I think it is not a matter of years. It is much more a matter of the social habits, and custom of the family we are speaking about. In some families casual nudity at home is the rule, with clothing available for when someone outside of the family is present. If that is the case, social bathing might well include children of all ages, even post puberty. Horror of horrors, it might well be the case that the child’s first experiences of sexual interest will occur in the family setting. So what? A kind and loving acceptance of the natural human behaviors associated with emerging sexuality can be handled with love, and with even a sense of propriety.
“No, honey, that is a thing that will happen when you grow up, with someone you meet, and grow to love. We will just keep that in its place, until then. Let’s rinse off, and get ready to go out.”
The sexual exploitation of a child is as evil an act as any that can be committed. But sexual awareness is an intimate matter, and will happen in intimate settings. For children, that means family. It isn’t something to be feared, or shamed. It is one more area where we must be with our children, and guide them with love, and kindness. Shame and fear will do nothing but wound our child in this important area of human development.
Well you guys all had me convinced until I read Triskadecamus’s post! Holy Crap! Am I really that big of a prude??? I never thought of myself as conservative, but when I read: “…social bathing might well include children of all ages, even post puberty. Horror of horrors, it might well be the case that the child’s first experiences of sexual interest will occur in the family setting. So what?” AND " ‘No, honey, that is a thing that will happen when you grow up, with someone you meet, and grow to love. We will just keep that in its place, until then. Let’s rinse off, and get ready to go out.’ " I can’t help but think WTF. Back to that in a second.
I will agree that the conduct in the OP is fine. 8 years old is old enough to “play mommy” and help bath a baby. If that’s ok, it follows that bathing with a baby is also fine. I think my initial problem was the context in which I heard it. First of all, it came from my sister-in-law’s mouth. And everything she says just naturally sounds wrong! She said to my neice, “Steven is able to sit up in the bath now so you can start bathing with him”
I was like “What?! Why??” “I dunno, that’s just a little weird, isn’t it?”
I was wrong. It’s fine. Maybe it also initially seemed odd is that I have two brothers and one sister and I didn’t see a real vagina until I was like 15 or something. I bathed with my brother when we were younger, but I also shower with guys all the time even at 24. Many places in the Army only have open showers. So, IMO, two guys showering together is inherently ok and, unlike a brother and sister showering, it’s not something you “grow out of”.
But now it seems I’m on an entire other issue. I don’t see a problem with me showering with, or bathing, my 1 year old nephew. Even if he was a neice. Obviously there is no big deal. I’m an adult and he/she is an infant.
However, I’m going to have to be convinced that me showering with or bathing my 8 year old neice is OK!? Trisk, you are saying that my neice and I could bathe together, she could be sexually attracted to me (Im puking as I type) and I would have to explain to her that “those thing[s]… will happen when you grow up, with someone you meet and grow to love.” and this is perfectly OK?!?
This sounds like something one reads in NAMBLA Monthly. Even Doctor Drew has a problem with adults bathing and running around naked with their pre-teen and teenage children. And he seems like he tries to be open minded about stuff.
I consider myself pretty open minded. But I am not ready to accept that in Western society a 24 year old can bath his 8 year old neice and it’s just as normal as changing a baby’s diaper.
Honestly, please convince me. I’m not bull-headed. In fact I’m pretty easily persuaded. But I can’t even read your last post without feeling uncomfortable.
We can be with our children, but let’s not be with our children. We can love our kids, but not love our kids.
Shame and fear? Is that what we’re calling modesty these days?
Clearly you’ve never had to deal with a five-year-old boy asking for an explanation for his involuntary erection. Obvioulsy, the explanation shouldn’t involve sex, and shouldn’t involve shame - just an explanation that it’s something that happens, and it’s somethign to keep private.
FWIW, I can remember having an erection when I was six. And no, it wasn’t pleasurable. It was just somethign that happened, and that went away.
I remember being 8 years old and bathing with the 3 year old son of a close family friend. Neither one of us were uncomfortable. If anything we had some one else to play with (and not in that way).
