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?

We are fairly relaxed about these things bedding loosely every two weeks more if illness etc.
But one has to be careful not to go too far the other way, I think people have become cleaning fascists in recent times with shoes off obsessions and everything looking like a show home
A happy medium is best

You lost me at weekly bed changes. I work about 50 hours a week in (prob more a the moment) and at the weekend I'm washing and drying uniform as the priority. Bath every other day though!

For parents to keep their home?

In answer to your first question...I own my home-who would you suggest take it from me!?

I'm sure there are lots of ideals, but as we all know from the how often do you change your bedding/wash your towels discussions on here, there are huge discrepancies in what people consider acceptable. Defining the cut off would be impossible.

You could start by saying to the nation, 'you should ensure clean bedding once a week', but loads of pretty clean people would just think, 'well I do every fortnight and that's fine-I can't manage working full time and doing it weekly. The rest of the advice is probably bollocks as well then...'

Safeguarding is a different matter, if children are actually smelly and dirty, then it's the responsibility of everyone connected with that child to raise concerns.

I retract that first statement, re-reading it, there is more than one meaning of the work 'keep' and I assumed the wrong one!!

This is one of the daftest posts I've ever read on here. And it has some competition

are you going to pay for the water and fuel to enable this to happen then? I'm actually sat here this morning in tears, paid rent council tax and theres a whopping 13 pounds left, i have school uniforms to get washed and dried by monday no brwead in for packed lunches.. and the leccy will run out soon. Tryin to decide what to prioritise and posts like yours are SUPER helpful so thanks a lot for lightening my mood today!?! And to make this super clear, this is NOT an I need budgeting lessons situation, its pure and simple costs rising waay faster than income

No. SS were called because someone like OP felt I wasn't meeting their standards. SS said we had a lovely home and were clearly taking excellent care of our child who had clean clothes, regular meals, somewhere clean and safe to sleep and access to washing facilities.

Thank heavens for you @TheKeatingFive . OP has made me feel dreadful for sharing my story and seriously upset me. It was someone like OP who resulted in me being visited by SS — totally without just cause I hasten to add. And SS thought I had a lovely comfortable home.

There is a standard…. It’s called “good enough” parenting. It is however subjective.

I’m a Children’s social worker and some of what is held up as the norm on mumsnet is great but absolutely not necessary for a happy, healthy child.

My child was fantastic at going into school in dirty clothes rather than the clean ones... SS were sent around to check we were coping. We were.

As a CP social worker I have no interest in children going into school with dirty clothes. Unless there are other significant concerns raised it just wouldn’t reach the threshold for me to take in the referral and visit the home. There are too many children where there are actual safety concerns for me to be involved in how often someone does their laundry.

So, you decide again what’s right or wrong based on your standards?

which as you’ve said are skewed by your upbringing.

Fair enough.
Let's all not bathe our children until they are filthy.
Let's not change their bedding until that is filthy (must leave mn minimum 2 weeks)
Let's feed them all as much junk food as possible.
Let's definitely not do any extra curricular activities.
As long as we read with them that's enough.

I also want to repeat, especially for the social workers that have popped up that at no point did I say any of the things I mentioned warranted SS involvement. Other posters have used words like abuse etc but that didn't come from me!

You are being ridiculous here.

There is no universal set of standards that everyone could agree on. Actual, genuine neglect is complex and nuanced. And did you ever clarify how you think this would be policed?

Or paid for

You’re being totally ridiculous again!

Calm down and just think…. Do you think there is anyway a midway between filthy and being bathed three times a week? Do you think that changing a bed once a week is the definition of cleanliness?

Do you think some children can eat some “junk” occasionally and it’s fine.

You had a bad upbringing, sorry for that.

But stop projecting your “what good parents look like” on to others.

@Obviouslynamechangedforthisagain it sounds like you had some really difficult experiences in your childhood.
As with most situations this isn’t an either/or, black and white situation. Different families and different cultures can find their own ‘normal’ and it be OK. Generations who grew up long ago are used to washing less frequently. More recent generations find that unacceptable. I heard a R4 programme recently describing how UK households do far more washing machine loads than European ones (guessing their clothes last longer). It’s all ok, just different.
This is a different topic to your difficult childhood experiences. Please don’t mix the 2 up. Those who wash, change or clean less often then you do now are not necessarily experiencing it as bad.

Brilliant idea. That will definitely stop parents neglecting Thier children.
I better go and change my sheets, my kids are clearly suffering as we don't change ours weekly!

Clearly, expectations of cleanliness have changed over the past 50 years, but we were bathed once a week (Sunday evening ready for school), our bedsheets were only changed every 3-4 weeks, we all shared towels which were washed weekly, etc etc.
Yes, we were a poor single parent family, living on state benefits.
As previous posters have said, if a minimum standard were to be officially set (by law), who on earth would be able to check that the rules were being followed?

Bedding weekly?! I change ours and the teens every 2-3 weeks but the little ones who are clean and don’t sweat etc are probably only done every 4-6 weeks unless they are sick etc

I think it's because my child looks like a Consumptive Victorian Orphan at the best of times.

However, it was actually because our child made a Safeguarding disclosure against this particular Safeguarding Team member so they decided to Level 4 us with the "dirty clothes" being cited as an indication of neglect. The SS person who got sent out wasn't very amused either.

I’ll bet they weren’t, there’s not enough time to deal with actual concerns much less chase rabbits. I hope the safeguarding concern was followed up properly with the team member involved.

I'd agree.

This is the least realistic premise for a thread since someone wanted to discuss if we could've stopped covid with a global 3 week lockdown.