I've been thinking about this since a friend told me he and his PMC wife are buying a FIVE bedroom house even though it's the two of them and one kid (and they aren't having any more). For nearly all of human history, humans - especially families - slept communally. But with suburban sprawl and the popularity of McMansions, white US Americans with middle incomes or above decided every kid has to have their own bedroom, and anything less is weird or cruel. Seriously, suggest to a well-off American that you want your kids to share a bedroom instead of having their own. They will be shocked at first, then do that thing where they're confused but also angry that you would subject your kids to that. It just seems like a wasteful bourgeois luxury to me.

This is entirely anecdotal, but I've known people who grew up sharing bedrooms with their siblings, and others who had their own bedrooms in large houses. It seems to me that people who grew up sharing bedrooms with their siblings are closer to each other. Which I do think kinda makes sense. Especially now with phones and laptops, a big house where everyone has their own room just makes it a lot easier for family members to go off and do their own thing all day. Even the passive act of TV watching, my home-buying friend is excited because this house has a TV upstairs and a TV room in the finished off basement. He's all like "I can watch sports downstairs while my wife watches Lifetime upstairs har har!" It's not enough capitalism isolates us from our communities, but now we are getting isolated from members of our own immediate family.

Return to shared bedrooms.

Edit: screw it I'm just gonna lean into my incredibly unpopular take...

ChaCha posters: "Americans + capitalism live ridiculously unsustainable lifestyles by taking incredible levels of resources from the environment and global poor"

Also ChaCha posters: "Don't you DARE take away my 4-bedroom McMansion!!!"