sharing spaces

I am blogging today from the privacy of my own bedroom. My own bedroom. Allow me to say tat again: my own bedroom. Attached to my own bedroom is my own walk in closet. Attached to my own walk in closet is my own walk in bathroom. This may seem like a not so big deal to you. However, to me this is epic. I never had my own room growing up. Never. I always shared my space with another of my sisters; at one point, I shared a room with my two youngest sisters while I was in high school. Yup, in high school. That is an idea that I know makes 95% of high school kids squirm. The thought of having to share something as precious as your space with someone else pisses a lot of people off. It makes them feel as though they are being put down a peg or two in their precious world. There is a line in "Gone With The Wind" where Scarlett's Daddy tells her that the only thing a person can accumulate and not have taken away is land. Hence, our insane desire to hold on to our space. It's a part of our identity and we love that freedom of stretching out.

I know that the reason I was able to handle living in a dorm room the size of a concrete mousetrap and then a sorority house of 70 college girls (some more superifical than should be allowed in the Midwest) is because I never had my own space growing up. I was always forced to share with my sisters. It was embarrassing growing up and having girlfriends spend the night and they'd look at our space and think "Wow. This is, uh, cozy?" But, then they'd see the wide open spaces of the country and how much more quiet it was out there in the country than the city, and I like to think they'd see the reasoning behind my parents living out there. And if not, screw them.

My kids will never have their own room. They'll never have televisions or computers or anything technologically overrated by their bed side. The bedroom, for children, is for one thing and one thing only: punishment and sleeping. I know that this may seen weird and odd, to not want my kids to be spoiled brats. However, I know that when they're older and 26 living with 2 other people and a bitch of a cat and an overweight cocker spaniel and they can legitimately be content with it (minus the cat shitting and peeing on the furniture), then they'll appreciate the way they were raised.

If not, they can go into their room and think about it. With no tvs.