Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.

Arnold H. Glasow (1905–1998) was an American humorist and aphorist best known for compact, wry observations about everyday life, widely circulated in mid‑20th‑century quotation collections and newspaper fillers. This line belongs to that tradition of domestic, generational humor—reflecting a period when “the facts of life” commonly referred to parental sex education talks that many adults approached with discomfort. The joke presumes a familiar household scenario: parents attempting a solemn, instructive conversation with a teenager who is already aware (or thinks they are) and unlikely to be enlightened by the effort.

The simile hinges on futility and category error. A fish does not need a bath because it already lives in water; likewise, a teenager is presumed to be already immersed in “the facts of life” through peers, media, and experience. Glasow’s point is less about denying the value of guidance than about puncturing adult self-importance: the earnest lecture arrives too late, or in the wrong form, and may even be comically redundant. The aphorism also hints at the generational gap in communication—what adults frame as revelation, adolescents experience as obvious, awkward, or beside the point.