Cliche Cafe: Why Do We Say, ‘Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater?’

Sure you know what the term, 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' means, but do you know why we say it?

I'll be completely honest here, I don't think I've ever correctly used this phrase. The idea of throwing a baby out with water was too much for me to realize what it actually meant, so I had to look that up before realizing why we say it.

If you're in my boat, then here is both the example of when to use this phrase, along with where it came from from Grammarly.

Thus, you don't want to toss the valuable baby with the dirty gross bathwater... and OMG was the bathwater that dirty that you might actually throw out your baby?

If you're feeling yucky about the world we live in today, at least we are bathing regularly.