I shared a room with at least one of my sisters for most of my childhood. The worst was when all three of us sisters had to share one room for about 5 years in our elementary school days. We had a bunk bed with a queen on the bottom and a twin on top, and we rotated every couple of months so that we all got a chance to have our own bed on the top bunk. I remember us trying to divide the room up into three sections, so we could each have our own area to mess up or keep clean as we liked. It didn't work so well.

We were all jealous of our little brother, who had his own room for his entire life.

I shared a room with my sister for the majority of my childhood. I remember the first night my older brother had moved away to college... My sister moved into my brothers room and for the first time we were going to have our own space. We got into bed and not 10 minutes later, she was back in her old bed, right next to me.

I wouldn't trade in those 10 years or so we shared a room with eachother for the World. It enabled an amazing bond and friendship...and great stories.

as an only child i had a room (and a double bed) all to myself. when i went to college, sharing a small dorm wasn't a 'shock' but it was hard. i am VERY particular about my possessions and how i do things (partly genetic - my father is the biggest stickler for detail i have ever met) but i think being forced to share space would have dampened this instinct in me.

My sister and I had to share an attic growing up, which consisted of two separate bedrooms and a shared bathroom and we still fought like crazy. I honestly think we would have killed each other if we shared a bedroom (we get along great these days).

Eventually she had her attic privileges revoked after she kept sneaking out in the middle of the night to kiss boys (hussy) and was forced to move to the bedroom downstairs directly across from my parents.

I shared with my sister for nine years. We moved when I was 12 and finally got our own rooms. It wasn't that I didn't get along with my sister, but we are just very different people.

But I don't think that experience has had any impact on how I share space with my husband of 27 years. I have a studio space at home which, given my creative activities is a necessity. For many years I worked in the family room, and the lack of space hampered my creativity. Otherwise, we happily share space. Maybe it helps that we both hate clutter, but aren't terribly good at cleaning!

My brother and I both had our own rooms our entire lives, and starting when I was about 11, our own bathrooms...
Until I went off for boarding school at 16. Sharing a room with another girl and one bathroom for six of us was tough, but fun. I always wished I had a sister to share a room with...

My sister and I shared a room for eleven years and I think we are much closer for it. She is five years younger than me so we had different schedules/bedtimes. I enjoyed listening to my parents sing and read to her while I was curled up in the top bunk with my nightlight reading my own book.

I always had my own bedroom growing up and sharing a room in college wasn't shocking, but it was annoying. Especially freshman year when there were 3 of us, and I had to be in the top bunk because I was the last to arrive. I also had to share each of the 2 closets (why put 3 people in a room obviously designed only for 2?)

I shared a room with my sister. I had mixed feelings about it growing up (sometimes we'd be the best of friends, other times I couldn't stand her). However, we never broke any bones or had to resort to drawing a line down the middle of the room. When I went off to college, I was a bit worried about my potential roommate - Would we get along? What if we were opposites? My mother said that I had survived living with my sister, so I could handle anything else. She was right. (as always)

-Ruth

If my brother and I had shared a bedroom as children, we'd probably have serious battle scars today. Sharing a bathroom with him was traumatic enough...

My sister and I shared until I was six and she was nine. I didn't think much of it then but I certainly tried to emulate her space (posters from bob mag over the bed) and she played some mean tricks on me (she exploited my fear of the poltergeist movie by placing a toy clown between our beds). In spite of that, it was generally a positive experience but I was THRILLED to get my own room eventually.

My boys share a bedroom and have since they were 6 and 3 years of age. Once I discovered that the younger one wouldn't wake up the older one, I moved them in together. I had heard of studies at the time saying that siblings who share bedrooms are often better sleepers. I wanted them to be able to go someplace where they could complain about their parents to each other. I hoped they would be close as a result of sharing, and I think they are. The oldest is now 13 and has not expressed any desire to have his own bedroom, even though we have the space. I told him he could have his own room whenever he wants it, but he told me he's fine for now.

