Curing a Shy Bladder

When I was a young boy, I often shared the bathroom with my older brother. We would take baths together when we were very young, and as we got a bit older we took showers together as well. We shared the toilet and would pee together at the same time either before or after the shower, or at other times of the day if we happened to be there together, like when getting ready for bed.

After he reached a certain age, he began wanting privacy in the bathroom and we would no longer do any of these things, and generally privacy was expected during any and all bathroom activity in my family from that point on. Nobody would ever share the bathroom for anything. As a young boy, I had no issues with bladder shyness because I didn't feel like bathroom activities needed to be private or hidden from others, but as the years went on I did develop some of the problem as a teenager and it's been something I've dealt with as an adult as well.

Based on my experience and my own reasoning, I feel as though the expectation of privacy during bathroom activities is a major factor in whether a boy or girl will develop bladder shyness. If families were more open about what they do in the bathroom and privacy was not expected or required, I think a lot of kids would benefit from being able to grow up with more confidence and less shyness.

Please share your thoughts or stories related to the subject.

I think my brother simply developed more of an expectation for privacy with age, which I think is somewhat common for kids as they start to want more independence over time. We spent a lot of time together every day anyway, especially since we were homeschooled, so he probably just began wanting more time to himself and the bathroom was one way to get it.

Furthermore, when our parents put a stop to our shared showers, they very likely could have told him that he needed to start using the bathroom by himself instead of sharing with me. My parents basically had this notion that kids require more privacy as they get older, but there wasn't a clear reason given for it. And when it comes to families and their bathroom activities, I don't think there IS a very clear reason as to why they need to be completely private.

Oh no, not really. At this point in life we're both well into adulthood and he lives in another country. I don't miss sharing the bathroom with him per se, but I was simply making the point that I never felt ashamed or self-conscious as a kid when I was in the bathroom with somebody else. Once that changed and the norm in my family became such that everyone HAD to use the bathroom alone, I eventually developed the issue of a shy bladder because I began feeling more self-conscious.

The basic point of it all is that I believe that a family requirement that everyone use the bathroom alone can be unhealthy and detrimental to a kid's development.

It's true, very few things are quite as subtly damaging as introducing privacy to families. There is no place for that in the home!

Hi, awayness, it's been a while. You probably noticed already but a bunch of my polls were accepted to the directory a couple days ago. I have a few that are still unlisted because I never submitted them for review, since I knew they'd likely be rejected and deleted. One of my polls (the one about Christian girls desiring to become housewives) actually was deleted upon review and I don't know why. But, regardless, I'm glad that most of my polls were accepted.

As for privacy in families, yes, the problems it can cause are indeed subtle and pervasive. And once privacy has been introduced or becomes expected as the norm, it's hard to get people to let go of it. So it's ideal for a family to raise kids without ever making them feel as though they need privacy for such things as the bathroom, at least not in their own homes and with their own family. In this way kids can grow up with a more consistent level of openness and confidence, and a clear indication that they can be close to their family members without having to hide or feel ashamed about their bodies or functions.