Is siblings sharing rooms a case of parental abuse?

[catherine]

In this interesting article in The Atlantic the author asks the question "Why Do So Many Parents Think Kids Need Their Own Rooms?" With housing "requirements" expanding from aspirational to necessary, one of those "necessaries" seems to be kids each having their own room.

In fact, one of the commenters in the article said that they almost lost custody of their children because they couldn't give them their own rooms. Is that crazy?

What has been your experience, either as parents or as siblings? Did you have to share a room? Do you think it was good for you or bad for you?

It seems like a first-world problem to me. My four kids shared rooms, and I remember the smile I got every time I went upstairs to go to bed and heard my two boys whispering and laughing with their lights out. Not only that, but we also had only one full bath for the six of us. If that commenter risked losing custody, DH and I would probably be jailed for making the kids get up at 5:30 to start the line for the bathroom.

Thoughts?

[iris lilies]

About the poster who said they almost lost their children to CPS, could they have been housing opposite sex children at an advanced age in the same room?

the family across the street has four girls. They have a nice house and two professional parents. The girls do not get their own room, they double up, two to a room.

[bae]

I know families here who live in one room yurts.

I know families in New Mexico/Arizona/Utah who live in single-room homes.

I've stayed with families in the Arctic who all live in a single room, family and guests.

I lived for several months as a teenager in a teepee with multiple families in the teepee.

Is it child abuse not to live a Leave-it-to-Beaver middle-class American lifestyle? (Actually, if I recall, Wally and Beaver shared a bedroom in that show...)

[iris lilies]

I know families here who live in one room yurts.

I know families in New Mexico/Arizona/Utah who live in single-room homes.

I've stayed with families in the Arctic who all live in a single room, family and guests.

I lived for several months as a teenager in a teepee with multiple families in the teepee.

Is it child abuse not to live a Leave-it-to-Beaver middle-class American lifestyle? (Actually, if I recall, Wally and Beaver shared a bedroom in that show...)

of course, we all know that happens across the world and even in our own childhood. it was hardly standard for every child to have their own room in my youth.

I find it hard to believe this is this is a standard of social workers, that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t believe it.

[Rogar]

That's just silly. I shared the same bed room with my big brother for years. His tickling and other big brother tortures were a little inhumane, though. Not to mention the monster that lived in the closet. I suppose when kids get into their teens a room with some privacy would be ideal, but hardly necessary.

[happystuff]

There were many of us so there were 2 and 3 to a bedroom. I have experienced that there was a requirement for adoption that, once kids reached a certain age, there had to be a bedroom per sex. For example, when infants, a boy and girl could share a room, but then each had to have their own room as they got older. It was fine for more than one boy or more than one girl to share a bedroom, but had to be the same sex.

[ToomuchStuff]

Mom was an only child, so there was her and my grandparents. Then we has some long time customers, whose parents were going to have their 60th wedding anniversary at the restaurant, when one parent died the week before. I went to the estate sale and picked up some old oiler cans. They had a two bedroom house, that they added onto, to make it a useable *but not true*, three bedroom house. Nine people in the same size house my mom grew up in (around 1000 square feet). Five boys, two girls, and parents.

[Klunick]

My two boys shared a room for a few years until we got our basement finished and my husband moved his "office" downstairs. They seemed to enjoy it. We had a rule where they couldn't leave their room until a parent came to get them unless they had to use the bathroom of course. They would talk and play in their room for hours until it was time to get up in the morning.