And also, I forgot to mention that I am the youngest of 6 kids and shared a bedroom with both brothers and my sister at various times of my life because our house was ridiculously small. I personally hated it mostly because, since the house was so small, there was just nowhere to escape. But, I don't necessarily think it had an adverse effect on my relationships with my siblings.

I shared a room with my sister until I was maybe 11, then I got my own room and my younger sisters had to share. I had a lot of fun sharing with my sister. When we had bunk beds, we would drape big blankets across the room and make a fort and after bedtime we would crawl quietly out into the living room and lay behind the furniture thinking our parents had no idea (they did), and if one of them got up we'd hurry back to the bedroom. I'm sure we fought, but you remember the good times more and those are great memories.

My younger sisters had to share til I went to college which was harder because they were older. I remember huge fights about wearing clothes without permission (course, that continued even when they got their own rooms).

My mom had 8 siblings in a small 4 bedroom house, so I consider myself lucky!

I don't think it really impacted me as far as sharing a space with others. I think it's easier to live with siblings, because if you have an issue with them, you have no problem speaking your mind. Even if you fight, you'll get over it fast and move on. With someone you don't know, or even a friend, it's easy to bottle things up and resent them and that doesn't make for a pleasant experience.

wait a minute, isn't making children share a bathroom, never mind a bedroom, grounds for children's social services getting involved? from what i see of the privileged north american lifestyle that seems to be the case.

which might explain the self-absorbed, egomaniacal critters running around all over the place thinking the world owes them something. a little sharing might have come in handy!

My children (ages 4 & 7) have shared a room since the youngest was born and they enjoy it 80% of the time. We are adding on to our home and they will soon have their own rooms, but the eldest hasn't decided she wants this just yet. The youngest loves sharing with his sister and misses her terribly when she's away. I'm glad they are close, but do look forward to ending the lengthy giggling fest they have almost every night when the new room is done. But if they want to stay together, I'll be more than happy about it.

I shared with my brother. He is about nine years appart. Looking back I see it as a positive thing, but at the time it wasn't. He was in college staying up late and working on stuff for school and I was trying to fall asleep at midnight while listening to Pink Floyd. (He was playing it)

I am an only child, and I would have given my right arm to have a sibling to share a room with.

I also found it very easy to share a room in college, I was thrown in with 3 other girls. Made for some wild times!

Scarred by sharing a bathroom with one sibling? Seriously?

Try a family of seven (2 adults, 5 kids - 3 girls, 2 boys) and one bathroom. You learn many things, including but not limited to:

- a simple grooming routine is better; many lotions and potions are not worth the price, space or time

- a shower only needs to last 4 minutes (environmentally friendly to boot)

- fiber is important not just to your own well being, but the whole dang family

- using the last of the TP and not getting a new role is the eighth deadly sin

I had my own room growing up, but my sons (4 & 6) have chosen to share for. We have the space for each to have their own, but they crawled in with each other so much it was ridiculous. So for now, they sleep in one room and use the other is a play space. When one of them requests it, we'll move them.

I shared a room with my sister growing up until about the age of junior high because we had to. We fought like crazy when sharing a room, but we also had wonderful times sharing and it's all part of the process of learning to share. "Sharing" is the key word here that I think a lot of people are missing out on. This world would be a better place if we were all better at it.

When we eventually got our own rooms it was quite nice to have our own bit of personal space at an older age, but we still slept in the same room most nights.

My sister and I had separate rooms growing up, but everyone in the house shared one bathroom! Talk about crazy mornings... my poor dad would be trying to shave while my sister and I shoved for mirror space. :) The distinctions between bedrooms was never very clear until high school, though; we both spent a lot of time in each other's rooms, and our cousins were often over. It wasn't until high school that we started keeping secrets and wanting our own space to hide notes from the boys we liked. ;p

@ the polish chick:
I actually think sharing bedrooms is very common in the US, especially when the children are young. Most of my childhood friends shared rooms until they hit their teenage years.

