Jeez now I can’t even count:
but didn’t have any regulatory power over us 3
but didn’t have any regulatory power over us 4
Let’s see - I’m the oldest of 5 kids. My childhood was spent in a 3-bedroom/1 bath house. I always shared a room with the sister who was born just after me. My brother and the next sister shared a room until the youngest sister was born. Then bro (9 y/o at the time) moved to a basement room by himself (lucky duck!!) and the two youngest shared the small bedroom.
My husband and his 2 brothers shared the same room for years. Granted, it was a fairly large, dormitory-type layout, but his folks didn’t see the need for individual rooms for the individual boys at that point. Once they were teens, I think they got their own spaces.
And my mom (going back lots of years) grew up in a 3 BR house with not only her parents and 3 sibs, but several uncles and cousins at various times. One took care of family, and if that meant you shared your bed with your sister because cousin Marsha was staying for a few months, that’s what you did.
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When I worked for DFCS in 1998, there were definite laws on opposite-sex siblings sharing a room- after one of them reached age six, they were to be separated. Whether these laws were enforced or not really depended on the caseworker and how significant the underlying problem with the family was. On more than one occasion I saw a caseworker whose evidence was otherwise pretty slim use the “there aren’t separate bedrooms” clause to keep kids in foster care long enough to gather additional information on the parents. Other caseworkers looked the other way if the parents were doing the best they could and just didn’t have the funds to get a bigger house. One of my classmates still works for DFCS- I can get cites in the next few days.
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As a community leader for a support board for stepmothers for over six years, I’ve seen more and more divorce papers specifying that opposite-sex siblings over the age of 4-6 (depends on the jurisdiction/judge/how petty the parents are) must have their own rooms in each home. This is becoming a huge issue for non-custodials, who are then required to always have the extra room or forfeit visitation. One of my friends is currently contesting this divorce clause due to financial hardship… I’m almost afraid to see where it goes.
As for number of family members in a house/same-sex siblings in a room, I haven’t seen anything legislating that. But like most of you, I know plenty of people who shared a room with (same and opposite sex) siblings growing up, and it wasn’t a big deal.
t-bonham, you’re only confirming my point: there is no regulation dealing with family members only. The OP was about family members.
My sister works for SRS here in VT, and we were just discussing these regulations this weekend.
I had not been aware of it, but there are SRS regulations that are as you state: no more than 2 in a bedroom, no mixed-sex siblings sharing a room after age 8. These regulations, obviously, are only for families under SRS …supervision? …care?
Anyway, it wouldn’t be enforced on some random person. It’s just a rule that is there to make sure that the people that they help get an adequate ammount of space when they help with housing.
If someone were to violate this, they wouldn’t be thrown in jail or anything, the agency would just try to help them find a bigger apartment.
“SRS” being . . . what?
The Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC) is a model code that is modified and adopted by the various states to govern, among other things, the construction and occupancy of various types of buildings. The amount of square footage required for a sleeping room, and the number, type, and location of required entrances and exits, fire alarms, etc. is covered. There certainly is a limit, and I just leafed through my copy of the VA USBC, but couldn’t find it right off.
It most certainly is regulated.
Social and Rehabilitative Services. You know, welfare and child services.
Sorry, I forgot that the initials vary from place to place.
OK, we’re still waiting for someone to quote a regulation that limits the number and/or sex of family members in one bedroom.
Remember, the OP said, “Now according to the Two Girls, it is unlawful for there to be more than two children to a room and it is also unlawful for a girl and a boy to share a room past the age of 8.”
When I was growing up my two sisters and I shared a room. It was a big room, so it was little cramped, but not uncomfortable or unsanitary. It seems like the size of the room would have to be an issue. I mean, I can understand how it wouldn’t be good to put three kids in a 10 square foot room, but what about a 20 square foot room?
I also know a family that has two boys and two girls sharing a room. The oldest girl is 16 and the youngest boy is 8 or 9. Once again, it is a rather large room. This doesn’t seem to adversly affect the children in any way (other then on the annoyance level.) When one is changing, then they just go into the bathroom.
I worked for child protective services in the early '90s, and while there were regulations regarding bedrooms and children of the opposite sex sharing them regarding foster families, they were only regarding foster families. There would never have been such a rule regarding non-foster families, because the city would then be required to find appropriate housing to avoid foster care placement. This does not mean that it was not considered a problem to have your children in living in substandard housing - just that the mere fact that more than a specified number of children shared a bedroom or that opposite sex siblings over a certain age sharing did not make the housing substandard in and of itself.
plnnr,
I’m sure the building codes you refer to do set out minimum requirements for a sleeping space. They probably do not set a maximum size for a sleeping space, and I don’t see how a building code can govern how the space is actually used by those living there. It seems to me that the building code would regulate the building and perhaps the marketing of the house or apartment - maybe it can’t be advertised as a three bedroom because the third " bedroom " doesn’t meet the standards. I suppose it could even regulate which apartments can be rented to families of a particular size- perhaps a landlord could be prohibited from renting a studio to more than two people. But I doubt very much that the building code requires that a landlord evict a couple from a from a studio when they have a child, or requires that a family sell their three bedroom house and move when they have a fifth child.
I meant 100 square feet or 400 square feet room
wow, I went away and did not come back expecting all these replies!
Like I said earlier, I am not real familiar with any law like that… I mean as long as there is enough room theoretically 10 children could share a room right?
I had a student who was one of 7 siblings. The kids had 2 rooms to use for bed. They had what they called the boys dorm room and the girls dorm room. The beds were set up something like when you go to camp . . all in a row.
They seemed to be a happy, close knit family and from what I have seen of the grown children, now, there were little ill affects.
The older kids each were asigned a younger kid to watch and help out. They all learned responsibility.
How do you fit 100 babies into a garbage can? BLENDER!
But seriously, might it be a fire code thing? something nebulous like “…so as not to obstruct expedient evacuation of …”