I say as soon as one of them starts feeling uncomfortable, which is probably at the onset of puberty, then it’s time to stop.
I don’t see a problem. Nudity is just nudity, there’s nothing wrong with it. If it is somehow damaging, the how would one explain the naturist families that exist in many places. They don’t seem to be scarred in any way. In fact, they seem like a pretty happy lot.
If you can’t even read my post without feeling uncomfortable, then you should definitely not try to introduce casual nudity into your family social system. It wasn’t meant as a prescriptive solution for anyone. I only mean that the fact of sexual development is one that happens no matter what your attitudes are. You have to be realistic about it.
No, you don’t encourage your children to feel sexual things, or practice any sort of sexual behavior. Eventually, for a few years, some sort of modesty will become normal, even in a very relaxed family. That comes from the fact that pubescent children become shy when their bodies begin to change. So, you let them set the tone for changes in your family practices. You never force it on them, nor allow their impulses to take them into behaviors that might harm them. You are the responsible party in your relationship with a child. You will, even in a practicing nudist family, have some members who are more body shy, and more prone to maintaining modesty than others maintain. Your children will emulate the behaviors they find meet their own emotional needs. As infants, nudity will be an unnoticed fact. As young children, a choice based on comfort, and activity. As older children, social influence begins to take precedence, even in family environments. But the whole thing can happen at the same level of importance as diet, or riding bicycles.
When real sexual feelings begin to develop, you help your children deal with those, too. Not by encouraging sexual activity, but by supporting them in their emotional strength, so that those choices become true adult choices, not default submission to peer expectations. You become someone that your children ask incredibly embarrassing questions. Why? Because from you, they expect answers. And they expect limits, set by you, on their actual behavior. Why? Because you are a parent, and they have learned that you really are trying to help them with your limits. Sex is just one more part of life, and you are the source of information, and hopefully wisdom on what life is like.
But you don’t make them ashamed when they begin to notice sexual dimorphism. It isn’t something that they are doing wrong; it’s just part of being human. You don’t undress in front of your children, of either sex, if that is an unusual or provocative act that engages their sexual interest. You might have to alter a long term pattern of casual nudity, for the benefit of a shy child undergoing puberty. You may never regain that type of family pattern again. Or you might, after a few years.
Just to be clear, I don’t think you should have sex with relatives, no matter what ages you are. But having sex, and being aware of the sexual aspect of another human being are not the same thing. Children do become aware of their parents, and siblings as sexual beings. Pretending that it doesn’t happen, or clouding it in shame and guilt are not healthy responses. Accepting limits on behavior, and accepting that the interests and urges toward sexual emotions are normal human behavior can be much more relaxed, and ordinary than you seem to feel is required.
Thank you for your reply, Tris. That made a lot of sense and didn’t seem to come off the way the other post did. Maybe the first just wasn’t verbose enough (I need a lot of explainin’ sometimes)
If you don’t mind me asking, Is there a lot of family social nudity in your household? Is it no big deal for a kid to come home and a parent to be naked as a Chinese Barn Owl just relaxing and watching tv. I picture them exchanging pleasantries and then the child to get out of her clothes and go into the kitchen to make a sandwich.
I guess if everyone’s comfortable about it. And as long as you can tell if a child gets uncomfortable about it. How would you tell if your child is not comfortable about everyone being naked? I remember as a kid, my brothers and I would sit around the house in our underwear after 8 or so. But that was more like pajamas to us, and it was easy to “grow out of” because our parents were not in their underware too. So it was clearly not an “adult” thing. But if the adults are sitting around naked too, what issues (if any) do the conflicting pressures cause? Those being the pressure to be like the “norm” and the pressure to be like your parents. Even if it’s not a “forced” issue, would a child tell his parents that he doesn’t like being naked? How long would he have to go feeling uncomfortable before he gets the nerve to speak up? Or does it just not happen like that?
