When you went to college did you lose your bedroom?

[seaglass]

And did it hurt your feelings or make you feel unwanted?

My daughter will be going to college not this fall but next. I was planning to let my son have her bedroom since it is 2X the size of his, though I didn't say anything to either of them about this.

My son mentioned it to my daughter this weekend and she was highly offended and does not want to give up her room and take my son's.

Now, I've seen a lot of movies with a grown kid coming home to visit and her/his room is preserved exactly how s/he left it - but I thought this was only in movies.

Am I a mean mom?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. No, I kept my bedroom.

I was the eldest and I have three brothers. My room stayed the way it always was until they sold the house. Except for a bigger bed and a crib in the corner.

[seaglass]

4. Same with me. My poor 3 brothers had to share one bedroom

because we only had a 3 bdrm house.

Mine stayed the same until I got married, now it's a computer room.

[Midlodemocrat]

9. I always wanted to return to my childhood home with my children

but my dad got sick and they had to sell the house. We are planning to keep this one so that my kids can do that. *fingers crossed*

I always felt as though I missed out on something really special, and would like to give that to my kids.

[JVS]

2. Tell your daughter to suck it up! Keeping your son in a room half the...

size to honor her memory is not right at all. She'll have the small room for visits which is good enough. If she feels entitled to a room that large being kept for her even if she's gone most of the time, maybe you should switch her to the small room now so that she can have a dose of reality.

When I went to college, my room went to my mother because my father had a colostomy and didn't want her to sleep next to him anymore lest the bag rupture. When I visited home, I had to sleep in my brother's old room

[kay1864]

3. Would she have your son's bedroom when she comes home on break?

If so, then it seems only fair for him to have the larger bedroom. Why waste the extra space for only 3 months out of the year?

[seaglass]

7. Yes she would. And in addition, most nights she sleeps in the

den which she would still be able to do.

I think it really isn't the size of the bedroom but more that she's feeling like she's being exorcised from the family.:-(

[kay1864]

5. Waitaminit--NEXT fall?

And this is coming up now?

Tell them they're both keeping their bedrooms for now. Don't even discuss it until next summer. Sheesh.

[seaglass]

11. My son brought it up, I wasn't intending to discuss it now and

we didn't really discuss it, kind of just let it drop because it is too soon. But I won't wait until next summer, I want her to have plenty of time to prepare for it - maybe once she gets accepted to college.

[kay1864]

19. I guess my point was that

she might have a different perspective when she's excited about going off to college in a couple of months (plus she'll be a year older).

[skygazer]

6. Time to grow up and fly free, IMO

Unless a family has unlimited space and funds, the idea of keeping a kid's room like a shrine always seemed absurd to me. I think you should have said something to you daughter before this because now it seems to her like some sort of insidious plot to erase her presence from the household! But I'd talk to her now and simply point out that she's growing up, will be at the house less often and will have other places to call her own.

As for me, I left home at 17 and my sheets were still warm from my body when my father turned my room into a guest room.

[seaglass]

12. Yes I asked my daughter if she wanted me to preserve her

room if she thought I should just shellac over all the clothes on the floor - to keep it realistic looking :-) At least she laughed at that.

[realisticphish]

8. no

because our house only had two bedrooms, and i shared with my sister :shrug:

So, looking at it theoretically, I would indeed be offended if my parents, say, turned my room into a den, or something like that. But I don't see switching rooms so your sibling has the larger one as a big deal

[LaraMN]

10. After the first year or so when it became apparent that I was not moving

back, yes. My little sister took it over. I like her, so I didn't mind. :-)

[crispini]

13. Yes and yes, but I got over it.

It's very unsettling and symbolic. "I no longer have this space in this family that was mine." And it's got nothing to do with whether or not they are welcome to come back (I was) or even if they return to the nest in a few years (I did). It's got a lot to do with saying goodbye to high school, to the ONLY safe space, the repository of their hopes and dreams, the place where you lay in bed and listened to your records and hugged your journal to your chest and talked on the phone for hours and read and you had YOUR posters on the wall and YOUR childhood furniture and YOUR rug on the floor. Your room, as a teenager, was often the ONLY place you felt comfortable, the place you could close the door, shut out the world, and dream, that indescribable special place where you defined yourself, were yourself, felt comfortable in your skin.

