Baby boomers only got enemas?

😉I keep reading on this and other enema sites that it was mostly only the baby boomers who got enemas, Well i must contest that concept as i was born in the 60,s and a teen in the 70,s and were i come from in the USA enemas were still being used very often, IE the northeast, I know this as many times when i would VISTA a friend that enema stuff was in those homes as i seen it many times in bathrooms & basements esp if there was a toilet in the basement that stuff would be there usually very close to the laundry sink.

I know of one family 3 doors away that had 5 kids and their mom was good friends with my mom and i would often hear her talking about giving them enemas and i think she was a klismo too as she gave them enemas for any type of illness they came down with,She even gave them enemas for a common cold as i heard her tell my mom about that many times.

But i know one thing it was never a dad who gave the enemas to me or the friends i knew, It was always the female gender who did that job, IE the mom, grandmother, aunt, And one time this lady who lived next door came over to borrow my mom,s enema stuff as she told my mom that day that her son billy needed one but she could not find her enema stuff and that she suspected her son hid the stuff to avoid getting one, Billy was also my best friend & we were both about 11 at the time so you can see it was not just the baby boomers who got enemas we got them too.

Fleet(TM) Disposable Enemas are in wide use today. I moved to Utah in the mid 1970s. Most Drug stores had a wide array of syringes and would offer special on a weekly basis.

Your post raises an interesting question, Pear Bottom. Outside of the deep South, and Bible belt states, Utah would be one of the more Conservative, religious areas of the country. NO criticism intended at all, but I wonder if those areas kept the "older generation's" traditions longer than more liberal areas have? Walt

I am not quite a baby boomer but received enemas as a child.

Baby boomers were probably the LAST big group to get enemas. They were very common before the baby boomer era.

I'm a pre-baby boomer(b.1945)and I can tell you whatever ailments we had back then were addressed by mother filling up the red bag. I didn't like it at first but after a few enemas I seemed to get that fuzzy tingly good feeling. Future enemas were given at my request until I was a teenager at which time I started to self administer. I carry on those traditions I learned early in life and am presently on a twice weekly enema regime. This is good medicine!

Born in 1959 I am at the end of the boomer era, but growing up in the 60s and 70s I can assure you that enemas were given by most moms in our neighborhood. I'd get one whenever I was sick and then our doctor still made house calls and his nurse would usually say that I needed an enema before he got there. There was no way of talking my mother, and my friends had pretty much the same experience with their mothers, out of the enema. As a teenager the number of enemas decreased and my dislike for them did, too, to on one occasion I even asked for one.

Almost everyone had an enema bag in their bathroom and on occasion they were out in the open. Nobody seemed especially embarrassed and we all knew that we got them. The typical bag was a combination syringe and that's what we had, too.

Walt,

I can assure you that enemas were alive and well in Utah through the years that we baby boomers were reared (literally). I don't know that conservative religious or political values necessarily influenced the enema habits of the majority of Utah moms through that period of time. My mom didn't share any of those values and was undoubtedly the queen of the enema in our family and also the neighborhood.

Mom was connected socially via the PTA and other local involvement. It is likely that she was consulted by other moms on various issues. I'm sure that her quick deployment of the enema bag was a concept shared with many young moms who were dealing with sick kids and other child rearing issues.

It's not inconceivable that the Mormon culture resulted in many young moms relying on some of the traditional self help home remedies in lieu of doctor based remedies that included drugs as opposed to the good old fashioned enema.

In any case, I am a product of the era and will continue my enema use until they pry that old red bag and black nozzle from my fingers.

I think use of the traditional enema was not one of place or social/philosophy views but rather the times when the treatment was widely approved of.

I grew up in a very diverse city neighborhood and the enema bag or can was a very familar item in households.

Jewish moms had a reputation as especially fond of enemas for the family, but that may have been only a stereotype.

I am not a boomer, and I got enemas all the time as a kid. I grew up in California.