I was my folks ummm mishap... more than a few years after they had had their three kid family... they had built a house with three bedrooms for their three kids and I never fitted anywhere!!! I always shared with someone older and I learnt to find my own space round the house, outdoors whatever. I certainly learnt all about getting on with others!!!
Truth is most people in the world live in a one room dwelling and the thought of single rooms would freak them out somehow!!!
For now, our little kids sleep in our family bed and we all love it, as our kids get older they can choose to sleep in the next room dormitory style. They would totally hate to be apart!!! Who would they chat to half the night!!!

I shared a room with my brother (2 years older) from the time I was 2 and he was 4 until he graduated from high school. I mostly liked it and really appreciate the bond it gave us. We never really fought about space--though we fought about plenty of other stuff--so sharing a room wasn't really a big deal.

My 2 daughters now share a room (ages 3.5 and 5.5). They love it. That may well change as they get older, but so far it's wonderful.

I shared a room with my older sister out of necessity until I was nine. I don't remember minding at all. She is only a year older than I am and up to that point we did most things together and even had the same friends. Then our family moved to a larger house where we each had our own rooms. I think the separate rooms just at the onset of adolescence changed our relationship---we grew apart. I remember being happy to decorate my own space, but looking back, I wish we'd shared for a few more years.

My sisters are twins and still live at home. They got their own room at age 22 (yes, there are giant children still living at home, though i shouldn't talk crap, i moved out at 24).

Oddly enough, the rebelious one (and self inflicted black sheep) was the most traumatized about splitting rooms. My other sister was more than glad to get away from her twin's crap.

I love the idea in that photo, but if you go to the person's Flickr stream they say that it comes from the website desiretoinspire.net so I don't see how it can be "Creative Commons" unless you go check out that site & find it there (which I don't have patience to do--I tried but there is no search box that I could find). I think you should make an effort to credit the original poster, and not just someone who saved it to her design files. I'm not saying it's wrong to do the latter (save it to a design file) but I think AT should try to credit the original source.

I shared a room and a queen sized bed with my sister who is 8 years my senior. This was out of necessity because we had so little space. Looking back on it now I'm sure it had to drive my sister crazy but she never showed it because she is the epitome of what a big sister should be. She would play 20 questions with me in the dark when I couldn't fall asleep. She didn't complain when I got the flu and accidently threw up on her in the middle of the night. I thought she was the coolest person in the world and loved every minute I got to share with her.

My brother and I always had our own rooms and I never even thought of the possibility of sharing, probably a gender thing.

My 2 sons, 7 &3, share a room and I think/hope it's a positive for them. I think it's important for them to have break out spaces of their own. My youngest has his own dramatic play "habitat" in the front porch and my oldest has his own quiet desk in the upstairs landing, for his Lego creations.

Enough about the personal stories (interesting as they are)...I want to know about that bunk room!

I had to share with an older sister (let's go 12 yrs older) until I was five and she moved out. It was so annoying...mostly because she loved to listen to the radio while she slept, she had much more stuff than me since she was teenaged for most of it, etc. Most of the time it felt like all the space I had that was my own was my bed...it sucked.

Now if I had to share with someone I got along with better, I think I could have taken it easier. My brother and I had to share for a month or so in between apartments at my grandmother's (he's ten years older) and we done okay...but we respected each other's space much more.

If and when I have children, I will probably try to give them their own bedrooms. I had my own bedroom for most of my childhood and I loved having it as my haven and escape - and I can't think of denying it from my children. If they choose to share, then I'll let them make that choice though.

I feel my fiance's mom. She had to share a barely barely 3 bedroom with loft/2 tiny bathroom house with nine other siblings. Now that had to be incredible - since the house is kinda small anyways. I can only imagine the fights and I've heard the stories of threatened deaths - LOL.

I had my own bedroom and shared bathroom from age 7-13.
Enter boarding school.
Sharing rooms, sharing bathrooms. I didn't think much of it though. Didn't have a hard time transitioning at all. And now eight years of dorm life has practically trained me to be one of the most versatile "i can live with anyone" roommate candidates.

LOL, siobhan!

