Worried about what will happen to my bedroom when I leave. Help!

College Life
21

As a parent of a college student, I can tell you that yes, you always have a home with your family. What that means to a parent most often is that your family is there for you, and you can come home and be with your family during breaks, vacations, etc. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a designated room in that home that is forever and always yours and will be kept exactly as you left it the day you left for college.

In a normal family, it is the love and connections that are important. Situations and circumstances (and rooms) can change, but your family will always love you.

22

@powercropper you said it more eloquently than I ever could

23

we have 4 kids, but 3 bedrooms for our kids, so we turned a den into a bedroom. When our kid starts college in 3 weeks, he’s has been told many times his younger bro is moving into his room, and he will now stay in the den when he comes home. there’s no closet, its not near a bathroom, but its private.

we will not look through his stuff on purpose, but hopefully he will know to put anything super-personal away. some posters above mentioned a lock box or such; good ideas.

OP; your parents will miss you probably more than you know; but please realize that they have to live life in the most convenient way when you are gone. expect changes when you come back; but also hopefully you’ll have more privileges.

24

You’re defining “home” as a room and your stuff. That’s a shallow grasp of what “home” means.

Our family moves every few years. It takes a while for my kids to answer the question, “where are u from?” In my younger son’s school admission essay, he wrote, “home is where the dog is”.

25

Take the journals and any extremely personal items like that. As for the guitar and other larger things (that everyone knows you have)… is there anywhere you could store them? The garage perhaps?

26

I’m with a lot of other commenters… Either take the journals and nail polish or find somewhere safe to stash them, even if it’s just a matter of hiding it somewhere unexpected. I’d probably hide the nail polish in my underwear drawer to be honest, because they wouldn’t bother checking there for it. As for the journals… just find a hiding place less obvious than under the bed? I know where I’d hide them in my room, but that’s because my room has a very odd layout that leads to some secret rooms that no one is ever in. Just try to find a less obvious hiding spot if they know that the journals exist. I don’t think there’s much you could do about the guitar, though.

For your clothes, I’d assume you’re taking most of the stuff that you like with you? If you have something like a prom dress that’s very precious but you wouldn’t take for obvious reasons, perhaps you could ask your mother to keep it in her closet for safe keeping?

And your bed… I’d just accept that my bed will probably be slept in and wash my sheets when I get back. It seems fair to me. After all, it’s not like you’re using it, right?

27

My family of 5 lives in a 3 bedroom house. So my 2 daughters share a room, and have since my 12 year old daughter was born.

Family is about more than stuff. It’s about being part of something bigger. Sharing is a big part of that. We share our time, our possessions, our love, our concerns, our space.

So when my son goes off to college in a year, I’m absolutely OK with one of my daughters using his room while he’s away. And he will be too. Seriously-- are they supposed to share a room when there’s an empty bedroom down the hall? I’m supposed to heat an empty room when there are other members of my family that could use it?? That’s not how my family-- or I suspect the OP’s family --really operates. A bedroom is a room in our family’s house. It’s not a shrine. Of course it will be there for my son when he returns-- and whoever has been sleeping there will change the sheets and vacuum the room before he gets back home.

Seriously-- you’re afraid they’ll use your nail polish??? You get to go away to college, and you’re afraid they’ll use your $5 bottle of nail polish? I have bad news for you: any you leave behind is likely to be dried out by the time you get back anyway. So why not make a gift of all that nail polish to your younger sisters?? You don’t think that concerns like this are reading a little petty?? Nail polish???

Your clothes: I grew up with 3 sisters, and through those years we were all the same size. We shared clothes. The rule was that you couldn’t wear someone else’s stuff if the tags were still on it, or if they had set it aside for imminent use. Otherwise, it was fair game. (In fact, as each of us moved out, we saw a whole part of our wardrobe disappear. First one… there went the good jeans. Second one… there went all the professional clothes/ suits. And so on.)

Would you really begrudge your sisters the use of your blue sweatshirt that would otherwise be home in a drawer??? I assume that if they’re close enough to your size to actually wear your stuff, then they’re old enough to care for it properly. If not, then use these last weeks showing them how to do laundry.

Have your sisters made a habit of trashing your stuff? If not, then why are you assuming they’ll do so the minute you leave the house? Your guitar has made it this far- I think you can probably assume it will survive your time in college unscathed.

I think you do have a right to expect that your journals will remain unread. So do as others have suggested-- invest in a lock box, tell your parents what you’re doing, and ask where they want you to put it-- will the garage be OK? Or the attic? Or the basement?

I’m no psychologist, but I suspect this post isn’t about your room or your stuff. I suspect that you’re starting to get really nervous about heading off to school, and you want everything to stay exactly as it is right now. You want to return home to the same house, with everything in the same place, all your local relationships exactly as they are now. And you know in your gut that it’s unlikely to happen. People will grow and change, and you won’t be there to see it happen. And that’s OK-- you’ll be growing and changing too, and it will be OK.

28

Respectfully I will point out that unless it’s the cheap stuff, I wouldn’t imagine nail polish drying out within four months. OP can take her nail polish with her if she likes or maybe switch out seasonally if her collection is that big. I did that and I had zero problems with nail polish going bad even two years after doing it. Even if it did, I don’t feel bad if I throw bottles away and didn’t offer them up to my sister.

Additionally, not every family shares openly. Some sisters don’t share clothes even if they’re the same size. Perhaps, if one sister really needs something and with permission, the other sister can borrow it. However, not all families have an open closet policy. It shouldn’t be treated as being overly selfish or mind boggling. If I waltzed up into my sister’s room and used her nail polish, you know what my mom would ask me? Why’d you go in her room and use her stuff without her permission? She’d most likely be unhappy with me for going against my sisters wishes even. I understand being possessive and how focusing on holding onto your stuff isn’t healthy, but respect and expectations are not something that’s ludicrous to have between siblings.

