Bedroom or living room parent? Mom sparks debate over where parents hang out in the house.
These are two very different types of parents.
Marissa Kile sparks a debate over parenting styles.
Mom and TikTok creator Marissa Kile recently brought up an interesting topic that no one ever discusses but significantly impacts how families interact. According to Kile, there are two types of parents, those who hang out in their bedroom and those who spend time in the living room.
Bedroom parents are comfortable keeping their kids at a distance while they relax. In contrast, living room parents are happy to have their children around during downtime.
“I grew up where like my parents hung out in their bedroom,” she explains in the video. “Like 24/7, they were never in the living room, okay? So, like, going into my parents' bedroom was like a sacred thing. Like, you stood at the door, and you waited for permission to go in, okay?”
However, Kile always wished her parents were spending time with her in the living room. "I always wanted my parents to be in the living spaces with us," she adds.
@maroo927 I DONT hang out in my room.. its just a sleeping zone. Anyone else? #sleepzone #donthangout #herdofkids #fyp #sahm #foryoupage #missouri #
So now that she’s a parent, she spends all her time in the living room. She only uses her bedroom to sleep and notes in the video that it’s not even decorated.
In a follow-up video, she clarified that modern-day bedroom parents are probably different from the ones back in the day who wanted to avoid dealing with their children. “My bedroom parents didn't want to know that we existed. Okay? So, like, when they were in their bedroom, it's because they just didn't want to be around us. And, like, my mom has said so many times, she didn’t want to have kids, okay? And my dad didn't want to either. So, it is what it is,” she explained.
@maroo927 TikTok · MaRoo927
The video created a debate over parenting styles on TikTok, and many parents had to confront what their decisions say about their relationship with their kids. Does being a bed person mean you don't want to spend time with your children or that you're teaching them to be independent?
"My room is my sacred spot. I need to be somewhere I can lay flat and stare at the walls to be alone," Brookeebaby wrote.
"I’m a bed person, and now I feel bad," Paige admitted. "I usually invite my kiddos to come with me tho if that makes a difference."
"Parents were bedroom, and I'm a living room parent… didn’t realize tho. Generational issue broken," Sav wrote.
A user named Noooooo reframed the debate as “couch” versus “bed” people. "There's bed-people and couch-people," they wrote. "Neither is right or wrong. I'm a bed person, so my kids all chill in my room with me."
Even though it’s questionable to generalize people as strict bedroom or living room parents, the comments showed that just about everyone identified as one or the other. In the end, there’s nothing wrong with being a bedroom or living room parent. But Kile’s video did a great job at bringing up the topic so parents can think about where they spend their time in the house and whether it’s the best way to have a healthy and happy home.