I have seven siblings and at various times shared a room with my older brother, my older sister, and three of my younger brothers at one time (for less than a year while my parents located a bigger house)! I'm sure I griped about it plenty as a child, but it wasn't traumatic or anything. My older sister claimed I talked backward as if possessed in my sleep, but other than that, we had no incidents.

My siblings and I were very good at sharing things we considered communal (food, towels, books, etc) and fiercely protective of things we considered our own (special toys, nicknacks, magazines, etc). My mother took the position that ownership was absolute, but we were STRONGLY ADVISED to share, especially with younger siblings who might otherwise make a fuss! I particularly remember her saying, "Why don't you want to share with your brother? You love your brother." Talk about sneaky.

I shared with my younger sister from when she was born until I went to college (and have been sharing with others almost full time since then!). We fought like crazy all the time, but I think in the end it has made me a much more tolerant person (not easily annoyed by random co-worker noises, etc) than people I know who had their own room growing up. My kids will share space.

Also, we only had one bathroom for 4 people, but that never caused any fights...

I shared a bedroom with my older sister for a couple years until our basement was finished and she could live down there. I loved it because I looked up to her and liked spending as much time with her as I could.

However, I do think that it made me kind of needy...Before we would go to bed we would always stay up and talk about our day and giggle until our parents would come tell us to be quiet. Nowadays, I miss having someone to talk to every night!

I shared a room with my sister until I was 11. It was hard sometimes because our personalities are so different. At the same time it was wonderful. We would keep each other up by singing and playing games. So many memories flooding in... :) I have never thought about having my children (when I have them) share a room, until now. I learned a lot from the experience and I think they would too. Thank you for posting about this!!!

I shared a large bedroom with my older brother until I was maybe 5 and he was just about to be a pre-teen. My parents built a wooden bunkbed into the center of the room which divided it in half. Mine was lower and there was a wall above. His was on top with a wall below. We each had about 5 or so feet of room to ourselves. It seemed to work out just fine, but of course, I was not a pre-teen boy...

let me join sally305 here and ask about that bunk room pic that's posted

i think it's great; and similar to something a roommate & i put up in a small fenway studio (ours was a two-bed unit, and the upper and lower bunks opened out on opposite sides)

please tell us about that bunk room pic!

thanks

My older sister and I shared a room until our older brother moved out. We hated each other then and 40 years later we still hate each other...

way to pull the THERAPY out of ApartmentTherapy and put it on the table, y'all !

wow ... there are some serious issues coming over this post ... kyle, you could make some big bucks if you ever decided to go from blogger to psychiatrist :-)

be well, everyone!

@ Lori

send your sister some lovely flowers!!!

Growing up, I shared a room with my grandmother. It was the most wonderful thing in the universe. I would do that again in an instant.

Maybe because of this, I hate sleeping alone in a room.

As for children, I only have one and he is a special needs child, so if we ever have another, the children will probably not share a room, which is frankly a pity.

I was an only child and had my own room. I don't remember wanting to share with a sibling, but I do remember having too much time on my hands for moping around and being solitary. I think it would have been good for me to have had a sibling to share space with, even if it meant some fighting along the way.

I have a toddler and another baby on the way and am planning for them to share a room, at least for the next several years.

My sister and I shared a room for 6 months. We begged and begged to share a room. Our parents were afraid we would hate it but finally agreed...they were half right. My sister LOVED it, but I HATED it!

It wasn't so bad during the day but at night, I would be trying to read quietly or to fall asleep and my sister would start talking. When I'd tell her to stop she'd stop for half a minute and start up again. If I didn't engage her in conversation she would literally talk to the walls. Ugh!!!!

I shared the room with my older brother until he was 10 and I was 7. We had oodles of fun, I was very clownish and made my brother laugh like hell... that is, until our mom, then our dad thundered towards the bedroom door "ordering" us to sleep (with mock anger). We were a bit like the two kids in "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Then we moved in another apartment and had each our own bedrooms. Mind you, when my big brother saw the movie "The Exorcist" at 16, he insisted to sleep on the floor in my room next to my bed... he was too afraid to sleep in his room!!

