Embarrassed about our small house!

[Mumt02]

We moved into this rental property in 2018 whilst I was pregnant with my first son, it was the only thing we could afford in this area and we wanted to stay on the area. It’s a small 2 bed house. Not much of a garden, and downstairs is completely open plan living room, dining room and kitchen.

my son is in year 1 and has a lovely little group of friends, we haven’t had anyone over yet as we have been round to his friends houses and they are lovely and big, nice big gardens and just alot bigger than ours! So I’ve been a bit reluctant to invite anyone round.

I bit the bullet and said one of his friends can come tonight, he walked in the house and said “ this house is weird, it’s so small”
and honestly I can’t stop thinking about it.

yes our house is small, but it’s clean and tidy! They both had a great time. But I’ve been so worried what he’s going to say to his parents when he gets home! They’ve never been in our home they’ve just knocked on the door but I’m just so embarrassed and I don’t know why!

moving isnt an option at the moment otherwise I’d be out of here like a flash!!!!!

Ah sorry that's made you feel self conscious OP but seriously the other parents (at least the normal ones) won't care.

I have a child in reception with no filter who's comments have embarrassed me a number of times. Don't worry OP I doubt the kid will even mention it to their parents (getting info from my little boy about his friends is like extracting haemoglobin from rock) and if they do I'm 99% sure, (unless the parents are sociopaths) that they'll tell their kid houses come in all shapes and sizes and that all that matters is if there's love in a house.

We just moved from a 2 bed into a much bigger house, I hope my little boy remembers his first house and how much he loved it enough that he won't pass comment on other childrens houses.

Ah OP, I live in a two bed, and my teenagers have the bedrooms. When their friends visit they walk straight from the street into a room which is our hallway, living room, home office and my bedroom (bed tucked behind a screen). The whole lot is furnished by junk shops and covered in valueless oil paintings.

Funnily enough, they have very different friends, despite going to the same school. Dd1's friends, who all live in big houses, say they love our home because it's 'arty and quirky'. Dd2's friends, who very much come from the other side of the tracks, say our home is 'posh' (because of the art??)

It's all in the eye of the beholder and none of it matters. You have given your children a home that is clean and dry and safe. Hold your head up high!

Well, that was rude! I agree with previous suggestions of owning it, and take pride in your home; the size really is not the important thing. I grew up in a small house, I didn’t even notice it at the time, but it was the house where my friends were welcome and where we spent the most time. You have a home, not a house, and not everyone can say that.

hmm we are the ones in the small flat with 2 kids and honestly I’ve never once thought to feel embarrassed by it. I’ve had little 4 year olds say oh my house is much bigger and my own daughter says Nana’s house it much bigger than our house but she likes ours better cus she doesn’t need to come downstairs if she’s forgets her water bottle and mammy and daddy are closer if she needs us she can come in to us in the living room and doesn’t need to shout

First, kids have no filter and they just blurt out anything.

Second, they only know what they have around them. It is GOOD for them and their development to have different experienses. Just put a positive spin on what you have and they will also think positive about it.

Kids are weird and rude and have no filter (my own included, probably – she’d be in trouble if I caught her saying something like that).

DD’s Y1 friend is obsessed that our kitchen is “smaller and weirder” than his. He also likes ask “why is your house all ripped up?” Answer: because it’s a fixer-upper I can’t afford to fix.

I’m embarrassed by the four different types of wrinkled carpet in the hallway and the peeling woodchip, but not enough to not invite people over. No adult has commented and I don’t care what small children think, they’ve got blancmange for brains and don’t know what a mortgage is.

Little kids have no filter OP and they also have very little life experience, so the house they live in is 'normal' and anything that is bigger or smaller than that is therefore 'big' or 'small'. I'm sure if that DC's parents had heard what they said they'd have been utterly mortified! But please give it no thought. Small DC say all kinds of nonsense. They believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy FGS!

Anyone who would judge you or your child for the size of your house should be embarrassed!

Smaller house = smaller mortgage and smaller heating bills = more disposable income.
Smaller house = quicker cleaning.

We live in a large house but it's tall, so open plan downstairs and multiple floors. This leaves just one area for children to play downstairs which is shared space (so no separate play room). I worry that DC's friends can't let loose downstairs or in the small garden as they can at other houses but no one seems to care and they actually love coming here. That probably means no one is bothered by your house.

When I was 11 I asked 'where's the other room' at a friend's house. I still think about how mortifying it was over 20 years later. Friends house was small, but it was also the first time I had been in a house with an integrated garage, which I hadn't noticed on the way in due to the position of the porch. I simply couldn't understand how there wasn't another room downstairs as otherwise what was her bedroom above?!

Friendship group grew up in everything from a 1 bed flat to a 6 bed old school house. We hung out at my friend's small house due to the welcoming attitude of the family, not the house itself. As adults, we all live in a huge variety of homes ourselves, with zero judgement.

Bravo,

It's not nonsense though, is it. OPs house IS small. He was factuallly correct.

