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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Older teens sharing a bedroom?

35 replies

nerfqueen · 13/06/2017 21:30

Does anyone have older teens sharing a room?

Bit of background info. I have 2 daughters aged 16 and 19. I split with their dad about 12 years ago. Moved into a 3 bed private rented home so they had their own room. I remarried 9 years ago and we now have a 6 yr old son. Still in the same house as cannot afford to move to somewhere bigger.

Son was in main bedroom with us for 4 years until eldest went to uni. When she went we had a bedroom reshuffle. It seemed a bit daft to have a bedroom empty for two thirds of the year so moved son into smallest room and youngest daughter into eldest daughters room which they would share when she was home from uni.

Eldest understood why we were doing this but at the same time was not happy about having to share. So what we have done up until now is that she gets sons room when she returns and he shares the main room with us. However he is now too big to co sleep with two of us so I end up on a mattress on the living room floor for a few weeks.

Eldest daughter is just finishing 2nd year at uni and feels she may have failed her exams and might need to take a year out. She knows she is welcome home but would have to share with her sister as the above scenario is not viable for a year. She is not impressed.

I understand why obviously. She has had her own space for the last two years at uni and having to share is going to be a totally different experience.

I just wish she could see it from my point of view, that we don't want to have it this way either but circumstances are as they are. I work full time, my husband part time due to health issues. Private rent is huge and we can't afford anywhere bigger.

Anyone have older teens sharing? Does it work?

OP posts:

anditwasallgoingsowell · 13/06/2017 22:02

Could you buy a sofa bed so you and dh have the lounge? They can have TVs in their bedrooms and you could set a rule about what time everyone needs to be upstairs by? Not ideal maybe but possibly better than teen arguments.

NerrSnerr · 13/06/2017 22:06

She'll have to share, her other option is getting a full time job in her uni town and living in a house share with her friends there. I know a few people who did that. She doesn't have to move back home if the accommodation isn't to her standards.

YorkshireTree · 13/06/2017 22:09

She is an adult and can get a job and houseshare if she must have her own room.

Mothervulva · 13/06/2017 22:20

She is an adult and can get a job and houseshare if she must have her own room.

This. No way would I be going on a sofa bed. She needs 'to check her privilege!'

Calyrical · 13/06/2017 22:21

A very young adult. I would go with the sofa bed.

Deemail · 13/06/2017 22:23

Do not put yourselves on a sofa bed or continue sleeping on a mattress.
Your dd is very entitled if she thinks it's ok for 3 people to share a room so she can have one to herself, she should be ashamed of herself.

minnymoobear · 13/06/2017 22:25

She should suck it up! Keep your bed and give her a sofabed or mattress with her Dsis

DermotTheSprog · 13/06/2017 22:27

How many posters lived in their own shared rented accommodation from the age of 18 or younger? More than didn't I am sure. I think you'd be crazy to put yourselves out of your own room so your 19 didn't have to share with her sister. Crazy!

MrsELM21 · 13/06/2017 22:27

She needs to get on with the sharing I'm afraid, you can't give up your bedroom, nor should you share with your son, if she goes to uni she's old enough to either put up with it or find somewhere for herself

WeeMcBeastie · 13/06/2017 22:41

I was going to start my own post but found this! I am in a similar situation, I got divorced a year ago, had to sell my house and have been in rented accommodation since then. Both DDs (18 and 17) live with me full time. I am now in the process of buying a brand new house but it only has 2 bedrooms. I can't afford anything of the same standard with 3 bedrooms as a single parent and with my DDs being older I don't see the point of buying to downside in a few years when they have left home. Eldest DD is going to uni this year and the youngest next year. My eldest had a bit of a rant tonight about how she didn't want to share with her sister because she'd thought about it. I just wanted to check I wasn't being unreasonable but from the responses on here I don't think I am!

Floralnomad · 13/06/2017 22:48

Well she has a choice and that is share with her sister or move out .

Floralnomad · 13/06/2017 22:52

wee in your situation is it possible to split one of the bedrooms so they get a small room each and you still get a room that's functional for you ?

MyOtherProfile · 13/06/2017 23:34

What's wrong with sharing? I would definitely not sleep in the lounge so she can have her own room.

