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Washing  

post #1 of 21
12/12/07 at 10:41am
Thread Starter 
Why is it that we have to grab Desta by the hair and drag her to the shower to get her to wash her body ...

but she wears jeans for five minutes and throws them in the laundry because they are "dirty"?



dm
post #2 of 21
12/12/07 at 12:27pm
I can assure you, it's the age. My son was the exact same way not too long ago. Now he reeks of Axe and I'm lucky if he leaves me enough hot water for dishes!
post #3 of 21
12/12/07 at 12:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by noordinaryspider View Post
I can assure you, it's the age. My son was the exact same way not too long ago. Now he reeks of Axe and I'm lucky if he leaves me enough hot water for dishes!

Totally the same here!! I have to make sure to shower first on the weekends!! The other day I bought him the wrong scent of Axe - the horror!! He did end up saying the he could use it after gym. To the op: I think that teens are allergic to putting clothes away. I still see the occational folded shirt in the hamper .
post #4 of 21
12/12/07 at 1:44pm
My dd (who technically is no longer a teen) does her own laundry and I do ds's but both of them shed their clothes where they stand, so doing the laundry for the younger teen involves picking it up off the floor first. I thought he might prefer washing his own clothes after he came home from 8 months of living on the streets/couch surfing with a lot of trendy and expensive clothing that might have needed special care so I mae the mistake of waiting a month or so to do his wash: What a mistake! Fortunately, all the mildew washed out, but the stench at the bottom of the pile was unbearable!

We need a more experienced mama than myself to come pat us on the heads and reassure us that the laundry issue will go the way of the bathing issue. Walking into my dd and her dp's room is enough to reduce me to tears and terrify me at the thought that a CPS home visit would not only cost me my newborn, but would probably get us smeared all over the teevee news and the gosh darned Geraldo show!

They are 22 and 18. I remembr enough to know that it's normal, but in my own case, it only got better during the third trimester of my first pregnancy when the nesting hormones kicked in and my big 'uns are hoping to put of starting a family until they are in their early 30s. I can't wait that long! This baby is due in February!

/ hijack off
post #5 of 21
12/13/07 at 5:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by noordinaryspider View Post
They are 22 and 18.
You're siggy needs a serious update!
post #6 of 21
12/13/07 at 5:40pm
Because it's easier to throw them in the basket than to fold them and put them away.

FWIW, we have the same issue here. Soap is considered optional in the shower and he will usually only wash his face when reminded. But it's even stranger because some clothes are dirty even if he only wore it for five minutes, but then he also will dig favorite items out of the dirty clothes and try to pass them off as clean despite the obvious stains and visible dirt all over them. :
post #7 of 21
12/13/07 at 5:47pm
Thread Starter 
[QUOTE=mamameg;10002738Soap is considered optional in the shower and he will usually only wash his face when reminded. [/QUOTE]

Yeah, I had to explain to Desta the other day why a 45-second shower probably wasn't getting her clean ... and that soap was necessary to kill the stinky bacteria.

dm
post #8 of 21
12/13/07 at 5:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by soygurl View Post
You're siggy needs a serious update!
Nah, the 22 year old is the 18 year old's partner. Sometimes it feels like he's my own, but I didn't raise him.
post #9 of 21
12/13/07 at 6:07pm
Ah.... all of a sudden things a SO much more clear!
I really should read better! Sometimes I get so :
post #10 of 21
12/13/07 at 6:42pm
I should probably update my siggie anyway since he is a part of our family now.
post #11 of 21
12/14/07 at 5:57pm
hmmm.
post #12 of 21
12/15/07 at 4:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dharmamama View Post
Why is it that we have to grab Desta by the hair and drag her to the shower to get her to wash her body ...

but she wears jeans for five minutes and throws them in the laundry because they are "dirty"?



dm
I've got the same problem with dd. I just told her this morning: "I don't want to see the jeans in the laundry hamper again until they are stinky dirty with stains on them!"
post #13 of 21
12/15/07 at 9:22am
Quote:
I still see the occational folded shirt in the hamper .