I shared a room with my sister who is 1.5 years younger than me until I was 18. My older brother moved out, so she took his room. And the next year I went away to university. As kids I'm sure we fought, but it was no big deal. We had twin beds and my mom wallpapered each side differently so that we each had our own choice up on the wall. In retrospect, my sister's pick was WAY nicer. But I didn't think so then. When I was about 8, we moved, and we could no longer fit dressers and two twin beds in our room. So we got bunk beds. That was the worst. And the sharing a room thing deteriorated from there. As a teenager I would have liked to have had my own space.

I think as children it's fine and even good to share a room. But at a certain point, especially if the two involved are so different that conflict is frequent, it would be great to be able to offer separate spaces.

I only have one child now. And we live in a two bedroom house. So if we decide to have another, they will be sharing. My husband didn't share a room ever until we got together, so he has a harder time wrapping his head around it. But I think it's fine for kids to share. And then hopefully down the road we can manage to change the situation.

As the youngest of six kids (I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers), I had to share with, at the most 2 other sisters at the same time, though we switched around at one point and I just shared with 1 other sister until my sibs started to go to college and move out of the house during my high school years. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have my own room as a child, other than a bit frightening! I was one of those kids who needed a nightlight in addition to my older sisters' protection because of all the "scary" things that come out at night. Of course, having my own room during my adolescence was great, and I was aware that my older sisters never got that luxury because of me! The 2 boys always shared a room.

I had my own room, as did my sister. We're also 7.5 years apart in age, so we're both more like 'onlies' than siblings (that said, we get along great).

My two kids, however, share not only a room, but the bottom (single) bunk of their bunk bed. They could each have a room, but we got them bunkbeds so they could have a bigger 'playroom'. Instead, the top bunk sits empty (except when the older one is reading up there), and the lower bunk is squished. They wouldn't have it any other way. I ask, periodically, but both (8 and 4) insist they would be lonely anywhere else...

I shared a bedroom with two sisters and hated every minute of it. We still call it the "slumber party from hell". I think we would have turned out much closer as adults had we not shared a room. I've always said that I will only have the amount of children that I have bedrooms for because I would never make them share a room!

My sister and I shared a room while growing up. Some parts of it was fun (plenty of toys to share, blaming the mess on each other... etc). But, other times it was bad (listening to my sis chatting away into the night when I wanted to sleep, when the other was sick and coughing through the night...) So about the time I turned twelve I rearranged the furniture in my mom's sewing room and we squeezed my bed into a little corner with my dresser. I used her sewing cabinet as a desk and somehow managed to clear out one of the closets for my clothes. I had a teeny tiny space to myself but it was worth it. I've always liked having a retreat from the world that's all my own.

Now, my sister and I are in college and sharing an apartment with two other girls. We're back to sharing a bathroom full time, but have our own rooms. I think sharing a space with her as children taught us to be more accomodating for other people's quirks. Though, we still have a few arguments, it's been smooth sailing! I think it's important for all kids to learn to accomodate others and sharing a room is a great way to start.

I shared a room with my sister and it was great - though it was a rather big room with our own bathroom (our house had 2 master bedrooms). to this day I can't believe that some kids grow up with a double bed!

LuaBear - I completely agree on your last statement. Children can bond while sharing the bathroom, while figuring out what to watch on TV when the parents allow it on, etc - they don't have to be shoved in one room together. Even couples need their own space from time to time.

lovelyrita - The last time I had a twin bed in my bedroom was probably right after my sister moved out and my mom upgraded me to a full size bed - which was wonderful after not having to sleep on the trundle bed which seemed more like a mattress on the floor. I've always liked having the extra space in bed for getting comfy - I do now share my full size bed with my fiance but we are considering upgrading to a queen for the same reason.

I'm 23, and I've never had my own bedroom ever, in my life. My parents and I live in a one-bedroom loft. I love this website, and fantasize about what my room would be like if I have one someday.