Unpopular Opinion: Sleepovers Are Completely Overrated By: Sam Di Santi

Unpopular Opinion: Sleepovers Are Completely Overrated By: Sam Di Santi 

Introduction: 

    At one point or another, almost everyone has slept over at a friend's house. This traditional coming of age or adolescent experience is often idolized in our society. In every Disney Channel Original Movie, there was always a super fun sleepover that resulted in lifelong, irreplaceable memories.  Most of the time, the girls stay up all night having pillow fights, applying face masks, watching movies, eating popcorn, and playing pranks on one another. What these movies don't show is the morning after the sleepover and all of the moments in between that make you miss sleeping in your own bed. Having a sleepover is part of the typical teen experience, but as I've gotten older I've begun to detest slumber parties and have seen this trend with my friends. Sleepovers are very popular when we're kids, but I've come to realize why I haven't been invited to a slumber party in a few years. This blog will highlight why sleepovers aren't the wonderful, fun, and exciting experience that most teen movies idolize and why to avoid them at all costs.  

Sleepovers When You're a Kid: 

    When I was 9 years old I begged my mom to go to my first sleepover. All of my sisters went to their first sleepovers as teenagers, so my mom was very hesitant to let me spend the night at someone else's house. After a lot of begging, bartering, and negotiating, my mom finally let me go to my first sleepover. I thought that this experience would be one of the best of my life. That's the way it goes with most people, sleepovers, in general, are much more fun when you're a kid. There are party games, tons of snacks, and you get to stay up late which is SUPER COOL, especially when you're a 9-year-old with a bedtime. Sleepovers just seem so much more fun when you're little, you want to go to a friend's house and stay up all night talking about crushes, school, and anything else that's on your mind. I wish that was my first sleepover experience, however, that's not how things worked out for me. 

The Unfortunate Events at My First Sleepover: 

     When I showed up at my best friend's house, I was so excited. My mom, still hesitant with the whole idea, let me know she would pick me up if I wanted to go home at any time.  I scoffed at her, how could I not enjoy my monumental, extravagant, once-in-a-lifetime, first sleepover experience? The sleepover was great at first, we played many party games and I had fun with all the girls. We ate pizza for dinner, had cupcakes for dessert, sang Happy Birthday, the whole nine yards. It was when we were sent downstairs to "go to bed" that things started going downhill. I thought I would actually be sleeping at a sleepover. It makes sense, you hang out for a bit and have fun, and then you wind down for bed. I was sorely mistaken, at 9 years old, the girls wanted to stay up all night and compete to see who went to bed last. I was taken aback, shocked, and concerned to hear that these girls were going to throw a perfectly good night's sleep out the window. Despite this, I played along, I tried to stay up for as long as I could. As it got into the later hours of the night, (around 11 PM/12 AM) I wanted to go to bed. I was extremely tired and just wanted to rest after all of the fun we had earlier in the day. However, everyone else was so loud and crazy at the party I couldn't fall asleep for the life of me. I proceeded to have a mental breakdown and cry because I simply couldn't fall asleep. In hindsight, I was being a bit dramatic, but I was just a kid and didn't understand the unspoken rules of a sleepover. Once I finally pulled myself together, I was eventually able to fall asleep. What I didn't realize was that I would sleep on the rock hard floor and would wake up with excruciating back pain. I had only brought a blanket and pillow, I had no cushion on the hard ground and it was so cold I was literally shivering. It was a long night, to say the least. I finally fell asleep at around 12 AM or 1 AM and was happy to at least get some sleep, unlike the other girls. Unbeknownst to me, in the middle of the night, a girl screamed (to this day, I have no idea why). Her shriek was so loud it set off the alarms and automatically called the police because it sounded like glass breaking. The alarm system of the house literally thought a break-in occurred because of this girl's scream. My best friend's mom was less than pleased, she got a phone call from the police asking what was going on and if they should come to the house. While this was all happening, I was happily sleeping and had no idea what occurred until the morning after. We all got a "stern talking to" about appropriate behavior and went on our way back home. Due to these events at my first sleepover, I was turned off to the whole experience but decided to give it another try as I got older. 

The Unfortunate Events When I Hosted My Own Sleepover: 

    Despite my less than spectacular first sleepover experience, I decided that I wanted to have a slumber party for my tenth birthday. My mom was hesitant once again, only my older sister ever had sleepovers and that was when they were much older. After another round of begging and pleading, my mom allowed me to have a sleepover with 5 other girls. These girls were my best friends at the time and the same thing happened once again. The first few hours were super fun, we played games, had cake, sang Happy Birthday, and sang karaoke. It was only after my Mom told us to "wind-down" that things went downhill once again. I wanted to go to bed, it was my house so I felt if I set the precedent that we would actually sleep at this sleepover everyone would follow. Another unfortunate mistake made by an innocent Sam, no one actually wanted to sleep. At this sleepover, I stayed up until around 3 AM. Before then, the girls were causing chaos in my home. My siblings are much older than I am, most of them had work or class the next day and needed to sleep to get up early. However, the girls insisted on going upstairs and causing a ruckus. I felt like I had to corral them because no one would listen to me, I didn't want to upset my mom, my dad,  or my siblings. My dad also had work the next day, which didn't help the situation. It felt more like a chore than a fun party, there were many times I considered sleeping in my parent's room instead of downstairs with the other girls. I loved these girls to death, but, at the time, a very serious 4th grade Sam was upset with them. After that sleepover, I swore to never host another one again, but I apparently had amnesia because I decided to do it again on my 11th birthday. 

