To think there should be minimum standards

[Obviouslynamechangedforthisagain]

For parents to keep their home?
Reading threads on here people admit to children being bathed once per week, wearing pjs for weeks on end, changing beds monthly etc.
Obviously not everyone lives in squalor but if there were minimum standards (ie 3 baths pw, bedding changed weekly) it could help an awful lot of neglected children that don't reach SS level of need.
Admittedly it would be almost impossible to police but if it could be done AIBU to think this could be a good idea?

Perhaps children’s services could set these standards as part of CIN conferences etc, and it would also give parents something concrete to work towards and probably help their self esteem and feeling of capability too.

Childrens services work with parents to care for their children considering their particular circumstances, plans and measures are put in place according to need and capacity, not some random “ideal” standard. Children’s plans are very concrete.

Which is similar in principal to a toddler never mixing with other youngsters in case they catch a cold, when in reality all that has happened is that the isolated child has not had a chance to build up any immunity before they go to infant school.

This theory is about being exposed to a diverse range of 'friendly' microbes, not pathogens. A child catching a cold or any other infection doesn't build up immunity or strengthen their immune system, only temporarily weaken it.

Or, the parents could use this as the bar to be set. Meaning, as long as they have these minimum standards of bathing and changing sheets, they don't have to do anything else such as the REALLY important stuff (love, assurance building confidence, homework help, being engaged, attention...)

You would have to stop the insistence on newbuilds having water meters and remove them from houses which currently have them if the government is to mandate the number of weekly baths and how often we wash the sheets. Water meters are discrimatory, IMO, anyway since they penalise those with young children and those with old people in the household - both of which significantly increase the clothes and bedding wash load. I am with the idea of taking out water meters on those grounds alone (I won't have one). I'd also renationalise the water companies and the tracts of often beautiful countryside (think half the Lake District belonging to a private water company, land that used to belong to the nation) so that we have control over our water supply.

As to your own thought, you answered yourself: impossible to police. And children who get sheets washed once a month may well be in good, loving homes where housework takes second place to good food, spending time with DC, going out to interesting places - dirtyish sheets do not necessarily = abuse.

Well it's not just water, it costs electric and gas as well so let's make them free to all

I actually think some guidelines probably would be helpful but the problem is no-one really knows what is ‘right’ and lots of that is shaped by culture and social stuff rather than the science.

My kids have always had an evening bath with very few exceptions but I’m more lax on changing sheets. My husband hates clutter and is better at tidying but isn’t as bothered by cleaning. I’m the opposite. My mother (sahm) used to starch everything before ironing and everything was immaculate. I barely pick up an iron (work full time). If you were producing standards who would be ‘right’. My mum would win at ironing but I am more financially secure.

You need to get out more!

some people post some weird shit on here nowadays

when my dc were small they both suffered horribly from bad skin and bathing them too often made it worse, so they had a bath once or twice a week (unless they were extremely filth covered) clean bedding once a week (changed on a Sunday) clean pjs as and when they were needed certainly not nightly

who is going to monitor this? And what purpose would it actually serve…

who’s paying for all the extra electric and water? for washing of the bed sheets and heating the water and the cost of bedding/clean pj’s every night

there are far more important things to get right first…

Also, related to my earlier comment about 2020, and all the well-meaning trouble that went with it, I'm sure it didn't do our children any good having their environment too sterile; many parents probably cleaned their homes far more than usual, and because children were forbidden to meet other children to keep granny alive (and isolated from her grandchildren for good measure), their bodies were not exposed to the same germs that many other children's are, and some probably have weakened immune systems. This has been fleetingly mentioned, but will probably be covered up and memory-holed, along with the many, many other harms of lockdowns.

Too much cleanliness can be a bad thing.

Would people however be aghast if the guidelines didn't have a bath every day ?

Hint

The NHS says at least twice a week

Maybe there should be a critical thinking test before people can post threads on Mumsnet.

There are minimum standards, its just that the bar is set lower than the OPs personal standards. So a child regularly going into school smelly, dishevelled, teeth never brushed etc should trigger some SS referral and intervention under the current system.

This

By "keep their home" I think OP means housekeeping, rather than literal ownership

I'd rather that than no reading at home, no outings....there's not enough time for everything and i was actually shocked in the homework thread that daily baths for children seems to be a bigger priority than reading.

Well I was told by health professionals to bath them twice a week and is washing bedding every week actually necessary? I definitely sometimes leave it longer and my children are not living in squalor. You are setting very high expectations here.

Weird. My 6 year old has a weekly shower, + additional if anything untoward happens. Clean clothes every day and clean bedding once a week, sometimes week and a half if busy, immediately if any accidents happen. She is of an age where this is enough, when she is older we will change the routine to adapt to changes. I know an adult who was severely abused as a kid, what you are describing is paradise compared to what he went through. Who polices what is normal and what is not? I don´t think you have thought this through.

I had one bath a week growing up in the 80s/90’s, on a Sunday night before Heartbeat and London’s Burning came on tv. Bed sheets changed probably fortnightly although it might have been longer when we were teenagers and supposed to do it ourselves, invariably we wouldn’t be assed to. Anyhow, wasn’t brought up in squalor, far from it, just happy memories.

Absolutely preposterous idea. As if there aren't enough problems on this godforsaken planet already without criminalising having smelly socks and sweaty sheets?

I would definitely like to see families have more free support, I read somewhere that if you were diagnosed with depression in the Netherlands (I think) the govt would pay for you to have a cleaner. I feel that families should get meal deliveries if they need, help with babysitting and housework etc, on top of working much less hours. It doesn’t make sense that we have organized our society in the most stressful way possible

'admit' to X

Someone needs to redress their feelings around the morality of housework.

I don't 'admit' to fuck all. The amount my kids bathe/change their PJs or i can be arsed to change their sheets is my business and is what it is.

When you use language like 'admit' to doing something like you're a naughty school girl you're attaching morality to housework, and there is no morality in housework.

"A child catching a cold or any other infection doesn't build up immunity "

Catching a cold or other infection, or exposing the immune system to a weakened form of the pathogen or something closely resembling it (i.e. vaccination) is exactly how you build up immunity to it. That's how the immune system works. See e.g.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z667kmn/revision/1

Same we read every day but kids don’t need a bath every day.

This post is hilarious. Half of my friends would have lost their kids by now 🤣

I'd love to know how I'd get six sets of bedding dried every week without having my whole house draped in wet bed clothes, as well as all the other washing I do (a load at least a day), plus the extra towels and extra pjs if they're supposed to be bathing and wearing clean pJS every day....

You do you. My clean, fed, healthy happy loved children do just fine with their twice weekly showers and pj change and their twice monthly bed change.

I was actually told not to bath my daughter except when she was really dirty as it made her excema worse.

I probably changed her bedding once a month. I did change ds's bedding more frequently as he always sweated a lot at night.