Carrie Bickmore opened up a discussion about showering with your kids yesterday afternoon on her radio show with co-host Tommy Little.
She opened up about her ritual of having a shower with her nine-year-old son Ollie, saying it was almost her ‘favourite’ part of the day.
“I love a shower and fortunately in my house, in one shower there happens to be a double shower and I often shower with my son Ollie, and he’s nine,” Bickmore said.
“And I’m going to say it’s almost one of my favourite times of the day, because it’s very hard to get a boy, to get a son to talk to you. Often they … give you one word answers. ‘How was school? Fine. How are your friends at school? Good.’ But for some reason when we’re in the shower — Ollie has his shower, I have my shower — we just chat and we talk about everything.
“He tells me what’s going on at school, and I love it. It’s such a beautiful time,” Bickmore said.
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She said that she didn’t think there was anything strange about it, as they both had their space.
“It’s not like we’re snuggling under the one. He’s got his space, I’ve got mine and he’s not forced to go into the shower, thankfully. I’m not like, ‘Get in the shower, mum’s coming in too!’”
In fact, she didn’t really think about the fact that it might be out of the ordinary until her friend brought it up with her.
“I was talking to my girlfriend the other day and she said to me, ‘You’re going to have to stop that pretty soon,’ and I said, ‘Will I?’ and she said, ‘Yes, he’s nine!’
“And then I said, ‘Oh my God what am I doing? Am I scarring my child?’ And ever since I’ve felt really self-conscious about it. This feels to me completely normal but felt slightly weird to her,” Bickmore said.
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Interestingly, when she discussed the topic further with other friends, there seemed to be a difference when it came to fathers and their daughters.
“I asked my other girlfriends about it and it’s interesting, because my friends that have daughters around the same age have stopped letting their daughters shower with dads, but the ones that have sons are still showering with their sons and aren’t finding it weird either,” she said.
“There must be a time though … do I stop it before it becomes weird? Do I wait until he says, ‘Nah, I don’t really want to do it anymore Mum.’ Even talking about it makes it sound weird, but when we’re in the moment it couldn’t be less weird and it’s made me really self-conscious.”
Carrie Bickmore’s show Carrie & Tommy runs on the Hit Network at 3-4pm.
