AIBU to wonder why the hell my mum was obsessed with the water bill?

[YourProudSnail]

We were only allowed to shower when she was in the bedroom (shower in en-suite) where she would wait in the bedroom and start counting the minutes down in her bedroom. Once 5 minutes was up she would shout to get out or barge in while I was in the shower.

This was done to "save money" at the time but looking back on it while we were on benefits we were definitely not poor (outlier case with high child maintenance and a paid off house due to accident) and there were no issues with money when she wanted a long hot bath every day.

I didn't think it was odd but the idea of doing this with own DC or a partner just seems absurd now I think about it. Even as a student where people were scraping by on £5-£10k a year absolutely no-one cared about how long people took in the shower (unless they needed to use ti obviously).

Maybe you used to take too long and she just wanted to make sure you hurried up and got ready for bed/school?

I knew kids at school who were treated similarly. My mother was enraged, but neither she nor anyone else raised concerns. This was in the 70s. I think the view then was that abuse was beating - and this type of abuse was not recognised as such. But what decent parent fails to replace worn out school uniform when they’re smoking? And sending your DC to school dirty and smelly should raise alarms at school.

@FannyFernackerpants have you tackled your parents about this?

I was thinking about this the other day too. We were always made to share adventures calendars and take it in turns to open a door as if they were a precious and rare commodity that cost hundreds of pounds. Imagine my surprise as an adult to realise you can get them for a quid in any supermarket.

If she liked a long hot bath then maybe she didn’t want the water ‘running out’ before her bath? I’m so ancient I remember this being a big thing if the shower ran off the water boiler. There was only ever a certain amount of hot water available at any one time.

That just sounds like out and out control to me OP. I’m sorry you lived like that.

I did sort of mention it in a round about way over the years, for example they used to think I was stupid for bathing my children every night and putting them in clean pj's. They couldn't believe they had clean uniform every day so they remained convinced they were right and hadn't done anything wrong.
We are NC now for other reasons.

But why should her long hot bath trump a decent shower for OP? Barging in when your child is going through puberty is so batshit.
Perhaps she could have had a long hot bath every other day and OP could have had a longer shower on the none bath days.
Children are people too but some parents treat them little better than animals.

The more expensive bit of the shower is heating the water.