Parents don't shower often.

[pateandcheese]

Is this a generational thing?
My parents in their late 60's only shower once a week.
I wouldn't say they ever smell or look scruffy, but I find it odd.
I've obviously not lived at home in 15+ years so never really noticed before, but before lockdown we went away as a family for a week and they both showered once in that time.
Me, my DH and small kids shower or bath every day without fail.
They're both retired so it's not as if they're massively busy.
They're very house proud and everything is fresh and ironed and tidy.
I just don't get the showering thing.
But thinking about it when I lived at home I'd only shower a few times a week in my teens too. It's only since moving out I shower every day.

My DM is 80 and she showers every day. My FIL is 93 and showers every day too.

I'm in and out in 3 mins flat, but surely that's easier than wet wiping yourself every day?!

Depends on some factors. I find a sink wash easier with my arthritis, particularly in the cold as it is now and even more right now with the boiler acting up and getting someone out is being difficult. With a sink wash, I can do my upper half, dry off and redress that part, and then do my lower half and I rinse when a jug of water when I'm on the loo during my period anyways.

Getting in and out of the bathtub in a pain for me, I don't feel steady while in it so do so with my spouse to help me in and out. I often need to rest a lot longer after a shower than I do for a sink wash so it's not the fast option it is for most others. With our boiler is now being unreliable, I've had to tell my kids how to do a sink wash while we wait for someone to come out (oddly it does the radiators fine, it's just the taps). The ones in school do normally have a bath or shower every day before school so this has been awkward for them.

I think there will be generational factors, but there will those of us younger who have factors that may make different bathing choices. Maybe I am mustier than I think, but I'm rarely out of the house to bother anyone else so I guess it doesn't matter as much.

Yep Saturdays was bath day for my parents, I believe still is. They don’t own a shower just bath. The other days it’s a wash at the sink with a bar of soap and a flannel. If hair needs to be washed in between it’s washed over the bath

I genuinely don't get when people advocate a strip wash as an easier option.

It's so much easier to just step in the shower for a better result.

You are free to prefer what you like, but "easier" is not the right adjective. Most of us don't need to fill the heater with coal or wood first!

My parents in law don't shower ever, because they don't have a shower. They bath maybe once or twice a week.

But they are as clean as can be. The house is pristine, their clothes are clean and there isn't even a hint of body odour from either of them (and they are huggers so I've been close to them every time I've seen them for the past 25 years).

My mother is almost 90 and showers daily.

But clean does not equal showering.

BiBabbles

Your bathroom obviously is a huge factor. We did put a plastic chair in my grand-ma's shower, so she did find it easier and less slippery. If you haven't got the right shower, it's obviously not possible.

I grew up with a bath on a Sunday night for school then we had the rubber stick on the taps shower . I shower every day and don't get the idea of a strip wash . It takes longer . I agree as someone above said it is the generation above us . My in laws had a bath on a Friday morning .They would be in their 90s now if alive.

A lot of older people prefer a wash at the sink daily

I remember when my mum (born 1940) went into hospital after a stroke and me being in a flat panic because the staff were showering her only once a week and her friend (same age) saying kindly that I needed to remember that daily showering and hair washing is a relatively recent thing and the norm for everybody when they were kids was a daily wash plus a bath/shower once a week.

Probably a generational thing, given that not so long ago hardly anyone had proper showers anyway, and most had just one bath, which took longer and used more hot water, so unless it was a very small family there wouldn’t have been enough hot water anyway for everyone to bath every day.

Of course I’m talking ordinary houses here, not huge ones with massive boilers to provide enough for everyone.

A daily wash of pits, bits and feet, with a sponge or flannel kept for ‘bits’ purposes, was how many people managed to feel clean on the days when they couldn’t have a bath.

It used to be called "bath night" for a reason lol.

We all shower so regularly now because we have easier access to hot water.

My grandparents were born in the late 20s and are now long since passed. They were very house proud people and they didnt smell bad so much as just old, musky and of lavender and parma violets.

I'm not sure a strip wash takes longer than a shower but even if it does, it uses a lot less hot water. Combi boilers are still a relatively new thing, and many people still have system boilers with the hot water tank and the idea of not wasting water/ using too much hot water will be ingrained.

I'm a carer and most tend to have a sink wash every morning and eve but no shower.

I'm over 70 and have a shower every day. So do all my friends.

When I was a child we had a bath once a week and I didn't know anyone with a shower. A rubber hose attached to the bath taps was for hair washing. Things change, central heating and hot water make daily showers easy.

However as you get older clambering over the bath to have a shower doesn't feel safe any more. I have a walk in shower so it won't become a problem but I know people in their 80s who certainly don't have a shower every day because they can't.

People who are 70 now were only 40 in 1990, were bit taking about the war generation here! Older people often don't need bed to bathe as often for smell and for health reasons, and often it's harder for them to physical tasks.

NoPainNoTartine It is. We're hoping to move to a more accessible place soon as the adaptations that would help just aren't feasible here. I know of others who have similar issues. I have put a plastic seat in it sometimes, but between the bathroom, disability, and now the boiler, a sink wash can be less of a faff on days when I'm not going out, maybe partially because it's just become routine for me. For my kids who've never done it before, the sink wash is obviously takes far more thought with less results.

Generational (yes, in the 80s there was a weekly 'bath day' even if some people on here had a daily bath), but also age I think. Old people don't have the same hormones that cause smelly sweat imo.

"A rubber hose attached to the bath taps was for hair washing. "

That's posh. In the 80s we used a jug and the same bath water.

I don't think it's generational at all. My parents are in their mid-late sixties and both shower daily. My in-laws are in their late seventies and do the same.

I suppose in some people it's habit, or maybe they find it easier to strip-wash, especially if their showers are over the bathtub and they struggle with mobility. Also, if you're less mobile and don't go out much, you probably don't get that dirty and probably don't need daily showers in the same way a younger, more active person might.

"being in a flat panic because the staff were showering her only once a week "

Being in a panic? That's a really extreme reaction.

@Requinblanc actually every Country used to say this about other Countries. When I was a child it was the French who were said to be dirty and smelly, apparently they didn’t have soap! Oh and German women stank because they didn’t shave their armpits. It was all silly racist bullshit and as an adult there is no excuse for you to still be buying into it. Time to grow up?

@TroysMammy

Perhaps we need to stop buying toiletries as gifts for the older generation because they obviously don't need as much as we think they do.

My nan outright told me to buy her chocolate and flowers for her 85th birthday and ‘Not a basket of smelliest because I won’t live long enough to finish them’

@borntobequiet

It’s not a generational thing. We oldies were brought up with soap, baths and showers just like you. It’s not as though we were born in the 19th century. HTH.

You may have been brought up with showers, but plenty of people didn't. None of my grandparents ever had a shower in their house. My parents didn't have one until the 90s. I'd like to know what percentage of houses had showers in the 40s and 50s and how many people used them daily. I bet it would be lower than now.

[quote missyB1]@Requinblanc actually every Country used to say this about other Countries. When I was a child it was the French who were said to be dirty and smelly, apparently they didn’t have soap! Oh and German women stank because they didn’t shave their armpits. It was all silly racist bullshit and as an adult there is no excuse for you to still be buying into it. Time to grow up?[/quote]
No, there are differences between countries. You can look up surveys with people giving their own responses.

Generational doesn't mean everyone over a certain age does things that way but is an acknowledgement that things would have often been different in the past and that some people have stuck with that norm either through habit or just not realising others have changed or sometimes they still live in outdated properties which have the same water availability issues. MIL does. When we all stayed after FIL died there were six of us and the choice was sharing bathwater or bathing once a week.

We didn't have a shower growing up and to run a bath would use up most of the water in the immersion heater. There wouldn't be enough for everyone to bath once a day so the three of us bathed on different nights and usually only once a week.

This was in the 90s/00s which I've learned on MN is very late for such a practice to have continued. We had a daily morning sink wash.

In the 90s it used to be a whole thing! "I can't come out tonight, I'm washing my hair".