On two TV shows that I watch, opposite-sex twins share the same bedroom. In one family (Young Sheldon), the twins are pre-pubescent, and the family isn’t exactly poor, but they obviously live paycheck to paycheck, and moving to a bigger house or building another bedroom are both off the table. In Black-ish, the twins are both comfortably into puberty (Diane getting her period was a plot point in a recent episode), the family is rich, and an older sister just moved out - yet Jack & Diane still share a room.
My question is: is this really a thing in real life, making opposite-sex siblings share a room? Obviously if money is an issue you sometimes just have to suck it up. Also obvious is the fact that putting siblings in the same room saves money on sets in the studio.
But if you have the room, and especially if your twins/siblings are into adolescence, what would drive you to keep them in the same room? I don’t get it.
Not a parent, but I shared a room with my brother until he was 11, and I was 8. I’m female. We lived in a 3 bedroom house, but my elderly Great-Aunt was living in the other room, and sharing with her would have been far worse. I think she’d originally moved in temporarily, before I was born.
By that point, social services were starting to make very disapproving noises about it. We moved house, and my Aunt had to move elsewhere, as she was needing more care than my parents were able to provide.
For most of human history it was inevitable. And in the US that was the case until 60 -70 years ago, generally speaking.
What is the concern? Incest? Putting them in different rooms won’t prevent that if they’re willing to engage in incest or if one is harassing the other. Worried that they’ll see each others hardware? Well, that’s going to happen sooner or later.
The ideal, imo, would be separate rooms but if it’s not possible then they’ll have to share. They may not like it but they’ll be fine.
My anecdote: I’ve lived in a room with my older sister until we were 11/12. This was in the seventies in Germany and wasn’t very unusual. We and our parents lived in a house with my paternal grandparents and a granduncle and his wife, there just wasn’t enough place for us to have our own rooms until the granduncle and his wife had died. It wasn’t much of a problem other than that my sister and I did fight a lot, which mellowed significantly after we got our own rooms. I think it was a good thing that it happened shortly before puberty set in: I guess else we probably would’ve killed each other.
My sister has a son and a daughter. They’ve shared the same room all their lives. They are both in their twenties now, and working and saving for their own apartments, but sharing a room is perfectly normal to them. As far as I know, they haven’t succumbed to the lure of incest.
We were a large family of sibs (8). We never shared rooms with opposite sexes. Me and my 2 sisters roomed together. The brothers had 2 rooms. That’s not to say we weren’t sometimes altogether. We had backyard camp outs and movie nights on the den floor. My Daddy had more problems with all the shoes, coats, toys, books and other accumulated kid stuff, than he did with living beings (pets included)! We were one large group of ‘Brady bunch gone bad’, no incest occurred that I know of. Mostly we were grossed out by each other. A lot of bodily functions for one house.
My brothers shared a room because they were boys and I was a girl. But due to our different sleep cycles, Ed would often end up in my room first thing in the morning until Jay woke up; Jay would set up camp in the living room after Ed had gone to bed. That’s one case where having Ed and me in one room, Jay in the other, would actually have made a lot more sense than a sex-based arrangement.
And they didn’t particularly want to share, specially because of the different sleep cycles thing and because it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to wake the other because of a nightmare; there just weren’t enough rooms in the house for each of us to have our own. As soon as I left for college, Ed tried to migrate to my room but Mom wouldn’t allow it. I gave him permission to use it; he still had to keep his clothes in their room, though (Mom’s logic).
They knew because my Aunt had regular elder care checks from a very nice lady from social security.
They cared because, well, it’s… not banned, but opposite sex siblings sharing a room into puberty is definitely discouraged here. Official guidelines vary a bit by council area, but generally age 10 is the cut off.
I’m not sorry I didn’t have to deal with having periods in the same room as a teen male sibling.
My cousins, UK born in the fifties and sixties, were four girls and one boy. By adolescence they were living in a three bedroom house with their parents. The boy had a room of his own and the four girls, with eleven years between oldest and youngest, shared one bedroom. I had one brother and we had a bedroom each I felt really sorry for them. The second oldest had the greatest academic ambition. She partitioned off her corner, with enough room for her bed and a desk so she could do her homework.
