Most people throughout the world would consider taking baths with your parents in junior high and even into high school rather taboo, but in Japan, which has a long history of communal bathing, children taking baths with their parents up until junior high and even high school, while uncommon, isn’t unheard of.
Aside from same-sex bathing in hot springs or community baths, sons taking baths with their mothers and daughters taking baths with their fathers is, especially as little children, a cultural norm. But until what age does that cultural norm stay normal?
In a 2015 survey, researchers asked 333 women in their 20s and 30s if they still bathed with their fathers in junior high and up until high school.
Over 10% of women in both age groups said they took baths with their fathers in junior high.
Just under 10% of women in their 20s said they took baths with their fathers when they were in high school and over 5% of women in their 30s said they bathed with their fathers.
While the idea of bathing with your parent might certainly be cringeworthy, it’s equally curious to explore a culture where that is quite normal.
