Welcome to speed Round Sunday on the Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share a
mini episode from our past for your weekend listening pleasure. We'll be back tomorrow
with a brand new episode. How much input do your kids have on their
decord choices in their bedrooms? Are they acting out? You have total control
over their choice? Or no choice at all? So how do you how
do your kids or I guess what role do they play in what is inside
their bedroom? In terms of I guess color, betting, light fixtures,
posters, Harry, how about your kids? I don't know that I would
describe either of my kids as having decore particularly in our in our first house,
you know, which we decorated their rooms before we adopted them. Then
we had colored walls, and we had had a friend painted Calvin and Hobbs
mural on my son's bedroom wall, and my daughter had you know, I
decorated things up for her, and then we moved to this house. I
guess they were old enough to kind of decide for themselves and they didn't really
care, so nothing really much got done. My son's bedroom decor is you
know, basically a hoarder's theme with large plastic crates of old toys he hasn't
touched in probably a decade, piled up along the walls because he doesn't ever
once get rid of anything covered with dust. He used to collect car magazines,
you know, like the free ones you get from the grocery store.
So there's bookcases with piles and piles of dusty, yellowed car magazines. It's
a disaster. It's horrible. And I wasn't kidding when I said it's covered
with so much dust that you just it's become a decorating back over and I'm
afraid of like removing anything because you know, Jimmy Hoffa might be in there
someplace. But it's bad. But you know, he doesn't want to get
rid of anything. He doesn't mind it. He's not motivated to do anything.
He has pictures on his wall of an actress he liked, you know,
fifteen years ago, that he doesn't really care about now. But he
just you know, he's a status quo guy. I'll do it tomorrow,
I'll change it tomorrow, I'll fix it tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.
My daughter, we did decorate her room up a little bit. I think
when she when she turned eighteen or twenty one. We got her some new
furniture. We got her a TV, so she's got a little bit more
and she's very organized. So she keeps her stuff pretty neat. But it's
not like something you'd see in a pottery barn catalog or anything. It's just
a room, you know, nothing much and they don't really care. Particularly
she cares, probably a little more than him. She puts pictures of you
know, friends and family members up on the wall, and even the ones,
the photos that don't quite belong to her, she puts upon her wall.
As I think I discussed before. Believe that speed because yeah, so
that's fine and I don't really care. It's not like my room is particularly
a decorator showcase either. So did you guys liked your kids? Are they
into that? Do they want to decorate? I mean I was somebody who
wanted to decorate my room when I was a kid. I was into it
at different ages, different things is what I wanted. I had a big
canopy bed one for a while who yellow fully stuff on it, and at
one point I put the long curtains so that I could hide behind it.
So that was a thing, but not my kids. Yeah, they're both
have opinions. I mean, actually, my son he's been wanting so I
as we were talking earlier about removing the carpet that's in his room, and
he's been looking forward to that. He wants to get rid of it.
And he has lots and lots of ideas for what could happen next in that
room, including he would really like a Murphy bed so that he could have
the entire floor free, and he would paint a knee hockey you know,
court or whatever rink on the floor. And he has lots and lots of
ideas and opinions like that. Um. The thing is that, first of
all, I'm not buying a Murphy bed, and you can buy a Murphy
bed, yeah can. But even if even if I wanted to, Um,
there is no wall in his room that can accommodate a Murphy mad because
um, he has like those eves like the yeah, you know, the
triangular right things that are you know, on two sides of a window.
And so that's so the window side, you know, isn't wide enough.
And then the two other walls have the triangles. And then the fourth wall
has a door which connects to my daughter's room. So there's really and we
like covered up that door, which neither of them seems to want to do,
which kind of surprises me. But okay, um, so yeah,
there's no place for all boys for a mervy bed the bed or something,
so we at least could have it off to the side. Tom maybe,
I mean he has a like a captain's bed right now, so that it's
got a trundle underneath it, but it's kind of falling apart, so we
have to replace it. But it almost has to be like a day bed
style because there's no good spot to put the headboard because of the aforementioned crazy
right layout of this room, you know, and we, as a part
of a separate project, we are going to have some electrical work done.
And her electrician said, well you should if you want overhead lights in any
of the upstairs room, you should do you know, now your chance basically,
so I have to get some light fixtures, and I'm sort of thinking
about, you know, do I kind of give the kids like here's three
from or do I send them out there and say, okay, your budget
is X and you know see what you can sound mind reality TV show?
Right, like go on interest get busy. So that's kind of where where
I am on this topic right now. Well, my son, the only
thing he cared about was having his band posters on the wall, you know,
his rock band posters. Some were a little bit inappropriate, and so
I would get in there with my black sharpie and some covering up. I'm
sorry, but you know, if the girl went from a thong to leggings
as skin tight, right. You know, I had a younger daughter at
the time. I didn't need to see this stuff, so I was a
little concerned about that. I did have him when he was younger, he
had a themed room, but as he got older, things were kind of
you know, mixed and match. But yeah, yes, he was very
particular about his posters, so much so that when he moved out, he
lived on his own for two years, and then he moved in with his
girlfriend, and my husband and I had bets on how long the posters would
last in the apartment he shared with his girlfriend or shared with his girlfriend,
and about a year they lasted, and just a couple of weeks ago he
came sulking home with his posters in hand, all rolled up. Can you
store these for me? Please? She will let me have them on the
wall anymore. We're back in my house. So obviously she has a lot
more control over his decord than what I did. Yeah. My daughter,
on the other hand, she could care less. I'm the one that has
to decorate it. I care more than she does. Yeah, she could
care less. As long as she's got her lamp and her fan and her
computer and and oh and chords to charge her phone. That's all she cares
about. That's important, Yes, very important. Chords. Yes, that's
all she wants is just outlets, chords and a light. Well, that's
easy. Yeah, so she doesn't She could care less what goes on around
her, that's yeah. So that's the story of my kids.