Woman's Mother Threatens To Call CPS After Finding Out That Her Husband Showers With Their Kids
It is completely normal for parents to shower with their kids (up to a certain age), but she's just making it weird.
fizkes / New Africa / Shutterstock via Canva Pro On the subreddit “r/JUSTNOMIL” — a forum where people go to talk about their worst mother-in-law (MIL) stories — one woman posted about how her own mom reacted to the news she found out about the woman’s husband, who is her son-in-law.
After getting involved where she shouldn’t, the woman’s mom threatened to call CPS on her and her family because of the news. Naturally, the woman was confused by her mom’s outrage and asked Redditors to see if maybe she was in the wrong and just didn’t know it.
Her mom threatened to call CPS because her husband showers with their kids.
“My mom is having a literal freak out because my husband (36m) takes my daughter (18 months old) to the shower with him on nights he goes to the gym, so as to save time and water bathing her while he washes himself too,” she wrote in the post.
Not even two years old, it makes sense that the dad would spend time with his daughter in this way in order to save time and water. Her post revealed that had he not showered with his daughter at the same time, he probably would have had to spend extra time bathing her before or after.
Photo: Reddit
He just got back from the gym, so naturally, he’s going to be very tired and won’t want to spend all the extra time and energy it would take to do one after the other. “I don’t really see anything wrong with this but she keeps bringing it up saying that a man wouldn’t shower with a baby/toddler without some weird goal in mind,” she revealed.
Mom seems to be forgetting that her son-in-law is this baby’s father. The only weird thing happening here is that mom seems to have this idea in her head that he’s some kind of predator to his own daughter — and the woman said as much.
“She’s never liked my husband but honestly I feel like she’s oversexualizing things,” she admitted. “I’ve walked into the bathroom while they’re in the shower and he’s usually just sitting in the bottom of the shower with her, usually drawing with her on the wall of the shower and teaching her words and stuff.”
He’s having a cute, fun, educational bath time with his 18-month-old daughter. What’s so wrong with that? Well, the sound minds of Reddit agreed.
Nothing is wrong with a parent bathing with their children up to a certain age.
Pediatric doctor, Dr. Benjamin Rosenblum, answered the question of how old is too old to shower with your child on Contemporary Pediatrics — and the answer was a little more complicated than a definitive age.
“In general, I would say that by the age of 8 or 9 years — 10 at the latest — most children have developed enough of a sense of personal boundaries and body space that they no longer want to shower with a parent or bathe with a sibling of the opposite sex,” he said.
Really, it’s either you as a parent deciding when to stop, or the child deciding they no longer want to shower with you — whichever comes first.
Photo: Shutterstock / New Africa
Redditors agreed with these sentiments and even had some very choice words to say about the MIL.
“If my mother EVER threw down a CPS threat, she would have been in a permanent time out,” the top comment on the post read. “That’s unacceptable. My hubs showered with all the kids as did I.”
Many wondered how the MIL even managed to find out, telling the OP to limit the amount of information that she shares. It’s none of her MIL’s business how they decide to parent their children, and a threat to CPS is a big deal. If she wants to tear their family apart, she no longer deserves to be a part of that family.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.