Just buy a 5 bed......

[InBedBy10]

.......This was said repeatedly on another thread, where the OP was trying to figure out bedroom situations with kids and step kids.

Am I the only one who thinks Mumsnet is breathtakingly out of touch? Most people I know have struggled to get a basic 3 bed. Alot cant even get that. Casually telling someone to "just buy a 5 bed" , like its so easy is down right moronic in my view. The housing crisis is well publicised. You cant be that stupid!

You're taking a very simplistic view that houses prices are simply banded according to the number of bedrooms, for example that a 4 bedroom house costs 300k to 400k and a five bedroomed house costs over 400k and there is no overlap in price.
But the housing markert isn't like this, house price are dependent on other factors like location and whether the property needs work doing.
Someone who can afford a 4 bedroom, nicely finished house in a desirable area perhaps could also afford a 5 bedroom house that needed work doing or in a less desirable area.

Mumsnet can be very unrealistic when it comes to house size generally. You see it on the ‘is my house big enough for a second/third child?’ threads where the OP posts a floor-plan of their perfectly normal family-size home and 90% posters are horrified she even had any children. I will always remember one comment of ‘you essentially need 2 lounges when you have teens’ Also comments of ‘a family of 4 would struggle in anything less than 2000 square ft’ It just doesn’t align with the reality I see of normal family homes.

Also people clutching their pearls at a child who has gone off to uni not having their own room kept for them. My room was nabbed by one of my sisters who had previously been sharing the minute I went to uni!

Surely the answer is don't be so bloody selfish to prioritise your relationship over your kids and insist on blending households if you can't afford somewhere big enough?

But in this situation the OP and her partner were selling 2 houses to buy one. It wasn't unreasonable to suggest that they look for separate rooms for all kids given the age/sex configuration. They might have to make other compromises, but reasonable to think if they can afford 2 medium houses they might afford 1 very large one.

Agree that mumsnet is often out of touch on financial/resource issues, though.

Also people clutching their pearls at a child who has gone off to uni not having their own room kept for them. My room was nabbed by one of my sisters who had previously been sharing the minute I went to uni!

Same but I didn't come back from uni to living with 2 new boys and not having any privacy, did you?

I agree with this. Children should not be forced to share their home with other children because of the wants of their parents.

It isn't really clutching pearls it's stating that uni is temporary and kids like to have their own room when they come home. If other bio family kids are in the house like in your situation it's a bit different but many are forced into these sharing their homes with another family thing with little consideration.

I don't think the op has even asked any of the dc what they think room wise.

Yes sharing rooms is necessary sometimes, if that’s the way it’s always been between siblings.

This is a very different scenario where they’re choosing to downgrade their children’s quality of life and wellbeing that comes from having their own private space, purely because they want to live together. They’re putting their selfish wants ahead of their own children’s needs.
They’re not toddlers or preschoolers who can much more easily adapt to a big life change. They should either find a big enough house or wait until they don’t have the wellbeing of four teenagers to consider.

The point is that the OP was asking how hers and her DP’s 4 children could share 3 rooms. Her DCs are a long way apart in age and different sexes, so it was obviously “how can I convince my DP that his 2 DSs should share a room when at the moment they don’t”. It’s not fair on the children that they have to downsize their personal space to allow OP and the DP to live together- nothing is going to cause resentment in a blended family more than unfairness between the children. 5 beds (or 4 with a study) was the only sensible option with unrelated children of those ages.

And it isn’t impossible, it just may have meant looking further afield, or buying a fixer upper, or a slightly larger mortgage. All perfectly reasonable suggestions. I’m in the same boat, trying to find a house to accommodate my DCs and having to go further than I’d like to get something big enough. That’s just house buying.

I wouldn’t recommend a bigger house, I’d recommend not “blending your family” until the kids have moved out. Just don’t do it. Does it ever really “work” for the kids?

Hmm well.

You say the suggestion of "just buy a 5 bed" is moronic.

I'd say it's moronic to set up a living situation by blending families when you can't house all of the poor kids involved. Just don't do it - or all of those kids will live uncomfortably and unhappily. The kids are a higher priority than a new relationship.

