I don’t recall ever disliking baths, but the soap thing … this was in the early 1970s, and my mom would save all those little bits of bar soap that had gotten too small to be usable, and then put them all together in a little bag made out of the plastic netting from the bags that oranges came in. It was like scrubbing yourself with an SOS pad.
I wish.
It was the first step in a process that ended with having to go to bed despite the fact that I was never the slightest bit sleepy. And that first step (the bath) always meant having to stop doing something I was enjoying… playing, watching TV, tormenting the sibs, etc.
As others have mentioned…by the time I hit puberty my parents were banging on the bathroom door wanting to know why I was in the shower so long.
Remembering my own childhood, I had an aversion to bathing until age 12-13. But then I discovered the opposite sex…
You should not take offense at the notion that your children are being conditioned by influences outside your control. Children are exposed to billboards, television ads, books, peers, and adults outside the home. There are a CRAPTON of positive ads about female hygiene and smelling good. Whereas male ads… not so much. There are ads for stuff to *cover up *smells that are directed at males (like febreze and axe) but not a whole lot in the way of soaps and shampoos. Maybe selsun blue or something like that, but most kids do not have to worry about dandruff and may not see it as applicable to them.
Many families, especially those with stay at home moms, also have a fairly strict gender divide when it comes to working vs cleaning. Whether your family does this or not, your kids likely have picked up on the notion (from tv and classmates) that women are supposed to do more of the cleaning, while guys are supposed to work hard and get dirty.
Another vote for River Hippie’s theory. It’s not so much the bath, it’s bathtime.
Bathtime means bedtime which is sad. That being said, I always loved taking baths.
And soap IS gross. It’s slimy and scummy. Body wash is so much nicer.
Since I was once a boy in the middle of two other boys by birth and since I have raised a boy and a girl, I would say boys are boys and girls are pretty much the same until they start noticing the difference.
With my boys it always went like this: Tell them they needed a bath (they’d never decide that on their own). Start nagging them. Finally yell at them. They’d get in the tub. They’d start having fun. Little tugboats, rubber duckies, making tidal waves, and various other things that basically made a mess of the bathroom…then it was a battle to extricate them from the tub. Then they would run around the house either naked or very scantily clad, snapping towels and being high-spirited. (Instead of going to bed.) This was from, I’d say, age 6 to approximately age 12.
After that, couldn’t get them out of the shower. Never had to nag them about bathing again.
My logic at the time was that being clean meant not being able to play anymore. If I was dirty, I could play in the dirt or field longer. The bath signified the end of the day. I had friends who had play rooms and mountains of toys who could stay indoors, clean and continue to have fun. My play room was the park across the street.
As I got older, being clean meant wasting time: using up towels, underwear, clothes, soap, shampoo, etc. that I would have to wash or replace later.
As I got older still, being clean meant wasting money: one set of clothes, underwear, socks, and a bath towel was maybe 25-50 cents in laundry money.
Today, I still don’t enjoy bathing, but I see it as a necessary cost to be a respected member of society, and a toll I have to pay.
That could be it. The only time I can get my toddler to volunteer for a nighttime bath, (he likes it at other times of the day) is when I let him choose betwee going to bed straight away, or postponing it by having a bath first. Then he usually says: “bath!”