Tween boys.........!

[Yamin151]

Have fetched and carried 5 x 12 year old boys to a bowling alley a good half hour away today. And I can tell you the Age of Lynx has not yet arrived! The stuff may be cloying but boy, is it better than someone else's little darling's miasma filling the car, (as well as the strains of some scantily clad girl singing on a wrecking ball, I mean, don't these children realise 'thats not music'?????). Ones own little darlings have a smell all their own, of course, but we are used to it I suppose. I do force them through the shower every day, but its that kind of age isn't it? And then after 2 hours bowling, the car on the way back..............well, you can imagine.

So, despite the cloying, suffocating, overwhelmingness of it, I shall be keeping a can of 'Africa' in my car from now on, and judiciously spraying, as required. you have been warned!!

[Tinkers]

I can assure you Teen girls aren't that much better. It's taken a while to convince Dd that deodorant isn't just for occasional days, but everyday. Repeatedly making her go and wash, put some on and change her clothes (especially if she is wearing one of her favourites) seems to have just about done it. However on PE days, I can still tell when she get home. Unfortunately they don't have time to have a shower.

Last year she had PE last session, then home and straight out to a dance lesson. Drive home is mercifully sweet, because the smell certainly isn't.

[quasimodo]

I was just wondering how some of you would have coped over 40 years ago when we had tin baths at it was a weekly ritual(not a daily ritual) to have a soak with water heated in kettles over cookers and open fires.As for deodorants these were more modern innovations and to put a spray on was inviting ridicule from others in school.

How have times changed from at least daily showers to sometimes two or three a day and daily aftershaves and deodorants.

It is a battle to get children to shower and our 11 year old is just about getting used to daily showers although she only wants to wash her hair 2 or 3 times a week.We haven't had the deodorant fight yet.Its taken a year to get to daily showers.

[Yamin151]

LOL! You've made yourself sound really old Quasimodo! Whereas I had you as a fresh faced youngster tripping around the 11+ website!

My father, at Bryanston in the 40s, was made to run down the long drive to the gates (about a mile each way) with his fellow pupils, and then on return they had to BE SEEN to dip into a cold bath so the water came up to their necks! And this was a progressive school where faggin and caning etc etc wasn't allowed, but fresh air and exercise was felt to be good all round. How right they were, father now 83, long may he sail. Though he regards deodorant as "foo-foo"!

But mine shower each morning because we managed to sell it to them on the same basis as why we do it, because it wakes you up when you have to be up really early. So thats not been a problem. Hmmmmm, hair, not so sure.......I'd like them to start wtih a clean shirt each day!!!!

TInkers, girls? Really? Surely I was never smelly????

[Tinkers]

Yes. really.

[quasimodo]

LOL! You've made yourself sound really old Quasimodo! Whereas I had you as a fresh faced youngster tripping around the 11+ website!

Half a century is young by forum standards

[Yamin151]

Oh yes, a lot of us knocking on that particular door soon!

[Happy dad]

Some of us have walked through that door a while ago

Seems my boys are not unique in the personal hygiene department

[um]

I have quite bad sinusitis at the moment and my teens smell of....absolutely nothing
You have to be grateful for all your blessings

[Tinkers]

I currently have 5 teen girls in my house making a cake for the school birthday.

One of them definitely needs some deodorant, maybe more than one. I just haven't figured out which one. Since I've been alone very briefly with DD, I know it isn't her.