So no, I don't think the responses were out of touch at all. If the person can't afford the 5 bed, then they shouldn't blend families - for the welfare of their own DC.

I get your point generally, but on that thread frankly if they could afford to buy a 4 bed, then the chances are they could afford to buy a 5 bed if they compromised on something else (eg location, size of rooms, number of reception rooms, garden etc). The fact that they were determined to buy a 4 bed and cause havoc with their kids was the issue. Stay in the 2 x 3 beds for a few more years, or suck it up and buy the house their family situation requires. The parents were being selfish.

I've just checked one poscode in my area.

3 bed houses are advertised starting from £350k

5 bed houses are advertised starting from £500k.

There will be some differences in size, condition etc which are reflected in the price but you could easily sell two 3 bed houses for £700k and buy a very nice 5 bed for £600k.

Telling someone who only has one 3 bed house worth £350k to just buy a 5 bed at £600k would obviously be silly but thts not what happened in the thread the OP is specifically referring to.

But why should the 2 new boys have to share to accommodate someone who spends less time in the house than them, when they don’t currently?

The issue is that the OP was trying (understandably) to protect her DC rooms to the detriment of her DP children who are there more.

Oh there you are then.
How rooted in reality does a suggestion have to be before it becomes unhelpful? Why stop at buying a 5 bed you can't afford, why not go for a mansion?? Or suggesting OP gives one of the kids up for adoption so everyone has their own rooms?

"I'm sick of my commute to work"
"Have you considered growing wings and learning to fly?"

Op I commented on that thread saying exactly the same.

The other thing you see often are threads about bad neighbours where people say "what do you expect in a terraced house, if you want peace and quiet buy a detached/live in the countryside."

Great, never thought of that!

The issue is people make decisions that are impactful and often don’t look ahead enough.

Obviously stuff can just happen, we have an ill relative that needed support this year and messed up our holiday plans.

I am fully aware that everyone’s financial position has been arrived at by both macro and micro economics, accident and design and by the heart.

Suggestions are just that I would fathom you are annoyed because your own financial situation isn’t easy. How you arrived at your economic place in society is no one’s business but your own. you may have a perfect grasp on how it happened or you may be someone who won’t admit their own part.

It’s probably not a popular opinion and a realise situations can change, but if when planning a family … the size of house you can afford should be a pretty major factor in that decision. You says a bedroom is a luxury… in some countries perhaps or as a temporary solution, but not as a long term one. What happens when it comes to exams and there is no safe space away from a chaotic house to study ?

The person combining families should get a house that was suitable before doing that. Surely kids come before a relationship.

In the circumstance so that OP, though, it wasn't an unreasonable or unrealistic suggestion.

I’d think that if you’ve choose someone who already had kids, and then you choose to go on and have more kids that you must have the funds to house all the children without causing upset and drama over room splitting.
If you’e not got the money for to house them then why would you have more kids?

If it’s a blending two families situation then you simply don’t blend if you cannot afford a house which suits all the children’s needs. Your need as an adult to move in with your boyfriend does not trump your kids needs. So you don’t disadvantage them. If you can’t afford a big enough house for everyone then you don’t move in together.

The point people were making in that thread was those children were being expected to make sacrifices for the adults choices!

far too many kids messed up by selfish adults!

The thing is, most of us have been on Mumsnet long enough to know that these blended families living in too small accommodation end up with the SM on here complaining that she walked in on her teen SS having sex with his girlfriend in the living room at midnight and should she throw him out? Before explaining that the SS has to sleep in the open plan lounge as he doesn’t have his own bedroom and in fact has never had one in their house; the sofa is his bed.

In the post you’re referring to, I think most responses were along the lines of “if selling your two 3 bed houses, where each SC has their own room, isn’t enough to buy you a 5 bed house, then this isn’t the right time to move in together.” Which I think is reasonable.

Yes. Also “time for DD/S to move out”. I’m in my late 20s living with a parent. I cannot afford to. Many people on here don’t understand true poverty.

If they could afford a bigger house, wouldn't they be looking for a bigger house?

@Loadsapandas I'm not sure why you replied that to my post. 😆