“Purple,” answered my 12-year-old, when I asked what color she wanted to redo her room.
“Like a pale lavender or a midnight plum?” I asked, hopefully.
“No, bright purple.” She showed me a wallpaper she’d found in a catalog. The color was called peony, and it was so bright I had to feel my eyebrows to be sure they were still on.
“Oh, I see, something subtle.” Sigh.
I wanted to veto her plan but thought of that video that made the rounds on television and the Internet last month — the one of Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science who’s dying of cancer, giving his last lecture. It would be overwhelmingly sad if it weren’t so darned full of good, life-affirming advice.
“If your kids want to paint their rooms,” he said, “as a favor to me, let them do it. Don’t worry about resale value.”
Pausch decorated his boyhood room with quadratic equations.
But my daughter doesn’t want to paint the periodic table of elements on her wall. That would be different. She wants hot purple print wallpaper. Worse, she wants a purple bedspread and matching stool — in crushed velvet. The only place I ever felt crushed velvet belonged was inside an electric guitar case. How can someone who shares my DNA think crushed purple velvet looks good?
The more I say, “Ugh,” the more she likes it. The only thing we agree on is that her room needs a redo. The bedspread has worn out, and she’s outgrown the small French florals and doll shelves. She’s moved on to posters of gymnasts at Cirque du Soleil, which she hopes to be one day. (We’ll have the career talk later.)
“I get that wanting to redo your room is a healthy developmental step,” I say.
“Oh, please, not the development talk.”
“I understand that kids need to find their individuality, and all that.”
“What does this have to do with the wallpaper?”
“Can’t you separate more tastefully?”
“I like my taste.”
“I mean could you choose a color scheme that might actually go with the house?”
“Mom,” she says bluntly, “I don’t want my bedroom to look like anything in the house.”
“All righty, then.” Pausch’s words fill my head like tinnitus. “We’ll do it your way. You can thank professor Pausch.”
“Who?”
“He painted math problems on his walls as a kid.”
“You just don’t understand.”
Where have I heard that before? I flash back to my adolescent bedroom, my tolerant parents. I ushered out the blue butterfly bedspread and drapes my mother had custom made, and replaced them with Indian tapestries I bought myself from a local import store. I covered the walls and ceilings with tapestries, too, hung Indian bells on my door, and burned coned incense so long in the bathroom I permanently scorched the Formica.
And my parents let me stay.
I discussed the issue with Angela Lamson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, in Greenville, N.C. “This isn’t about the room, of course,” she said, sounding very therapist-like. “When kids feel the urge to change up their room, there’s a big reorganization process going on inside them.”
“Does that mean parents have to undergo some remodeling, too?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through .
Overseeing a child’s room makeover
Here’s what Angela Lamson says parents should keep in mind when kids say, “I want my space my way”:
Set rules. While kids should have a big say in how their rooms look, they also need — and want — guidelines. One rule: no destruction. (They can’t spray paint graffiti on the bathroom tile). The room also needs to be safe, and that means clean.
Get over yourself and the fact that your child’s room may spoil the visual flow of your house. It’s more important that the room be a place your child can bring friends and say, “This is me in 3-D.” Not, “This is what my mom thinks I should be.”
Offer perspective. An adolescent can’t foresee his taste changing in a couple years, while you know (or at least hope) it will. Thus, don’t pay a lot for their more, uh, eccentric decorating choices. For instance, I agreed to the wallpaper — for one wall, not four. And she agreed to a well-made white woven duvet cover (classic) instead of the purple velvet one. But she can adorn it with her (cheap to change) purple crushed velvet pillows.
Get a second opinion. If your child won’t agree with your decorating judgment — no, neon orange isn’t a good wall color choice — ask a design expert at a home improvement or design store to render an opinion. (You might slip them a five to side with you.)
Focus on the upside. No matter how hideous the look, redecorating a bedroom is a great way for a child to experience the reward of having a vision and realizing it. I can’t think of a better backdrop for life.