Damn! Now I want my old room back! LOL!

She'll get over it. But it IS a big deal to her.

[seaglass]

15. I can understand that definitely because that's the way I felt

about my room.

I still remember the time when my mom came in my room and I had a fire going on the floor (it was linoleum) and I was burning notes from my friends - she was so mad and I thought it was no big deal. Lots of memories attached to that room.:-)

[Sugar Smack]

14. Yes, but the change was very gradual.

Now it's my father's library for all his German, Icelandic, Norwegian & Linguistics books. And there's the bed and dresser for visitors. I kind of like it, actually.:)

[begin_within]

16. My stepmother threw away everything, including "Exile On Main Street" with

all the original postcards, etc. All of my possessions, she decided to just throw in the trash.

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. If she's paying a portion of the mortgage to keep said bedroom, I'd think

about it. If she's not, give it to your son to use. I wouldn't get rid of any of her "stuff", just move it. You are not a mean mom. I just threw away half my kid's life in the form of cleaning her room. :hi:

[Left Is Write]

18. There were five kids in my family. We had four bedrooms.

When two older sisters went to college, I got to have their room (I was sharing with my little sister; why let a room sit empty in that case?). When they came home for the summer, they naturally wanted their room back. As a 15-year-old, I was not interested in sharing with my little sister again, so my parents turned our basement family room into a master bedroom and gave me THEIR bedroom. I eventually moved back into the room that was my sisters' and stayed there.

(Also, many years earlier, when I was still the youngest, I had the room that eventually became my brother's. So in the course of all the years we lived there, at one point or another, I had every bedroom in the house.)

[av8rdave]

20. I kept mine, for a couple of years anyway

My son started college last fall. At the orientations, that was one thing I heard from several parents was to leave the room "his" or "hers" for the first year or so.

I think it helped me, in that for the first year of college I felt that I was just away from home, not having left it permanently (even though that's how it worked out). After the first year, it really wasn't important to me anymore. I think by then your college student has made the mental jump to independence.

[hunter]

21. I never had my own room.

Too many siblings.

My parents turned our rooms into guest rooms and decorated accordingly just as fast as they could. All our stuff went into boxes, and all our beat up old furniture was out of there.

It was a good feeling, actually, like we were being recognized as adults.

[jobycom]

22. I didn't lose it, I knew where it was, but every time I came home there

was someone else living in it. (Yes I stole that line from a comedian, and I don't know which one!)

Seriously, my stuff was moved out before they finished waving at my departing car, and I went to college half an hour from my house. Didn't bother me, I saw it as a sign that I had moved on.

[huskerlaw]

23. No, I didn't lose my room,

but I was the youngest child and our house had 5 bedrooms. Also, I went to college an hour away from home, so I came back more than once a year.

I did lose it eventually though...and honestly, I don't even remember when, but now it's a playroom for the grandkids. When I go home, I sleep in the guest room which used to belong to my sister.

Although, now that I think about it, my 2 oldest sisters (I have 3) lost their bedrooms when they moved out. They had the 2 bedrooms in the basement (along with their own bathroom and living room)and my other sister and I, who were young teenagers at the time, desperately wanted our own space. I don't think they were very upset about it.

[Rosie1223]

24. My room was converted but,

my husband's room is still as he left it 30 years ago. Same bowling trophys on the shelf and everything. I guess my mother-in-law is still hoping her little boy will leave me and move back home.

[Mutley]

25. No, my parents moved to another state when I went to college.

:P

[alarimer]

26. When I went to college, my parents moved!

No they actually moved the day after I graduated high school. I had a rooom in the new house but it was never the same.

[Roon]

27. I was the last kid to leave our five bedroom house

so my Mother moved out quickly after I was gone. Didn't blame her one bit.

[trackfan]

28. I lived at home and commuted to college.

[bigwillq]

29. No

:bounce: