To ask son to shower every night?

[mrsgregorypeck]

I ask my son (11) to have a shower every night before a school day. This leads to lots of huffing and puffing and occasional temper tantrums.

To be fair, I remember my brothers at that age were required to have a bath every Sunday and only "a good wash" at the sink in between.

Have our perceptions changed of what constitutes acceptable levels of cleanliness or am I just being unreasonable?

[mrsgregorypeck]

Not sure either why anyone would think this was U. According to DS, though, NO-ONE ELSE has to submit to such a punishing hygiene schedule. Tried to get him to shower in the morning (which I think is the best way to start the day) but lost patience with the arguments in the morning when time is tight so insist now upon bed-time shower. Can't wait for the gentle fragrance of Lynx to be wafting through the house...

[lljkk]

DS is 13 & we are lucky to herd him into the shower once a week.
I just do not have the energy to have such a battle unless strictly necessary.
Whatever bad effects this is supposed to have had in DS's life haven't materialised. Getting yelled at by his dad "You Stink!!" is about the worst of it.

[complexnumber]

I am trying to remember when I started taking a shower every morning.

It was probably a lot later than I would like to think. As a student in the early 80's we (housemates and I) were too tight/broke to put the water heater on, so we would use showers in the SU building or visit a friend in halls of residence.

I doubt if I managed that 7 days a week. (Frequent wash shampoo has not been around for that long really.)


I don't think I was particularly smelly, I certainly would have been told so if I was (my friends were a delightful bunch who would have taken great pleasure in giving you a nickname, one was called BFSS George- Big Fat Stupid Smelly).

I know that I now feel really icky if I don't have a shower as soon as getting up on a work day. But I'm not convinced that to do otherwise is really such a no no.

[DeafLeopard]

We regularly have half a dozen or so teen boys in the house, I can tell which ones shower daily and which ones don't.

I think back in the day when people didn't shower daily, we probably just got used to the smell and so didn't notice it.

[Pandemoniaa]

According to DS, though, NO-ONE ELSE has to submit to such a punishing hygiene schedule.

Ah yes, these are the same no-one elses who are the same everyone elses that are given unlimited pocket money, a life free of bedtimes and as many X-rated video games as they can spend their unwashed time playing.

It's an old trick but no more successful now than it ever was.

YANBU either. Showering daily is a good habit to get into as well as almost always necessary. It's quicker to shower than have splashy "gentlemen's washes" too.

[Pandemoniaa]

PS. Having been brought up in the those apocryphal Dark Ages where, allegedly, women lit coppers in order to heat water to to fill a tin bath in front of the fire, can I just point out that in many households, regular, daily baths or showers were just as commonplace then as today. We had two bathrooms in the 1960s. Radical as that might sound.

[hoxtonbabe]

It is a must...my one has now got to the stage where he can "monitor his smell" LOL

so sometimes he will shower twice in a day

[Almostfifty]

Ah, the no-one elses.

Funny how they're always the only one isn't it?

Ours started showering in the mornings when they went to secondary school, rather than a bath at night.

Woke them up, and made them clean and fresh to start the day. The Lynx seems to have stopped now thank goodness.

[determinedma]

like lljkk I have a soap dodger. he is 11 tomorrow and the battles over bathing are exhausting and dull. I am rigidly strict on teeth twice a day, washing hands after loo but otherwise he baths when I can get him in there.
He doesnt seem unduly smelly so far

[andtheycalleditbunnylove]

daily showers. bath if you don't have a shower.
get them into the habit now or they'll stink at university. most teenage boys seem to need reminders about being clean and its always at its worst three weeks after the freshers arrive.

[mrsgregorypeck]

DS is also outraged by the unfairness of the days when he goes swimming and therefore has two showers that day. This, apparently, inoculates him against dirt and sweat so that he does not need a shower at all for the two following days. And, yes, I too have witnessed the head under the tap routine in a pathetic attempt to convince me that a shower has been taken. Any tips?

[SquinkiesRule]

You are not being unreasonable, I made both my boys shower daily once they were teens/preteens. The stench would be unreasonable if they didn't.
I did walk into he classroom on a sunny day when one of the boys was 11, I gagged, and the teacher started to laugh, his response was "they are a bit ripe aren't they" From that day on there was no excuse not to get showered.

[tuckingfits]

My partner's parents didn't think it was important to teach him a good hygiene routine. It is only now at the age of 37 (38 today) that I have managed to get him to succumb to a daily shower. He has a manual job. Has done since he left school. Why did he think a shower once a week/fortnight would suffice?

Had I known about his habits early on,we would not have lasted,as it was I didn't discover until after I moved in & was pregnant. In fact it was some time after that,as I worked evenings & he worked days so I assumed he showered before bed. He rarely smelled but to be honest the thought is so off putting that I cringe to think of some of the times we were intimate. Bleurgh.

It has been a long hard slog to instill in him the understanding that few of his mates who do similar work are very likely to shower upon arrival home from a hard day's labour. Had his parents done this when he was in his formative years,many an argument in our household could have been avoided.

Please endeavour to teach your sons about the importance of personal hygiene,if not for anyone else's sake but their own. Think of the breeding ground being created for bacteria...

[tuckingfits]

Should have mentioned that at the age of 37 he also turned the shower on,moved his shower gel in the cubicle,stuck his feet in to make them wet enough to make wet footprints & a damp towel. No more. It got to the point that I told him it's a bad model for our son to learn from & that if he didn't buck his ideas up it was over. Extreme maybe but for me it was a matter of respect to me & our relationship (in which we were having other issues too,but this was as good a time as any to bring it up. Again).

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

DS1 has to shower after rugby as he's covered in mud. At the height of the rugby season he plays five times a week. On non-rugby days he likes to shower when he gets in from school, which is fair enough as he's just walked a mile and a half carrying an 8kg pack, most of it uphill. After his shower he gets into a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms or a onesie to do his homework, before going out again after dinner to Scouts / youth club / more rugby training.

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

DS2 (nearly 11) only showers every other day, he hasn't started puberty yet but his hair gets greasy quicker than it did six months or a year ago.

[hoxtonbabe]

This thread is having me in fits of laughter...sometimes you do think it is only your boys...although as good as my one is with showers teeth brushing is a totally different ball game :-(

[mrsgregorypeck]

Why are so many boys/men such disgusting mingers? Does anyone have a theory? The underpants stains thread also seems to back up this view, unfortunately.

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

I don't plan on mine ever getting out of the habit of a daily bath or shower before bed.

Boys smell once they hit even the very early stages of puberty, and they need to wash.

[lljkk]

I am a dragon about teethbrushing, though, much trouble there myself.
It's not just males, MrsGP.

[sweetestB]

I personaly find it disgusting wether anyone, regardless their age doesn't shower/bathe daily.
Unfortunately my H was brought up with the good washing in the sink mentality and it has a really bad impact in our relationship.
Habits are hard to change, so it's better to get into good ones IMO

[sweetestB]

tuckingifts you said it so well. I have very similar circumstances and totally get your point.

[2blessed2bstressed]

Both my ds's (15 and 12) shower every morning. I think it helps them waken up, and I shower every morning too. When they were babies they used to get their bath in the morning, that's just how I've always done it!
They do occasionally have a bath in the evening too, one plays squash and goes camping with cadets, and the other does a lot of swimming and riding, so I don't always want them getting in to nice clean beds without getting rid of the muck that those activities produce!

[OneMoreChap]

Being unreasonable to ask him repeatedly.

Ask him once, the tell him.

Boys smell and need to shower.

I prefer to shower at night, too, but many like a morning shower to start the day awake....