If you’ve ever had a roommate, you probably have your share of horror stories—clashes over shared space and the inevitable challenges of cohabitation. It’s tough to deal with someone who lacks consideration, whether it’s hogging the hot water right before your shower or finishing off the milk just when you’re craving a bowl of cereal. If an adult roommate consistently behaved like a thoughtless jerk, you’d likely be looking for a new place to live in a heartbeat, hoping for a more polite and normal cohabitant.
However, when it comes to children, nobody warns you that they are, in fact, the ultimate difficult housemates. Thankfully, we love them, because kids seem to dedicate their entire existence to doing things that would be absolutely intolerable in a typical roommate scenario. Just think about how furious you’d be if a “regular” roommate pulled stunts that kids pull all day long, like:
- Running around the house without any clothes on
- Plopping down on the couch bare-bottomed
- Standing in front of the windows in the buff (hello, neighbors!)
- Leaving the front door wide open, letting all that “bought air” escape
- Keeping all the lights on, including those in closets
- Surprising you with unflushed toilets
- Devouring all your food—even the hidden snacks you thought were safe
- Taking bites out of apples and putting them back in the fridge
- Licking all the filling out of Oreos or finishing off all the marshmallows in the cereal
- Deceptively leaving empty food containers in the pantry
- Dispersing wrappers all over the house, even jammed between couch cushions
- Inviting friends over without your permission and expecting you to feed them
- Bursting into your bedroom (or any private space) without knocking
- Leaving toothpaste crusted in the sink
- Creating puddles on the floor after bath time, despite the bath mat being right there
- Being consistently loud and at times downright obnoxious
- Engaging in heated arguments over trivial matters with you and others
- Hogging the TV for ridiculous shows
- Using up all the tape, Band-Aids, and Post-it notes
- Depleting all the soap and shampoo
- Burning through all the shared data
- Hoarding food in their rooms until it rots and smells
- Leaving dirty clothes strewn about the house
- Expecting you to do their laundry without a thank you
- Rummaging through your drawers noisily
- Leaving your drawers ajar
- Asking prying questions about your personal life
- Tracking mud through the house and not cleaning it up
- Keeping their rooms in a state that requires a hazmat suit to enter
- Waking you up at odd hours for various unpleasant reasons
- Constantly asking to sleep with you
- Bringing home stray animals with issues like fleas
- Interrupting you while you’re on the phone
- Using the last of the toilet paper and not replacing the roll
- Replaying the same songs on loop
- Crying loudly for no apparent reason
- Complaining endlessly about even the simplest household tasks
- Not contributing a single penny to household expenses
It’s hard to fathom living with a roommate who exhibits any of these behaviors for an extended period. Yet here we are, not only putting up with these maddening antics but also going to great lengths to ensure our rambunctious little ones are happy and well cared for. Ah, how things shift when you become a parent.
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Summary
Children can be the most challenging roommates you can imagine, exhibiting behaviors that would be intolerable in any adult cohabitant. From running around naked to consuming all your food and creating messes, the antics of kids can be exhausting. Yet, as parents, we adapt to these trials, making sacrifices to ensure their happiness and well-being.