confused

I would like to know why im upset about my wife and her 6and half yr old son showering together.

I think I'd be a little curious about that too. Perhaps she just thinks it's faster that way than giving him a bath. I'm sure that's her thinking, but i do think it's time for a young boy to begin taking his own baths/showers by himself.

Are you two arguing about this? If so, it's not healthy for you to argue in front of the child. It will get him traumatized about sex and his own body so stop the arguing!

Why don't YOU take over the bathing of your son? Have him take his showers with YOU? It's more natural for the guys to shower together anyway and would solve the problem, right?

Hopefully that will solve the problem with the bathing. God bless and take care. Hugs, Lee

In fairness it does seem a little strange. Your son should still be supervised at this age i should think but more of an effort should be made to encourage him to start doing as much as he can for himself. I agree it could just be a convenience thing or a little more hands on then what may be required but you don't mention whether you're concerned for his intellectual development or if you think it's just inappropriate. Or both. What does your wife say? Are you asking for advice on how to broach the subject or would you like to discuss how to progress from here if conversing/arguing hasn't worked out? I hope you feel you can elaborate further. Either way good luck.

I don't see any problem with this. It seems like a good idea to bring him up with a healthy understanding of the human naked body and not have issues with it like most people in our repressed society.

I agree with Lee, there's a job for you and one less for your wife. I am sure she would appreciate some time to herself especially in the shower.

I wholeheartedly agree. +1.

I mean... he is 6.5 years old.

All the public pools in my area allow boys through age 5 access to the women's lockers/showers.

There is not such a big difference between 6.5 and 5.

If you want to take over showering with your son, great, but to the extent that your son will grow up knowing that women, in general, are not composed of silicone implants, and, that their skin is not airbrushed in real life but in fact is a little imperfect which only makes it more lovable and precious, he will have a great advantage.

The level of discomfort with the reality of true human bodies is one of the many sad and depressing things of the modern American society. It also seems unique to Americans - I do no think that ANY other society or culture has developed that kind of a warped, twisted, and conflicted relationship with normal nudity.

Even Hasidic Jewish women who wear tights to avoid baring their legs (even in Southern Cal) are not as conflicted about human nakedness as typical mainstream Americans are. Even Muslims are not as conflicted, because they are at least consistent. Their women cover themselves up, but at least they do not have MTV. So they are consistent.

Americans on the other hand combine the discomfort with normal nudity with their preference for watching MTV and looking at pictures of nude women with airbrushed skin and breast implants. All of it is bizarre and seems outright horrible to me when I try to picture the minds of those poor young American males who have been brought up to face this internal conflict.

I suggest you watch the following movie with your wife:

Burnt by the Sun (1994) - IMDb

It won OSCAR in 1994 as the best foreign film (it is Russian).

In the very beginning of the movie there is a warm, comfortable, quiet scene in which a little girl is naked in a sauna together with her naked mother and naked father.

The scene's purpose and place in the movie is to show the crest of peaceful family love which will then be destroyed (I will stop here not to spoil it for you).

Watch it both for the value of the movie as a whole and to see this scene for your comfort.

Oh, and a rant.

On an LA beach, almost 20 years ago, my 3-year-old son took off his swim suit. I was with a friend, an American guy who was then in his late 30s. My friend was horrified that my son would do that ON A PUBLIC BEACH.

End of rant.

oh, and if you have a big shower and have enough time to shower all three of you on the weekends, that probably would be the funnest way to do so.

not practical for weekdays, though

I would never shower with a 6 year old child. It isn't right. He can bathe alone....what's the problem with that?

I can answer the question in bold.

Technically speaking, no, there is no problem in having a six year old child bathe alone. He or she indeed can do it alone. And might enjoy solitary bathing, too.

But, bathing with one's mother is more fun because it is interactive and playful.

I have not had showers with six year old sons, but I have taken showers with six year old daughters (since you said that you would never shower with a 6 year old child, I thought that my experience showering with six year old daughters would be relevant enough), and I can tell you that the experience of showering with six year old daughters is wonderfully enriching for both mother and daughter.

It seems that getting a fun and wonderfully enriching experience should be justification enough for showering together.

Oh, and how do I know that the experience was not only fun and enriching for me (which would have been selfish), but also for the daughters? Because they laughed hard. I think that when a kid laughs hard, it shows that she is having genuine fun.

And, my then husband took our older daughter to bathe with him in a bathtub when she was a toddler, and I thought that it was absolutely great, too. So much fun for both of them. I took pictures of them together - it was so great that I did that, even though normally I was too lazy and stressed out to capture our day-to-day life in pictures.

PS

tickling a child you shower with is even more fun, also for both mother and child.

much recommended.

Right about the age of five or six y/o was when I stopped showering with my son. It was a lot quicker to shower together but when he was starting school our routines changed and usually after that my BF would supervise his baths. I still walk around the house with just panties on sometimes and it is nothing to get freaked out about.

I find this to be .....creepy *as per*. There is all sorts of "fun" to be had w/o it involving a child. Take your shower. Let them take theirs. Toddler is one thing. 6 year old? No.

My mother undressed and pranced around me naked my entire life. It disturbed me. She was deeply beautiful. She historically -was not- a ....mother. She crossed so many frakking boundaries that it was like "String art" . She ruined any chance of normalacy. I resent her true and deep.

Yeah. Anyway...there are many *other* things one can do with a child which do not involve nudity. It turned out I was a very "sensitive" child. And that decades later I felt disturbed by that. Undoubtably this was intensified by all of the -other- screw-ups she made. But this....yeah. No need...... I tbh, will not revisit this thread. Just speaking my peace.

with a 6 year old running around, you are bound to use some crazy shortcuts to get through the day. It may seem bizarre to you, but if she can get a shower and her son showered too then she just killed 2 birds with one stone.

That's quite right...it seems creepy to me. I make no apologies. So....

It does seem to cross some boundaries there. Most children, outgrow that type of attachment to their parents, usually before the age of 5, if not younger.

I am raising three boys, as a single mom, and even on the off chance, they walk in on me, in my bedroom changing, I don't make a mountain out of a molehill, at the same time, I turn away, so the worst they may see, is my derriere, which, we all have that. And then, I ask they give me back my privacy, to finish changing.

I find, I'm raising boys with a healthy sense of self, in that regard. They are capable of bathing themselves, sometimes where my younger two, are still on the younger spectrum, I help with hair washing. And then, they have the tub, to themselves, within earshot, of course.

I have a 6.5 year old son, myself. He's my youngest. Showering, together stopped around 3/4 years old. I don't want, their level of awareness, to include an 'image' of my body, if that makes sense?

Hope you, find a way to resolve, your own discomfort. Perhaps, establishing a level of boundaries surrounding privacy?