But he's five, so it doesn't mean anything. This is a out OP s self consciousness, not a very young child being factual.

I grew up in large 5 bed high ceiling house of character, funnily enough I was so jealous of my friend who had a v small wimpy beige box , I still hanker after that new build perfect estate

seriously it is ridiculous to be ashamed of your house , you can’t change it so just start inviting people round and in the kindest way, get over yourself

We dropped our little one off to a playdate in a high rise flat and she wished she could live in one of those as she loves it and it's way better than our house! And it probably is... The mum was apologising saying it's so small etc and I had to stop her as we and our little one just do not care it's about the person themselves.

Honestly we have friends who live in all different types of houses and could not give a sh*t and neither could our little one.

Children do comment but I don't think they mean what they say weird = different. In our last flat, the close was quite scary and horrible as it was old and Victorian and the amount of kids who came to our house saying it was a haunted house was unreal.

Sorry you feel this way but please don't as it can consume you and it's not fair be proud of what you've got!! Xx

That kid was just rude if it was an actual house and not an apartment or a trailer most kids won't think it's small. Until recently we lived in a one bed apartment and slept on the sofa DC had the bedroom. No one said anything negative

Like other PPs have said if it works for you then there is no problem. It will act like a filter, the friends you want are the ones that don't care about material things and what to spend time with you or your kid. Also, think about how irrelevant that is in the big scheme of things. Your child is growing up in a loving home and so many don't ! Be proud mama x

Look up the poem 'Love grows best in little houses' I printed it out and have it framed in our own small house and it definitely reflects how close we all are as a family. I do think that having a smaller house has contributed to how much time we spend together in the same room and even though we are ready to move on now, we have so many huge memories within this small space.

My child has a best friend who has been over to our (large) house many times. They’ve never once been invited back to this friend’s house and I know it’s because they are conscious that their houses are smaller - their child told my child that they’ve overheard their parents talking about this. It makes me so sad for everyone. I don’t care what kind of house people live in, I just care about what kind of people they are. Please don’t worry, the parents don’t care about your house and the kids just want to have fun!

Unless you’re King Charles, then everyone in the country will have someone who has a bigger house than them.

I live in a street with beautiful detached sandstone villas, unfortunately I don’t live in one of those. However, as the years have gone by, the amount of maintenance goes into a large homes and gardens is an upkeep that to me, isn’t worth it.

So enjoy that having a smaller home means you can keep on top of the cleaning and you aren’t forking out for lots of maintenance.

We have a small weird old house. We haven't redecorated in years, the kitchen and bathroom are original, not in a good way!

When we first moved in we thought we'd update the whole house, but as time has gone on we thought we'd move and didn't want to spend the money. And so the longer we left it to do anything the harder it became.

So now we have a very dated, clean but shabby house that is our home.

Apparently our kitchen has it's own persona amongst our adult DCs and their friends, years of coming back here after a night out has given it an other worldly, trippy quality I'm told 😅

At some point you have to accept where you are.

I spent years being embarrassed about the house, but now both my kids have said they never were embarrassed as kids, they didn't notice or care.

Kids say stuff, they are curious.

Young children are observant and just say what they are thinking!! So yes your house is smaller than his - but it is part of the learning journey and he needs to learn about differences. He probably also noticed that your son has a lovely bedroom with everything he needs! And maybe has some cool toys? So try not to worry.

If this had come from an adult their comment/observation would be borderline rude/insensitive. (and that's being generous)

However it came from a child - it's just an innocent unfiltered statement. Just own it, put it in the back burner of memories.

Continue to ask friends round, enjoy them all playing together.

My cousin's children never had friends round. They never felt able. Their house is way beyond the help of Stacey Solomon. Think hoarding + builders' rubble + empties. A sad situation all round.

You might feel your house is small but a warm welcome trumps size.

Small children only have no filter and 'say all kinds of nonsense' if they are not brought up properly, if there is no proper parenting. 'No filter' children make comments like 'she is fat', 'he is stupid', 'this house is small', 'they are weird' only if such comments are made by their parents at home or if the children are not pulled up by their parents about it the first time they say it.

We had lovely children no-filter as guests - they were truly lovely and they asked normal things like 'where is your dog and your cat' - thinking that everyone has a dog and a cat - genuine, normal question. (We did not have a dog at that time). Why is there a sticker on your door? Oh, who painted the cupboard? (accident). You can easily tell if a child has a child-like genuine no-filter or just parroting his parents judgements about sizes of houses, etc.

Children just say things- I'm quite messy person but one day I had spent ages cleaning- it was really tidy and one of my sons little friends had popped in and kept saying you have a messy house, a messy smelly house (it's absolutely not smelly haha). I think they just comment on anything different- her mums a nurse and I think her house is spotless so to her ours probably did look messy.

OP kids just say shit like this, DS had a friend round who lived in our estate in the exact same style of house and still said it was much smaller than his! He also criticised the size of our TV, but did compliment our paint colour (he was 7 at the time). You can’t take what kids say to heart.