Elysha and I disagree.
I contend that if you’ve spent the day swimming in a chlorinated pool, there is no need to take a bath or shower because your skin is perfectly clean.
Maybe even cleaner than simply taking a bath or shower. Chlorine is, after all, a powerful element.
Elysha argues that a day of swimming does not constitute time spent in a bathtub, and therefore a bath or shower is still required. She also argues that a shower is important for removing chlorine from the hair because chlorine damages hair, and she argues that chlorine can be a skin irritant, so removing it is also important.
These things may or may not be true, but they are not a part of this argument.
For argument’s sake, let us assume that your hair and skin are immune to the possibly harmful effects of chlorine.
My skin and hair apparently are.
If that’s the case, isn’t a day spent in a chlorinated pool just as good as 10 minutes spent in a bathtub?
I’ve done some Googling on this issue, and information is scant. It would appear that experts agree with me providing that the pool is outdoors and in the sun. Apparently indoor pools can become contaminated with bacteria that needs to be removed via bath or shower.
Admittedly, none of the experts seem terribly reliable. so I’m accepting their opinions with a large grain of salt. I’ve also submitted this question to Every Little Thing, a podcast that finds answers to challenging questions like this, and I’ve also emailed the question to a professor of chemistry and a doctor who I know.
None of this is actually important to me. I just think I’m right.
I kind of know that I’m right.
More importantly, I think this is a good example of how our upbringing can influence our opinions later in life. So many of our routines and beliefs are simply the result of the way our parents structured and managed our childhood.
My mother never made us take a bath or shower if we had spent the day in the pool. She believed that we were clean, and as a result, I believe this, too.
Elysha spent most of her time swimming in a lake, and as a result, she always took a bath or shower after swimming, so she believes that bathing after swimming is essential.
There are lots of examples of how our childhoods cause our expectations and routines as adults to differ.
When I was a child, we ate dinner at sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 everyday. When Elysha was a child, she didn’t eat dinner until after 6:00. When we came together, one of us needed to adjust our dinnertime expectations.
In this case, I did. I always eat after 6:00.
The important thing to remember is that one way is not necessarily correct. Both dinnertimes are perfectly valid. I think couples run into problems when one person assumes that their way is the right way, when so often, it’s simply a matter of preference and upbringing.
As long as we respect and honor both ways of doing something, common ground can almost always be found.
But then there are cases when there is an objectively better way of doing something, and I suspect that this chlorinated pool situation is one of them.
I believe that a chlorinated pool is just as effective at cleaning a human body as a bath or shower. Forgetting issues of hair damage and skin irritation, swimming in a pool is a fine way to keep your body clean. Earlier this month, we spent about five days visiting Elysha’s sister and husband, and we spent almost every day in their pool.
I took exactly one shower in those five days and was perfectly fine.
I await for information from the experts, but until then, any thoughts on our chlorinated pool disagreement?