Yes, at the end of the day, your sisters can do anything they want, but I would hope they would respect your wishes enough to not go against you. I dont think this is a foreign concept.

29

LOL do you know how many of your soon-to-be college friends are going to go home to a room that is now a siblings room, a guest room or (I know somebody this happened to last year) - their mom’s gift-wrapping room?! I also know many families (sadly, including us) who moved to a completely different part of the world the autumn their child started college (in our case, we had negotiated no moves during high school, and the transfer came through a month after HS graduation).

Also- head’s up here- for your new friends who are the youngest in the family, many of them will come home and find a new resident- a new dog to keep the newly empty-nesters company.

Your parents haven’t actually done anything to make you feel unwelcome, as if the house isn’t your home. You are anticipating that when you move out, other things will move in. Cue one my favorite science aphorisms: nature abhors a vacuum. Sooner than you can imagine, you will be saying ‘time for me to head home’ - and meaning leaving your parents house to go back to college.

Lock up your journals/diaries, and maybe your guitar. The rest is just stuff.

30

LOL do you know how many of your soon-to-be college friends are going to go home to a room that is now a siblings room, a guest room or (I know somebody this happened to last year) - their mom’s gift-wrapping room?! I also know many families (sadly, including us) who moved to a completely different part of the world the autumn their child started college (in our case, we had negotiated no moves during high school, and the transfer came through a month after HS graduation).

Also- head’s up here- for your new friends who are the youngest in the family, many of them will come home and find a new resident- a new dog to keep the newly empty-nesters company.

Your parents haven’t actually done anything to make you feel unwelcome, as if the house isn’t your home. You are anticipating that when you move out, other things will move in. Cue one my favorite science aphorisms: nature abhors a vacuum. Sooner than you can imagine, you will be saying ‘time for me to head home’ - and meaning leaving your parents house to go back to college.

Lock up your journals/diaries, and maybe your guitar. The rest is just stuff.

31

Another idea… have a bonfire and burn your journals. Odds are very high that you will find them quite embarrassing to yourself when you read them 10 years from now.

32

I can relate to your dilemma. I have a younger brother who snooped in my journals. It was so embarrassing. Before I left for college, I destroyed them. I don’t know if that was the best idea. It may have been fun to read them now, or not, or worse my kids might have read them… but I didn’t want to leave them or bring them with me.

Now, my kids are the same age as you. I don’t think they do too much snooping into each other’s stuff, but nothing is absolutely secure if not locked up. My oldest has the biggest, most comfortable bed and that was taken over by younger sibling with the oldest’s full knowledge.

I want my kids to be comfortable when they come home. Their rooms are their rooms and in general, I leave them intact. They are responsible for their own stuff and keeping their rooms clean.

But… confessions of a mom… Without a kid in the nest, I have a little more time to do what I have been wanting to do, and one of those wants is to give that bedroom a good cleaning. I respect personal stuff, but that candy wrapper I find, the petrified Halloween candy from second grade, and the sneakers from middle school are fair game to be tossed out.

Something happens to us parents at night, at about the age when the kids go off to college. No, it isn’t what you don’t want to imagine, and we are not vampires or werewolves. It’s called snoring and menopause and we need our sleep. Before that bedroom was empty, I was waking up several times a night trying to turn my husband on his side so he would stop snoring and he was not happy if I was tossing and turning because I couldn’t sleep. So now, there is another bed to move into if we can’t sleep.

Sometimes that extra bed becomes a place for guests.

However, when my kids do come home, the room is their room. I make sure they have their favorite ( and clean ) sheets on the bed, and fresh towels .Even their stuffed animals are still there. I fix their favorite meals. I want them to feel at home and they do, even if someone is snoring in their bed when they are not there. So, give your folks a break- and maybe a good night’s sleep.

33

For what it’s worth…and i don’t say this to freak anybody out…but i was the first kid in my family to leave the state to attend college (my two older sisters stayed at home & attended community college)…when I returned home at Thanksgiving, my parents had rearranged my bedroom and moved in my younger sister as my roommate. Its been 30+ years but I still remember the moment when i saw this. And I wasn’t some namby-pampy kid…really nothing bothered me.

What happened next was both bad and good…i realized at that moment that I was setting out on my new life and that my family was where I grew up but was not my future. I never spent more than 10 days there again for the rest of my life…summers were internships and out-of-town jobs…and I stayed at college except for shut-downs like christmas breaks…it was the push that started me on everything. But i’m guessing that it really broke my mom’s heart.

34

I think it does break our hearts to see the kids go, but it is part of the grand scheme of things. College brings opportunities, and the kids move on to new friends. There is a transition for both parents and children. Wanting the bedroom to remain the same is part of hanging on to childhood, but we parents need to move on too, and a desire to not keep the bedroom frozen in time can be part of that.

I remember when I decided that it was time for the poster of the middle school teen idol to be gone from the wall. I didn’t throw it away, but took it down and stored it in the closet. I was shocked when my child was upset as there had been no interest in that for years, but I calmly explained that the room need to be painted - one day- and it was not going to be frozen in time. The reality is that it is more of a storage receptacle for unused dorm stuff than a place to be in these days.

I recall being miffed when my parents changed my room, but it wasn’t fair to expect them to keep Beatles posters on the wall forever. I have my own home, ( and the posters) but it doesn’t change how I feel about my parents, or the fact that they always welcomed me to visit.