Six Reasons Toddlers Are The Worst Roommates Ever

In our early years, we deal with a lot of bad roommates. They drink all the milk, they never, ever replace the toilet paper, and their disaster of a room forces you to contemplate contacting FEMA for cleanup assistance.

Still, you’re just starting out, so you suck it up and put up with the bad roommates, knowing eventually you’ll get your own place where you can leave the good chocolate right on the counter without having to weld your name into the wrapper.

Later, YOU GET MARRIED and purchase your first real home and it’s magical. You blow a small fortune on throw pillows, scented candles, and carefully curated HomeGoods finds. You put fresh flowers on the table every day and pat yourself on the back for your enviable design skills. Joanna Gaines has got nothing on you.

Then you HAVE A BABY and suddenly find yourself living with a new roommate whose lifestyle keeps you up at all hours of the night. Their belongings spill over into every room of your home. Their food is all over the kitchen. Still, they’re tiny and they nap a lot, so at least you can light a candle, curl up under a blanket, and watch The Barefoot Contessa in peace.

Then your little baby grows into a toddler and it is GAME OVER because toddlers are the worst roommates EVER.

Here are six reasons why toddlers are the worst roommates EVER.

Exhibit A: They are LOUD.

Have you ever met a TODDLER? Their voices are louder than a death metal concert. They are the noisiest people on the planet. They have zero volume regulation.

As I write this, I’m wearing ear buds with soothing spa sounds playing at full volume so I can concentrate, and I still hear my little guy talking to grandma about Transformers.

You thought your college roommate was a pain because their friends stayed too late playing Karaoke Revolution on Xbox? Mere child’s play. You don’t know loud until you live with a small child who sounds like thirty children and whose antics start somewhere between 5 and 6 A.M. At least your college roommates slept in.

Exhibit B: They are MESSY.

Sure, your flakey roommate Courtney used to leave her makeup all over the bathroom counter and pile her dishes in the sink, but I bet she didn’t dump LEGOs across every surface of your home and throw banana peels behind your couch.

Sure, Courtney would pull all her clothes from her closet and throw them all over her bedroom floor, but did Courtney also empty the linen closet, the coat closet, and your closet, and toss your necklaces around the room like she was throwing beads at Mardi Gras?

Did Courtney like to remove every single can from your kitchen cabinets and stack them to the heavens before knocking them over and coloring on your walls with marker? Probably not.

Exhibit C: They hog the remote.

When you first have a baby, you hear all the SCREEN TIME recommendations and you dutifully follow them. You turn your baby away from the television whenever it’s on, knowing full well you’re raising the next Albert Einstein.

Then around two-years-old you generously indulge them with a little Sesame Street, which every experienced parent knows is a gateway show. It starts with just fifteen minutes of Elmo here and there, then before you know it, you’re desperately negotiating at hushed tones bartering an episode of Thomas & Friends in exchange for an extra half hour of peace and quiet.

Then sometime around three-years-old, the wheels fall off the bus and it’s all kid stuff all the time whenever the TV is on, and you’re back to sneaking pre-recorded episodes of Fixer Upper in the dead of night like a TEENAGER breaking curfew.

Exhibit D: They eat all your food.

“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine” is the Toddler’s Creed. They live their lives by it. You thought buying your kid $800.00 in curated toddler snacks would keep their little paws off your stuff, but when it’s time to eat, they still want your fancy chocolate almonds and La Croix.

You thought an entire garage refrigerator of Gogurt would satiate them, but no, they also want your Icelandic specialty yogurt that costs more than your car payment.

And, unlike in college, you can’t even scrawl your name in black permanent marker on your carton of almond milk to thwart off thieves because your toddler can’t read.

Exhibit E: They turn your entire house into a bathroom.

Your college roommate never replaced the toilet paper and left wet towels all over the floor. Gross, yes, but a toddler turns your entire house into a bathroom. There will be diapers and potties everywhere. Infinitely grosser.

Exhibit F: They don’t pay rent.

Finally, the biggest roommate crime of all: toddlers don’t pay rent. Not even a little.

Unlike your roommate Tiffany who spent an entire summer lying about a nonexistent part-time job, toddlers don’t even pretend they’re going to pay you. Also, their name isn’t even on the mortgage, so, unlike all those freeloaders on the lease in college, you can’t even threaten them with legal action.

They live completely off the grid with zero consequences.

Still, we wouldn’t change a thing.

Despite all of this, we would never trade our terrible toddler roommates for anything—for several reasons, the biggest of which is that we love them. We brought them into this world and into our homes knowing full well the havoc they would wreak on our lives, yet we embrace the chaos with a fierceness only parents understand.

We watch as their tiny worlds unfold right under our roofs feeling thankful to provide love-filled homes where they are comfortable and free to make all the noise, eat all the foods, and spill all the things without worrying we’d love them any less.

No, our little roommates don’t make our lives neat and tidy—they do something better. They fill our homes with light, laughter, and love. So, we look the other way—and smile, knowing we’ve really won the roommate lottery.