Don’t Give Away the Bedroom Too Soon

Tip #53 for growing families

It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it. — Peter Buffett

Quilt by Dorothy Gilbert. Photo credit: Author

Don’t give your child’s bedroom away. Not too soon anyway. Before my second oldest daughter went away to university she slept in a small cabin that was situated at the side of the gravel driveway on our two acre property. It was not fancy, but had a small downstairs area and a sleeping loft. Being away from the rest of the family was a boon to a seventeen year old. In late summer of that year she drove off into the sunset (actually it was in the morning) with her dad, heading for the north of our province where her campus accommodation awaited.

Weeks later her room was taken over by two of our older boys; we were in the process of adopting a sibling group of three to add to our already generously oversized family in a too small house and we needed the bedroom. As she describes it, the bed in her cabin was hardly cold before we gave it away.

That daughter was never to be offered her own room again. It’s one of my regrets.

The next spring when university was over for the year she asked where she would be sleeping when she came home and I suggested in her younger sister’s room…