Personal hygiene

With questions about personal hygiene, you really have opened a can of worms.

My experience is that personal hygiene and what is considered normal, is relative.  It depends on the family situation and the world outside the family.

As a child, I was shunned by neighbours and at school for many reasons, some behavioural others because of my poor hygiene. Such as torn, dirty clothes and smelling because of infrequent bathing.  But this bad hygiene was considered normal inside the family home.

As I grew older and started mixing with others my hygiene improved, but this created problems at home.  My mother started to shout at me for having baths too often, ' you only had a bath last week!',  in some families having a bath once a week is considered poor hygiene, In my house I was made to feel an outcast who abused the facilities.

Another ridiculous example is hand washing.  By the time I was in my twenties I was washing my hands before and after meals and after visiting toilets.  Anything wrong with that?   I thought not.

Then, we had a relative as a house guest for several weeks and all the complaints about me came out.  Before I started to eat a plate of sandwiches with my hands, I went off to the bathroom to wash my hands. My mother started complaining to this lady that I was a weirdo who always washes his hands before meals,  the young lady went off into hysterical laughter, agreeing that I really was a weirdo. I'm 99% certain that was sarcasm.

The moral is that with personal hygiene you can never satisfy everyone all the time.

With questions about personal hygiene, you really have opened a can of worms.

My experience is that personal hygiene and what is considered normal, is relative.  It depends on the family situation and the world outside the family.

As a child, I was shunned by neighbours and at school for many reasons, some behavioural others because of my poor hygiene. Such as torn, dirty clothes and smelling because of infrequent bathing.  But this bad hygiene was considered normal inside the family home.

As I grew older and started mixing with others my hygiene improved, but this created problems at home.  My mother started to shout at me for having baths too often, ' you only had a bath last week!',  in some families having a bath once a week is considered poor hygiene, In my house I was made to feel an outcast who abused the facilities.

Another ridiculous example is hand washing.  By the time I was in my twenties I was washing my hands before and after meals and after visiting toilets.  Anything wrong with that?   I thought not.

Then, we had a relative as a house guest for several weeks and all the complaints about me came out.  Before I started to eat a plate of sandwiches with my hands, I went off to the bathroom to wash my hands. My mother started complaining to this lady that I was a weirdo who always washes his hands before meals,  the young lady went off into hysterical laughter, agreeing that I really was a weirdo. I'm 99% certain that was sarcasm.

The moral is that with personal hygiene you can never satisfy everyone all the time.

i agree it is relative.