Quote:
Originally Posted by Saradus
I heard that in a family, the father will bath first, then the mother, then the children in order of age. Using the same bathwater? Is this true? If so, is it still done?
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Even in the strictest traditional families, I find it hard to imagine the mother taking priority over the kids. She`d get in last so that she could scrub down the bath afterward.
In my observance of real life though, dad is usually the LAST person to get in the bath because he`s the latest to get home in the evening. School age children need to be washed and in bed a lot earlier than the adults so they tend to take priority.
A realistic bath pattern would be mom and youngest child / young children in together ("young" can be anywhere up to late elementary school aged), older children if there are any, then dad later when he comes home. On weekends the kids may bathe with their father instead of mother.
The same bathwater thing is completely true. Japanese baths are very deep and use a huge amount of water. Water and the energy used to heat the water is not cheap, so running a new bath for each person is close to unthinkable. The bath water itself stays quite clean - no soap or dirt floating around in it - so there really isn`t any sort of nastiness associated with using the same water as there would be with using the same soapy water in a western bath.
And after the bath, it`s pretty common to use the water for the wash cycle when doing laundry. Most washing machines have a built in suction pump and hose that you just stretch over and stick in the tub.