When I was a child middle-class women would usually have multiple rooms of the house in which no one was allowed to exist because our very skin oils would destroy the fancy fabric, so I understood this immediately. I was made to sleep on floors so as to not ruin couches.
My parents’ house had such a room! I always thought it was weird to dedicate a room as a shrine to some mythical guest who would someday come and honor it with their presence.
I’ve seen rooms like this and, while it sounds like a stereotype I promise this is just an observation, they were 100% of the time created by bored rich wives who were all but estranged from their always working or golfing type husbands.
My grandparents had that! It had an old TV, old furniture, and pictures of old people who I didn’t recognize. Sometimes my grandparents would close off this den, but we were never allowed to touch things in there either way. I thought that the people I didn’t recognize from the old photos were some family who was renting the room from my grandparents; the doors were obviously closed when this imaginary family was home.
My wife and I bought their house, donated everything we could to museums or families who need stuff, and have turned it into an office/gym/workspace. But my mom, wife, and I still call it “the other people’s living room,” just like I did as a kid.
When I was a child middle-class women would usually have multiple rooms of the house in which no one was allowed to exist because our very skin oils would destroy the fancy fabric, so I understood this immediately. I was made to sleep on floors so as to not ruin couches.
My parents’ house had such a room! I always thought it was weird to dedicate a room as a shrine to some mythical guest who would someday come and honor it with their presence.
I’ve seen rooms like this and, while it sounds like a stereotype I promise this is just an observation, they were 100% of the time created by bored rich wives who were all but estranged from their always working or golfing type husbands.
My grandparents had that! It had an old TV, old furniture, and pictures of old people who I didn’t recognize. Sometimes my grandparents would close off this den, but we were never allowed to touch things in there either way. I thought that the people I didn’t recognize from the old photos were some family who was renting the room from my grandparents; the doors were obviously closed when this imaginary family was home.
My wife and I bought their house, donated everything we could to museums or families who need stuff, and have turned it into an office/gym/workspace. But my mom, wife, and I still call it “the other people’s living room,” just like I did as a kid.