I remember from old cartoons and tv shows when a character took a shower, they always asked “did you clean behind your ears?” or when they were asked to take a shower or on their way to do so “make sure you clean behind your ears!”
I have never in my life been asked to clean behind my ears and no one that i do know had been. Where did that come from?
**Did you clean behind your ears?
**
Yes.
**
What for?
**
So they won’t be dirty.
But what value does cleaning behind your ears have? Are we talking about cleaning up obvious dirt to give a good appearance, or is it dangerous to let viruses and bacteria live behind your ears?
Yes, I clean all parts of my body.
Both of those things. The same reasons for cleaning the rest of my body.
Kids are hopeless at cleaning themselves. They’ll tend to just do the main bits, arm, legs, body. If you don’t remind them to clean the nooks and crannies, like behind their ears, they eventually get a bit stinky.
This is the obvious correct answer.
“Did you clean behind your ears?” Is Momspeak for, “Did you clean yourself thoroughly, all of you, every inch, or did you just stand there under the water staring into space for three and a half minutes without even getting your hair all the way wet?”
It’s not that there’s anything specifically important about cleaning behind your ears, it’s just an inconsequential spot that doesn’t get cleaned when your kid is on autopilot in the shower. If it’s been cleaned, it’s assumed that so have the pits and bits and everything else.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t clean behind yours ears–it’s part of your head. You wash your hair? You wash your face? You skip this one place because why?
That said, I had one son (out of 4) who missed it a lot, and for some reason dirt collected there. I had to threaten him. “If I see a dirty patch behind your ears I am gonna come in there and wash them myself.” I did this, several times. I had to keep threatening until he was about 12, when he miraculously saw the benefit of being clean.
Let me be clear: He didn’t particularly like washing anywhere, although once he got in the tub he had a great time splashing around. I had to let him swear his swim goggles or I couldn’t wash his hair. For some reason every place got clean except behind his ears. There was an oily patch there, or something. It really collected dirt that didn’t just splash off.
I do not think the question was, do you clean there, and why; I think it was, why is this so often mentioned in old cartoons, when, in real life, most people know to do this without being asked.
I am quite confident that regular bathing or showering was different decades ago. You mention in “old cartoons and tv shows.” I’m willing to bet that kids bathed once a week back then and that was it.
Plus, we played outside all the time: every night, every recess, every lunch hour, every weekend, every chance! And we walked to school and back. I’ll bet there was stuff behind the ears after a cumulative, say, 50 hours outside.
Actually, that area, and the back of the neck in general, are fairly rich in sebaceous glands, and thus warrant a little extra attention.
I wonder if it is a sort of euphemistic way of asking a kid if s/he has cleaned his (or her) naughty bits.
This is all true. In the original form, these were kids who were being told to go wash their hands and face and change their clothes, so that they’d be fit to be among adults after being a grimy kid (always a boy) all day.
The other line often used was: (after checking) “Nope. You could grow potatoes back here. Go try again.”
I have a vague feeling that the kid was being de-dirted before going somewhere with the family, or having family guests over, or before dinner.
Ugh. This topic was broached a while back when a poster decided to start a thread about how the backs of his/her ears smelled like swiss cheese. Every-single-damn-poster after the OP then decides to share what they had discovered when they ‘scratched and sniffed’ the area on their own bodies. It was a truly awful thread. And it holds the answer to this OP: so the backs of your ears don’t smell like swiss cheese.
I was often told to wash behind my ears and do so; the main effect seems to have been a tendency to forget to properly clean the outside of my ears.
fingers begin creeping toward back of ear
Yep.
(No smell from mine…)
I live in hot climate and all the sweat flowing down from my hair makes that area very stinky. So I clean it everyday.
People living in a cold climate may not have this issue.
In real life, quite a few kids will answer “yes” to the question “did you wash up?” without having gotten even their hands wet.