Ahh… ok. I’m really bothered by the interference of crusading do-gooder types, especially if they’re with CPS or a similar group. The only thing that matters is providing a loving nurturing environment, a roof over their heads, food on the table, and proper clothes. Everything else is window dressing.
Don’t blame you one bit. I’m sure your brother was glad he could spank uncle spunky when he wanted to.
Niece and nephew are twins, and my sister’s youngest kids. They shared a room for a while but oldest brother moved out when the twins were about 10 and the rush to take over the bedroom being vacated was quick. I don’t think it would have been much of an issue for them to share longer. The twins tended to stand together against their older siblings in any sibling rivalry.
What about people who can’t afford to do otherwise? Tons of my students are in families where you have 6 people in 2 bedroom apartment: mom and dad and maybe the baby in one room and the other kids in the other bedroom. It’s not desirable, but it’s not a thing to call social services about. Parents who do this aren’t being abusive. Is the social net really good enough in England that the bottom 20% still have 3 bedroom apartments? I think of housing as even more expensive there.
In terms of middle class/affluent parents, I do think there’s a bit of a trend these days toward having little kids share a room longer and use the second bedroom as a toyroom/playroom kind of space, with a migration to two bedrooms sometime in late grade school, maybe middle school. In some ways, it makes a lot of sense: toys and games are generally held in common at those ages, so it’s nice to put them in a shared space. And I think a lot of people like the idea of a restful vibe room and a playful vibe room.
We had a mixed-gender bedroom for about a year, but it was siblings and cousins, altogether in one room. It was the only one left over for us kids, and we were ages 3 - 8 (4 kids total). We had an unusual living arrangement one year where it was parents, my aunt and my grandfather. I don’t remember any problems, but we were all pretty young, so you kind of just go with the flow at that age, not knowing any better.
It’s not a thing in real life if there’s room and both kids are older than maybe 7 or 8. But “if there’s room” can be a big if . Most houses in my neighborhood have three bedrooms , and if a grandparent is living there ( which is not uncommon) that means either the two opposite sex kids are sharing a room, someone is sharing a room with the grandparent or someone is sleeping in the living room. The only thing that seems the tiniest bit off about “Young Sheldon” is that typically Sheldon would share a room with his older brother - but even then, it’s only a little bit off because I can see why you might not want to have those particular two kids share a room.
For a brief period in the late 50s, my paternal grandparents lived with us, so my sister, brother, and I shared the small bedroom (really small - 6’X9’!!) and the grandparents got the other room (about 9’X10’)
After they moved out when my next sister was born in 1961, one sister and I had the larger of the 2 rooms, brother and new baby had the tiny room. In '65 when my last sister was born, my brother (then age 9) got a bedroom in the basement, and the 2 youngest girls shared the tiny room. I always resented my youngest sister for not being a boy - I could have gotten the basement room!!!
There are worse things in life than having to share a bedroom with a sibling, regardless of sex. But I did envy my friends who had rooms of their own. Sometimes you need a place to be alone. The best our house had to offer was the bathroom, and with 7 people, you didn’t even get to hide there much.
You’re not wrong about housing prices here, but if you’re getting housing assistance, there are strict rules. If you have kids of both genders sharing a bedroom (and no empty bedroom), the council are obliged to find you larger accommodation once the eldest hits 10.
A friend mentioned only last week that her (obnoxious) cousin was really annoyed that her recent baby #3 was another girl; she was hoping for a boy so she’d get a bigger house… :rolleyes:
Our safety net has a hell of a lot of holes, but they’re generally pretty good for housing when kids are involved. I don’t think I know or knew as a kid anyone who shared with an opposite sex sibling here longer than I did, even the families that were a lot poorer. My parents owned their house, having bought before the housing market exploded though. Poor homeowners are pretty rare here.
Come to think of it, I actually don’t think fitting 4 kids into my childhood bedroom would have worked. Would have had to tape the smallest kid to the ceiling and keep one under the bed. If we’d put 2 bunk beds in, we wouldn’t have been able to open the door. The other rooms were OK, but bedroom #3 is usually tiny here, for some reason.
ETA: I suspect the fact that housing assistance has those rules meant that it really became a ‘not done’ thing for everyone else. Who wants their kids to be in a situation that wouldn’t be allowed for the kids in the dingy housing estate?