Henrythehoover · 13/06/2017 23:38

I shared with my sister until I was 20 and she was 18. It's something you just have to do until you get your own place there is no way my parents would have slept on a sofa bed

Cookingongas · 13/06/2017 23:53

Surely the mattress is for her?! As the non permanent resident?! There is a comfortable option for her. The mattress you've been using becomes hers? Surely at 20 she understands that husbands and wives share beds? And don't just take a break from that for a year? Is she particularly immature or lacking in social norms? If not-she's selfish and ridiculous. Her sister shouldn't have to share with her. Her brother shouldn't have to give his room to her. Her mother shouldn't have to abandon the marital bed for her. She should be sleeping on the mattress in the living room as she is the part time resident!

HeddaGarbled · 14/06/2017 00:07

Don't forget about the younger girl in all this. She'll have got used to having her own room too.

They will have to share, it's clearly the most sensible option.

I don't quite see the follow on from failed her exams to taking a year out. She may have the opportunity to retake but if she's failed spectacularly, she'll have to repeat the year or give up altogether. What does a year out achieve?

GlitterGlassEye · 14/06/2017 00:12

Seriously? I have 3 dc and when the oldest leaves for uni the younger dc are having a bedroom each. The oldest is a boy and the other dc are girls. He won't have a right over a bedroom that is only partially used when 2dc are sharing.

It is also not your fault she may be failing, is it?

You can't have it all ways.

Petalbird · 14/06/2017 06:45

She can sleep in the front room like guests normally do until she is ready to find her own place again. Don't make her share it's not fair on the younger one until she gets to the age where she has the choice to move out

hellokittymania · 14/06/2017 07:03

I was at a residential school so I shared a room until I was 17, we had no choice. Do you students in residential halls in the UK at university have to share a room? You usually do in the US and other places as well.

Ficklemarket · 14/06/2017 07:24

I shared with dsis until my sister left. She shared with me until she got a place of her own. When we visited at the same time we shared. Into our 50s.
Sharing is normal and reasonable.

WeeMcBeastie · 14/06/2017 07:26

My DD even suggested that I should buy an older, cheaper house with 3 bedrooms! I'm currently renting a Victorian terraced house, it has a major damp problem, no garden and I often have to park several streets away just to get a space. Maintenance from her father stops soon too so I'll be worse off and can't afford to stay in my current rental house. I tried explaining to her that I don't want to be stuck with a similar property in a worse area (all that I can afford) just so she can have a bedroom for a few weeks of the year. She'll have her own bed in the room with her sister but I think I'll compromise with a sofa bed and by also putting sky TV in their bedroom. It's a funny age, one minute they surprise you with their maturity and the next they behave like a 12 year old again. Thanks for the comments and sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread!

Calyrical · 14/06/2017 07:59

Being a young adult is frightening. I don't think I have to tell anyone you don't magically wake up aged 18 an adult, able to take on the world.

When I was 17, my mother died, some four months before my eighteenth birthday. In the intervening four months my dad met, married and moved in another woman complete with her 16 year old son. She was also pregnant. It was made clear to me my home and room were mine for a matter of months only. The house went on the market and they bought a two bedroom. The arrangement, I was told, was that my stepbrother would have the second room until he turned 18 and then my infant sibling would have that room.

It was not, I suppose, the room or house that mattered.

But for some reason that was where my anger and distress focused. My old house was the last place I'd felt secure and it was being taken from me!

So I have huge amounts of sympathy for young people in theee sort of situations. From an adult perspective it's unreasonable. From her perspective, she's caught between a disappearing childhood, a tumultuous early adulthood, and is desperate for some security.

The funny thing is, when they have that security, they vanish on you. And that's as it should be.

coldflange · 14/06/2017 08:03

I say that the girls will have to share.

How is it fair for you and your DH to sleep in the lounge? Or for DS who lives there full time to have to give up his room?

She is 19 and has managed to live independently at university so far.

If she doesn't want to share with her sister then she gets the sofa bed in the lounge.

rizlett · 14/06/2017 08:04

Might you be able to swap rooms with your dd if you have the largest double - so that they have a bit more room on account of having two separate beds in there.

coldflange · 14/06/2017 08:05

We currently have a 4 bed house.

The DSC no longer stay over, DS is away at Uni - so we have 3 empty unused bedrooms. We plan to downsize soon to a 3 bed house. That means that in the event that any/all of our 3 adult children want to stay then they may have to share a room. That's life.

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