when we could have a larger house with a mortgage.

How can you enforce this in a privately rented property?
Surely people can use the space they’ve rented as they please?
Not to the point of subletting to 10 extra adults, maybe, but who police’s two kids sharing a bedroom?

So examples when I enforced sec 325 and 326 in a private owned house would include requests from the British High Commission for a housing assessment for a married partner to a UK citizen to be given permission to residue in UK. They have to be adequately housed on entry. So if they were moving to a family house, privately owned, that would make it statutory overcrowded the legislation would prevent it and they wouldn't be permitted entry. I did 4 or 5 of these assessments a week for the High Commission in Pakistan and Bangladesh. I did adequate housing assessments in custody cases where overcrowding in private owned housing was part of my recommendation to Courts. I served numerous notices on private landlords and tenants. I could go on but point is made. It's not all about social housing allocations.

Because poverty forces extended and merged families to share space. Families get bigger but have no housing options, adults return with their own families. Step families are formed. It is actually an indicator of poverty in the private rented sector. We do numerous assessments with social workers where teenage children sharing with single parents of opposite sex. We would enforce overcrowding standards to ensure teenage girls or boys don't have to sleep in same room as opposite sex step parents or step siblings. Numerous other examples where we had involvement.

We often used statutory overcrowding as a means to increase priority for vulnerable households to access other housing options outside the private rented. There was also the more disheartening work of using powers on overcrowded private rented housing with 10 Eastern European young women living there who can't speak English and won't tell you what brought them from rural Romania to London. The list is long, unfortunately.

They're 3 and 1, the one year old can't tell me, and the three year old thinks it's a marvellous idea to share with her baby sister...

Over crowding is obviously a sign of poverty, but sharing a room doesn’t always equal over crowding.

i come from a background where very large families used to be the norm but is no longer. In the old days it was thought of as a bit superior to have fewer children- like you were more in control of your life and wanted better outcomes- and I wonder if this idea comes from that?

families of 7,8,9 children will never have their own bedrooms, I can see why you’d associate it with poverty.

Yeah a couple of people have suggested that and we may well do, I hadn't thought of it until people suggested it!

The only thing that puts me off is that the back room is quite dark and the front room is big and airy, but that's very selfish of me I know and we need to think of what's best for the babies.

Your friend is clearly not living in the real world. What a ridiculous thing to say. I used to work in social housing and the ruling was, children can be expected to share a bedroom until the eldest is aged 10, if male and female. If both children are same gender then they can share a room until the oldest is 16. I know that's social housing but just because people are in council housing or housing association properties, that hardly means they're poverty stricken. Your friend needs to climb down from up her own bum, seems she is very judgmental.

We had exactly the same thing and the children shared until the older one was fed up, around age 10, at which point she moved into the 3rd bedroom. This is not a sign of poverty and not to be paying a mortgage sounds very sensible! Children also learn to share better if they share a room.

I shared a room with my sister as a child and are really close now.It is good to share.We lived in an old house with 4 bedrooms but chose to share.Your comment sounds snobby

Load of bollocks. I'm possibly going to have 3 share a room and it's okay while they're little

Right, but your OP suggests this is a long-term arrangement so you can live mortgage free. Obviously a 1 and 3 year old don't care, but they will be teenagers eventually and probably will care.

But the OP has a third bedroom that one of them could move into and still be mortgage free

And if they do care in the future we can address it, maybe move the rooms around, give them a separate space etc. and yes, at the moment it is a long term decision to have them sharing, but they can have separate rooms in the future if they want to.

@ClareBlue Some councils especially London ones have changed the criteria now particularly as more people have open plan living room/kitchens.

Now in some boroughs the open plan joint kitchen/living room counts as a room to sleep in if it is over a certain size as they argue it is more of a living room than kitchen.

We have 4 beds and 3 kids. The girls have always shared a room as we wanted a spare and they have just always wanted to be together. Oldest is getting to a point now where she is talking about wanting her own room so we are in process of sorting out the spare room keeping the king-size in there on the proviso that she sleeps in the other room again if we have guests. It's been a choice for them to share.. we're not poverty stricken. You'll be far better off financially without a mortgage than with one she's deluded!! Also she sounds like a crappy, judgy friend.

It's absolutely fine and I would do the same as you. If the children are small, are ok to share a nice big bedroom, there are no sleeping issues and you can make good use of the spare room...why not???
As you said, you can just change the arrangement in the future if you will need to, no big deal.

I had similar comments when we decided to put my son in the only non-ensuite bedroom in the house. People commented how unfair it was on him.
But it was the closest room to our bedroom, the largest and the one next to the only bathroom with a bath. Also, our son was small and didn't need an ensuite, while it was so much more convenient for everyone if our elderly parents, our relatives and friends (we have visitors very often) would just have a room with an ensuite.
Maybe when DS will be a teenager we will decide to change the arrangement, but so far it just works very well for us. And, no, we are not poor either.

Wrong Clare 😊

Sorry about that. Must have picked the wrong one when I was trying to tag.

Young children love to share! I've been trying to get mine in to separate rooms, they refuse and say they like sharing bc if they wake up
Scared they feel comfort and able to go back to sleep as they can see their sibling in the room.
They also love talking to each other at bedtime and then fall asleep something they can't do if they were in separate rooms. I feel like they have a stronger bond due to this.

Defo not a sign of poverty. In ur circumstances it would be unfair for one child to have a box room whilst the other has a huge room, as they grow older they will resent you for that and they will bicker. Ignore ur friend unless she's going to contribute towards ur mortgage, it's none of her business

@WhingeInTheWillows so someone owning a home outright/mortgage worth close to the millions can claim poverty just bc they have 3 children sharing?