Childhood At what age should children stop showering with a parent?

[hymnless]

Pretty straightforward question on this one.... I suddenly realized that showering with an opposite sex parent at is considered sexual abuse at some point. What do you all think? I've had a really hard time trying to come to terms with some pretty long term csa and I'm realizing that there's a good chance it started long before I thought it did.

 

[Fadeaway]

Depends on the culture, but I would say. 2 or 3 years

 

[Sweetleaf]

I don't even know how to answer but, your post brings back memories of being in the shower with my father, like face-to-face with his genitals. No idea what age I was.

I feel like there is definitely an age where that sort of thing stops being okay. Really, there is no need to bathe -alongside- your kid, seeing as if they need help with bathing due to their age, you can remain clothed and help them from outside the tub. (personally I did baths growing up until I was in 5th grade or so, making it even weirder that I showered with him)

 

[hymnless]

Yikes. This is not making me feel better about the situation.....

 

[Sweetleaf]

This is not making me feel better about the situation.....

I'm sorry :(. If it makes you feel any better, this thread has made me start thinking about my csa stuff and wondering if showers with him were a component of that. :sick::sick::sick:

 

[hymnless]

I'm sorry :(. If it makes you feel any better, this thread has made me start thinking about my csa st...

We're really killing it this week, huh?

 

[Sweetleaf]

Lol! Yeah. The shit just keeps piling up

 

[Friday]

Not as straightforward as you’d think. Varies a whole helluva lot by culture & subculture.

My family? Comes from a culture with public baths, and group bathing. Sometimes split by sex, sometimes not. Shrug. Nudity doesn’t equal sex. (The same way that uncovered hair in Islamic countries, or legs wearing pants -as opposed to an obscuring skirt- in many African countries doesn’t equal sex in western culture).

Sub-culture is athletics & military, which -again- means various forms of group & public bathing.

Okay, so clearly, my family (from infants to grandparents) are often naked together in the bathhouse / hotsprings / etc. And at the beach, mountains, pools, lockerooms, etc. What about at home? Pretty much everyone showers solo. When? When they’re old enough to do so. Which is different ages for different kids. There’s no hard and fast limit, but it’s usually sometime in elementary school. And even if you’re not physically in the bath or shower with them? Toddlers are a drowning risk. Always. So there’s always at least 1 adult in the bathroom with them. Even if they’re swimmers, they’re toddlers. They slip, bang their head, sneeze wrong ...and that’s another kid drowned in their tub while their parents were f*cking off leaving them unattended? No way in hell.

So, even in the super puritanical US, I don’t know a single parent who doesn’t stay in the bathroom with their kids until they’re at least in K. And, oftentimes, a few years later. Especially parents of girls with long hair, and boys who think soap is toxic.

Where it starts sounding weird to my tribe? Around 9/10. Because most kids are going to be capable of bathing themselves, and no longer at risk of drowning, sometime between 4-8. (Although the 4yo who was a rockstar at washing their own hair, can decide to hate soap at 6,and end up back with parental supervision for a year easy peasy). The knee jerk for “that’s weird” ....is “is the kid disabled?” / “What’s wrong with the kid?” ... not are the parents sexually abusing their kid. And, more often than not, there really is a very good reason why at 9/10 the kid is still being bathed by their parent. Medical issues, brain damage, low functioning autism, etc. The abuse thing doesn’t even crop up / enter anyone’s brain until middle school / high school.

And, again, that’s being bathed by not simply being around. Because with my peeps the bathroom has about as much privacy as the kitchen. Aka none. People are always in and out of the showers, brushing teeth, taking a bath, styling hair, having a pee, reading a book while the little ones splash themselves pruny. You want privacy? Go to your room and close your door. The bathroom belongs to everyone.

 

[hymnless]

And, more often than not, there really is a very good reason why at 9/10 the kid is still being bathed by their parent. ...

I see what you’re saying here and it makes perfect sense, as does the cultural difference aspect. Here’s where I’m trying to draw the line.... I know for a fact I was sexually abused by my dad starting around age 11. That part I remember explicitly. Where things get dodgy for me are leading up to that. The first incident of hands on csa would be sort of a 0-60mph, since I didn’t think there had been anything before that. The other day I realized that a kid who’s like 9 should probably not be showering with her dad, especially if 95% of the time they shower alone. It doesn’t seem to me that there was any sort of legitimate reason for this to be happening. Or am I making something out of nothing?

 

[Friday]

Or am I making something out of nothing?

Not when there’s already sexual abuse in play.

It’s like, normal parents wipe their children’s mouths and stick their fingers inside them (to pull out things that don’t belong, clear a choking hazard, check for injuries after a faceplant, etc.). They’re not doing it sexually, or as any kind of foreplay or grooming.

People who are sexually abusing their kids? Will also stick their fingers in their kids mouths. Except now it’s got a sexual component. :sick:

At what age should parent stop sticking their fingers in their kids mouth? Just like bathing, it’s not the age that makes something abusive. It’s the person doing it, and why they’re doing it.

If your dad was getting off on bathing you? It doesn’t matter if you’re 2 days old, 2yo, 12yo, or 20yo. It’s sexual abuse. The age isn’t what makes it abusive. He was what made it abusive.

One of the reeeeeeeeally hard things for my son is sorting out what’s abuse, vs what’s a normal thing being done by an abuser? Because normal people make a sandwich. It’s not abusive to make a sandwich. Except my ex can make that an abusive experience (and often did... like not feeding my son for a week and then forcin him to stand and watch my ex make a sandwich and eat it). I’ve watched my kid trying to parse other people cooking/eating in various ways, since then. Mostly black and white thinking style, like this age = okay, that age = wrong. Or since it’s not abusive when other people do it, it wasn’t abusive when his dad did it, or it’s always wrong to make sandwiches, or eat in front of others. It doesn’t work that way. And it doesn’t help that not every time my ex made a sandwich was it abusive. Sometimes, it was just a sandwich.

So you can’t even say, just because an abuser does it, that it’s abuse. The black & white, something or nothing, just doesn’t work. You have to actually look at their intent. Which is a really gross, really hard thing, to do. To wrap your head around THEY were doing this, for this reason. It’s faaaaaaaaar more attractive (from both personal experience, and observation) to stick outside rules on it. To stay 50’ away from what they actually wanted was to hurt you, to groom you, to make you afraid, to think this was normal, to blame yourself, etc.... that it was a deliberate act against you.... and then not jump 50’ back again, and decide that all versions of that act -by anyone- are a deliberate act against anyone. It’s a very, very hard thing to stay in the middle of that thought, and not leap to the extremes of either end, 50 feet away.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Except my ex can make that an abusive experience

Hoooooly shit, I so get you there. Mine had that superpower, too.

 

[Deleted member 46500]

When the parent is old enough to shower by his or herself.