Aaarrrggghhh! I'm glad I'm not the only one! That really gets me. Going to the laundromat is a family affair here, and you'd think after they expereinced the joys of lugging laundry for 5 people down to the car from our third floor walk-up, spending several hours in the hot, crowded laundromat fighting for washers and dryers, standing there and folding them, then lugging them BACK UP to the third floor, they'd appreciate minimizing the amount of dirty laundry they generate!!
But nooooooo......!I still find clean, never-been-worn clothes in the dirty laundry hampers. And once it's been sittin there with DS's football socks, it HAS to be washed.

Oh, and the shower thing? One day you'll wake up and your odiferous teen will have noticed the opposite sex and will become the Poster Child for Personal Hygeine and spend HOURS in there....washing what, I don't know. They use shampoo as directed; Lather, rinse, repeat, and leave the conditioner on for the recommended full 5 minutes, meanwhile another teen is pounding on the door, anxious to begin his/her 45 minute shower.
post #14 of 21
12/15/07 at 3:08pm
DD went through that...she's now at the shower til there's no hot water then complain she didn't get clean stage : This stage will pass for the next one!
post #15 of 21
12/17/07 at 7:34am
I agree that the disinterest in showering seems to be an age thing--at least in part. We investigated how soap actually works to remove germs and oils from our skin (see links below). Then we tried making our own soap (though glycerin type is much easier than the old fashioned soap!). It might help get your daughter interested in soap if she makes some pretty ones of her own. There are many links to and books about decorative soapmaking.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap
http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa081301a.htm
post #16 of 21
12/17/07 at 2:06pm
Glad to see I'm not the only one finding never-worn clothes in the laundry basket. : I must have done stuff like that, because I remember my older sister giving me hell one time about how hard Mom worked every weekend doing load after load of laundry for six people and how I shouldn't add to her burden.

Dd does her own laundry most of the time. :

So far dd has skipped the shower phobia stage and gone directly to the grime phobia stage. She'll be 13 in a month, so perhaps she'll yet go through a stinky stage, but I don't imagine so. She's her father's daughter.
post #17 of 21
12/17/07 at 4:43pm
Honestly, I remember doing the "clean clothse in the laundry" when I was a teen... It drove my mom CRAZY, but I always had a "rational" reason for the item needing to be washed.
post #18 of 21
12/17/07 at 11:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dharmamama View Post
Why is it that we have to grab Desta by the hair and drag her to the shower to get her to wash her body ...

but she wears jeans for five minutes and throws them in the laundry because they are "dirty"?



dm
oh, how i can relate. my DD spends hrs brushing her hair, and fixing her every strand of hair on her head, but it's always a huge battle to get her to take a shower...... sigh.
post #19 of 21
12/18/07 at 1:46pm
wait. This lasts til the age of 18 and 22?

My stepsons and stepdaughter were very very stinky from about age 10 to 16 and then suddenly they began to finally "get" it. Also, hormones can cause crazy odor with some kids. It was some serious funk for a few years, with constant loving (and I admit, not so loving at times) reminders to please clean your body and your space.
post #20 of 21
12/18/07 at 5:32pm
I used to get all riled up about clean stuff being put in the laundry, or socks rolled in a ball that didn't get well washed or dried because they were in a ball. Eventually, (and mostly because I got 1st trimester sickies) I just stopped doing laundry altogether.

If DH wants to have no clean underwear or socks, so be it. If DSS wants to have nothing to wear for school (he has a dress code) because a) he dirtied all his white tops, or b) he arbitrarily threw them all in the laundry, so be it. I won't remedy the situation for him. *HE* has to be the one to drag all the loads of laundry down 3 flights of stairs, switch them into the dryer and lug them back up 3 flights of stairs. I taught him about which loads go into which temperature, and how to do some spot removal with various products. He even has to set the timer on the microwave so he knows when to switch or fetch the load in the laundry. Not bad for a 10 yr old My job consists of putting the loads together and folding. That's it.

Less stress.

About the dirtiness, I don't sweat it. I think it's a tween thing. Once he notices the opposite sex, he'll get himself REAL clean.
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