My 11th Birthday Slumber Party: 

    Honestly, I enjoyed my 11th birthday sleepover. I had invited a few different friends this year and was much happier. We went to bed at a relatively normal hour and we all enjoyed the party and had a great time. This party renewed my hope that sleepovers could actually be a good experience. However, that hope was short-lived once I was introduced to sleepover "pranks". 

"Pranks" At Sleepovers: 

    One reason to despise sleepovers is the pranks that are often pulled on the first to go to sleep. I was always the first to go to sleep, so I felt the brunt of some of this torture. The girls would hide my stuff so I would have to go on a scavenger hunt for it the next morning, they would make fun of me for going to bed so early, and they would try to wake me up in any way possible. An unknown source told me a story about a sleepover she went to, the first girl who fell asleep went to bed extremely early. The girls at the party thought it would be funny to put her hand in warm water, and they literally made this 10-year-old pee her pants on the couch. Not only was this poor planning on the part of the girls, now you have a pee stain on a couch someone has to clean. It's also extremely cruel, young girls especially can be very mean and while these pranks seem cute, they are often really hurtful. I'm sure that girl was extremely embarrassed and I feel bad for anyone this has happened to. Other pranks include: drawing on people's faces, freezing various items of clothing, stealing clothing, or generally choosing to be rude to one person specifically. All of these "pranks" are enough to make anyone say "no thanks" when invited to their next sleepover. 

Sleepovers As A Teen: 

    I went to a few sleepovers as a teenager, but they were all in middle school. At this point, I started to realize why I hated sleepovers so much when I was younger and began to despise them even more. When you're a teenager, sleeping at someone else's house just doesn't have the same appeal. I'd much rather be in my own bed, with my own things, in my own house than at a friend's place. It may just be me, but whenever I went to sleepovers dinner was always half a twinkie, you slept on the cold hard ground with half a cloth napkin to cover you, and for some reason, your mouth was always extremely dry. This may be oddly specific, but at every teenage sleepover, I had that's what it resulted in. We would hang out for a few hours and it would be really fun until 11 PM or 12 AM. At that point we were just tired and irritable, we wanted to go home and go to bed. Also, when we started getting older we valued our sleep a lot more. Some of us had sports the next day, some had Church, or we were up late studying that week and wanted to catch up on sleep. We didn't want to stay up all night, it no longer had that "cool big kid" effect it did when we were little.  Most sleepovers I went to were Saturday to Sunday, which meant you had school the next day, and being sleep-deprived was always a bad idea. By far, the worst part of a sleepover is the morning after. 

The Morning After: 

    The morning after a sleepover is one of the worst experiences of my life. I would always wake up before anyone else and I would have no idea what to do. It wasn't my house, so I couldn't just go walking around and exploring. You could go on your phone, but even that gets boring after a while. It got to the point that you were literally twiddling your thumbs waiting for the host to get up. Also, teen girls after a sleepover are some of the meanest people you'll ever meet. We were so sleep-deprived and tired of being with each other we all started getting so nasty.  There's only so much time you can spend with people before it's too much and you need a break from it. Don't even get me started on the back pain after a sleepover. Most of the time, I slept on the floor at slumber parties and my back hurt so bad the next morning, that pain stayed with me for weeks. Also, for some reason at every sleepover, I always became extremely dehydrated. I would wake up with the dryest mouth and it was just the worst feeling ever. Once your mom finally comes to pick you up after a sleepover, there's always the lecture about how you should actually sleep at these types of parties. Tired and irritable teenagers don't mix well with moms who are lecturing about proper sleep. My mom was completely right, but because I was already moody it just made me feel even worse. The experience of the morning after a sleepover is somewhat indescribable but is definitely something you don't want to be part of. 

Conclusion: 

    After going through my many sleepover memories, I am happy to say that I will not sleep over at someone else's house again. I think that it's a phase that every kid goes through, they see all of their friends having sleepovers so they want to do it too. I'm glad I had those experiences and I do have some irreplaceable memories from that time in my life, but the idea of a sleepover now, at age 16, just seems impractical and unnecessary. Part of it is the amount of time you can spend with people, at the sleepovers when I was younger they started to go wrong at around 8 or 9 PM, typical little kid bedtime. As I got older, things started to go wrong at around 12 AM or 1 AM, typical teenager bedtime.  I really wish I had better experiences as a kid and that I still enjoyed them now, but I've come to the conclusion that it's best when everyone goes home at around 11:30 PM - 12:30 AM (latest). You have a lot of fun and you enjoy that time with your friends, but you don't get any of the negative side effects of a sleepover. Long story short, I should've listened to my mom when she said that I may not enjoy sleepovers. I, of course, had to go out and experience it for myself before admitting that she was right, but part of me wishes I just took her advice. 

This is me at one of the sleepovers I enjoyed. (We were Christmas Mummies)