Anonymous wrote:Dear DCUM,

I have four kids and showering doesn’t come easy. The oldest, she’s 16, spends too much time showering. She creates a music playlist for background and uses these strange products she bought with money from a summer job because DH and I aren’t wasting our money on anything more than soap, shampoo, and condish. She spends around a hour in the bathroom every night showering. Meanwhile DS, 14, has the opposite problem. You remember how when your kids were younger you had to remind them to take a bath as they didn’t really realize they had to? Well that’s happening again. My son holds firm in his belief that a good enough cologne is a perfect substitute for a shower. Unless we remind him, he can go 3 or 4 days without showering. Luckily he washes his hands but who knows if that’ll last. And then we have the twins, one girl and one boy. They’re 10 and surprisingly the most normal showerers of the bunch. The only weird thing with them is temperature, they only shower with cold water which I know because there is never steam in the mirrors on the cabinets in the bathroom. But cold water isn’t a problem for me, it just seems a little uncomfy.

Thank you for listening,
Marlene

Anonymous wrote:Your contempt for your daughter is pretty toxic.

“Strange” products? 12 year olds have 4 step skincare regimes these days. 16 year olds don’t use the same “body wash, shampoo and ‘condish’” as their ten year old siblings. Listening to music or podcasts while showering is so common they sell waterproof speakers for showers.

Buy your 16 year old some age-appropriate toiletries (at an absolute bare minimum, a good face wash like ceraVe, decent shave gel if she shaves, a trendy spf moisturizer for face and an all body moisturizer) and apologize for treating her self care with such derision while thinking it’s normal for a fourteen year old boy to wear cologne.

Anonymous wrote:When we were teenagers and it took us longer, they instituted a 20 minute shower rule (in the water, they didn't care how long we were in the bathroom putting stuff on our face, blah blah).

Because if we each took a long shower it would run the hot water out and it's a waste of water. You need to get in, wet yourself, shampoo, wash body, rinse, conditioner, rinse again and boom! You are done. 20 minutes is all you need with the water running.

I would flat out, but gently, tell your 14 year old that he smells and it's not ok to not wash every other day at least, and he needs to wash every day when he does a sport or was really active to make him sweat. But how they heck can he take a shower if his sister in the water for 1 hour? That's another reason why she needs to shorten that shower!

And deoderant, not cologne, is what keeps you from smelling. He needs to use that.