Did your parents teach you hygiene? If not, how did you learn?

[Anonymous]

My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom was a stickler for hygiene, from the time we were babies. We learned to bathe ourselves and wash our own hair by the time we were 3 or 4. I had a cousin whose mother did not teach her anything, so I remember one evening my mom said we were going to play beauty salon and we were going to wash each other's hair in the sink, in order to get her to wash her hair without hurting her feelings. She never realized what mom was doing. By watching us buying deodorant and razors, she learned about that.

You mom was a good auntie!

[Anonymous]

Pretty much no parents teach hygiene unless the kid shows signs of not having proper hygiene.
It’s not that hard for most preteens to figure out. One trip to the Target with a kid should be enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

Good lord woman - petrochemicals for all, right? If you want your family members to still have things like functional thyroid glands you should consider being more basic like your mom was. Stop watching so many network tv commercials already - those chemicals they are peddling might be legal in the US but they’re not good for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me sad. Kudos to you ladies who were left to figure all of this out on your own. And shame on your mothers.

Why only the mothers?

It’s always blasted the Mother’s Day. Mother probably died 20 years ago but she’s probably still blamed for stuff that happened yesterday. Why do we sign up for this motherhood thing exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

Good lord woman - petrochemicals for all, right? If you want your family members to still have things like functional thyroid glands you should consider being more basic like your mom was. Stop watching so many network tv commercials already - those chemicals they are peddling might be legal in the US but they’re not good for you.

Petrochemicals? Like Vaseline? Lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me sad. Kudos to you ladies who were left to figure all of this out on your own. And shame on your mothers.

Why only the mothers?

It’s always ‘blast the Mother’ Day’. Mother probably died 20 years ago but she’s probably still blamed for stuff that happened yesterday. Why do we sign up for this motherhood thing exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretty much no parents teach hygiene unless the kid shows signs of not having proper hygiene.
It’s not that hard for most preteens to figure out. One trip to the Target with a kid should be enough.

Huh? I teach hygiene to my son every day, and plan to continue especially when he starts getting stinkier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

Good lord woman - petrochemicals for all, right? If you want your family members to still have things like functional thyroid glands you should consider being more basic like your mom was. Stop watching so many network tv commercials already - those chemicals they are peddling might be legal in the US but they’re not good for you.

Petrochemicals? Like Vaseline? Lol.

DP. Vaseline is "petroleum jelly". Yes, that's a petrochemical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

Good lord woman - petrochemicals for all, right? If you want your family members to still have things like functional thyroid glands you should consider being more basic like your mom was. Stop watching so many network tv commercials already - those chemicals they are peddling might be legal in the US but they’re not good for you.

Petrochemicals? Like Vaseline? Lol.

Yum yum! Yup, your mom was a terrible lady
She probably used all the money she saved from not buying that overpriced overadvertised crap on something dumb like your education.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/beautyrevolution.ca/2010/06/25/get-petroleum-out-of-your-bathroom/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I picked things up here and there, sometimes from weird places. I remember my older brother telling me about using shaving cream on my legs (I thought it was just for the face) and moisturizer on them afterwards. He found out from his girlfriend.

I learned from Oprah that you don't wear a WHITE bra under a white shirt, but a NUDE colored bra instead. Okay, that's fashion rather than hygiene. My father told me I would know my hair was clean when I was in the shower and it squeaked.

I went to our next door neighbor's house for something and she had a friend over. The friend told me to use leave-in conditioner in my hair. She was right. I never flossed as a kid - I learned how from watching my dentist teach my daughter how to do it. I can't remember how I learned about waxing.

Probably learned most other stuff from friends or reading. My mom wore such bad makeup that kids at school made fun of me for how she looked. She had outdated views (tampons cause TSS), wearing black or red is slutty, and a lot of misinformation (brush your curly hair harder to tame it and make it less pouffy). She also has easily not showered or taken a bath in decades at this point. So she would get angry at me for taking too-long showers or too frequent showers even though I would take one every other day and be in and out of the bathroom in 20 minutes.

I hate nude color bras or underwear. I don't have one and I am not planning on getting one.

But under a white blouse you need nude because a white bra stands out

No, I don't need it. If you can see my bra through my blouse, then it better be a sexy bra, not a nude one. Most of my bras are bright colors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading this is interesting to me, as the mother of a 14 yr old.

I'm betting if you asked my daughter how she learned to shave her legs, she'd say friends. She tunes me out completely whenever I've brought up "growing up" topics, I doubt she remembers me mentioning some girls shave their under arms and I could show her how, when she was 9 and I noticed she was growing underarm hair. She completely ignored me, as she did when I mentioned some girls shave their legs, a yearish later, and so on. I've stocked her book shelves with different "growing up" books, including the always-recommended Care and Keeping of You. The spines are pristine.

I'm pretty sure in 20 years, she'll be wondering how on earth I let her grow up feral and why I left it to her friends to educate her. I know some parents do let their children down in this regard, I'm not questioning that. I'm just betting my kid's going to be thinking she was left to flounder too. Though she might remember the time I forced her to come to the drug store with me to to buy a selection of different tampons so she could try to find one for swimming that she didn't hate. That was highly traumatic for both of us. (Advice to any parents considering doing this in the future - just use Amazon. Why didn't I use Amazon?!)

Does your daughter go to school dirty, in hopelessly outdated clothes? Are her fingernails filled with dirt because she doesn't know she has to clean them? Does she smell because she doesn't know the basics of how to wash herself? This is what we're talking about here, which doesn't seem to be what you're describing. If you haven't lived it yourself, I don't think you know what it's like.

For my part, I have made absolutely sure my own kids understand hygiene and I invest in a wardrobe so they look presentable. I have also drilled into them that they need to have compassion for kids who may look and smell weird or dirty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But under a white blouse you need nude because a white bra stands out

The "nude" generally sold in stores is only nude for pale-skinned people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom gave me no guidance and made me feel bad about wanting to shave at 13 or use a specific shampoo. Like I was vain or something.

I have two teen boys but regularly come home from the drug store with stuff specifically for them to try - face washes, hair products, deodorants, etc. My husband has taught them how to shave, but I want to make sure they know it's okay to use other stuff.

Good lord woman - petrochemicals for all, right? If you want your family members to still have things like functional thyroid glands you should consider being more basic like your mom was. Stop watching so many network tv commercials already - those chemicals they are peddling might be legal in the US but they’re not good for you.

You sound fun!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading this is interesting to me, as the mother of a 14 yr old.

I'm betting if you asked my daughter how she learned to shave her legs, she'd say friends. She tunes me out completely whenever I've brought up "growing up" topics, I doubt she remembers me mentioning some girls shave their under arms and I could show her how, when she was 9 and I noticed she was growing underarm hair. She completely ignored me, as she did when I mentioned some girls shave their legs, a yearish later, and so on. I've stocked her book shelves with different "growing up" books, including the always-recommended Care and Keeping of You. The spines are pristine.

I'm pretty sure in 20 years, she'll be wondering how on earth I let her grow up feral and why I left it to her friends to educate her. I know some parents do let their children down in this regard, I'm not questioning that. I'm just betting my kid's going to be thinking she was left to flounder too. Though she might remember the time I forced her to come to the drug store with me to to buy a selection of different tampons so she could try to find one for swimming that she didn't hate. That was highly traumatic for both of us. (Advice to any parents considering doing this in the future - just use Amazon. Why didn't I use Amazon?!)

This is a very good point. It's interesting what we remember from our childhoods and how we remember things. And girls do sometimes blow off their moms and think that can't possibly know anything worthwhile.