Maybe if it’s not really an issue at the house, then the kids will just grow out of it and into something they feel more comfortable with? (provided it makes them uncomfortable in the first place)
I guess one of my biggest questions is “Why?” What is the benefit of sitting around the house naked with one’s children? (At any ages) Ok, higher sexual enlightenment and all that… but really? Is that it? Seriously, I guess a person could say “why not” and we could go back and forth all day long. A simple answer (though not necessarily the best) is plainly, “because it’s not normal”.
Much is not normal. But most can be justified. What is the justification – what is to gain – from being naked in the house among family all the time. Self-awareness? Comfort?
In the long ago past, my family had a period of occasional home nudity, as opposed to constant home nudity. As my elder sons grew up, they changed their comfort level with that, and began on their own to wear clothes pretty much all the time. So did I, when I noticed it. Their mother was always the most modest of the family, although still occasionally comfortable without clothes.
Over the next decade or so there were unrelated family problems, and an eventual divorce. My younger two children did not have that same experience, although some casual acceptance of near nudity was still there. That sort of comfort level doesn’t work in extended social situations for me. I am very body conscious outside of close familial circles.
What a dilemma! Whether to bathe an eight-year-old with a one-year-old or not. Cripes, neither is pubescent and neither has sexual designs on the other - give it a miss. Of course it’s fine - only a pervert would think otherwise.
People! Why am I a member of the human race? I despair.
Heh. We were still bathing with unrelated childhood friends of both sexes when my brother and I were six or seven or so. No harm came of it, no big deal was ever made of it. I seem to recall we were all more interested in the humourous value of sundry potty functions than anything sexual.
What you said is how you know when it is should stop. When the older child says “eeeeeeeekkkkkkkk no more” then it stops.
Though frankly if an eight year old is freaking out about a baby in the bath you can pat your self on the back for bringing up a very repressed child.
My child is 12. Neither of us go out of our way to see each other starkers but it happens several times a week. We are not door closers. We shower with the door open. We dress with the door open. Sometimes one walks past the other at these times.
He has shown through his actions (leaving the room quickly :D) that he finds seeing mum mid-dressed not something he wants to hang around for (a fairly recent thing…he used to stand there droning on about pokemon while I put my bra on). Strangely he will still come talk to me when he is starkers ("mum I can’t find my boxers, mum where are my p.j’s etc) and not seem to give a fig.
The child is the indicator. If it makes them uncomfortable then it is time to stop.
I have taken to yelling down the hallway “I’m just getting dressed now”. To be forewarned is a good thing
Yes, I’m a pervert because I believe in respecting the body of an 8-year-old child and not imposing my beliefs upon him/her. Gotcha. I thought it made me modest.
Here’s the thing. First off I don’t believe in that “nudity is beautiful because it’s natural” bullsh*t. Take a dump is also a natural thing - doesn’t mean I want to watch anyone do it.
Second, I don’t see the point of bathing an 8-year-old w/a 1-year-old, simply because I don’t see the point of bathing an 8-year-old, period. I was taking baths on my own when I was about 4 or 5. And if you dump a one year old baby in a tub with an 8-year-old and you leave them alone, you’re being unfair. I’ve bathed one-year-olds - they’re wriggly, slippery, let’s-eat-that-nice-looking-soap kinda creatures. Anything can happen, and then you’ve got a injured and/or dead child.
As for showering/shitting/whatever the heck with doors wide open…smacks of laziness to me, but I don’t live in your home (thank God). In my whole life, I saw my dad naked once, and that’s because I opened the door without knocking. I got dat ass whupped and it never happened again. It wasn’t about “Oh my god! She saw her dad’s dick and now she’ll be traumatized forever!” bullsh*t (though I do think they overreacted). It was about respect. You don’t enter a person’s bedroom w/o knocking (not when they pay bills). And in return, when I began puberty, my parents knocked on my door. I’m so glad I lived in a house where I didn’t have a father who felt he could walk around naked (my mother would jump on him if he walked around w/o a shirt) or a mother who thought that nudity was so beautiful that she had to show me her own vagina to show me how to clean myself (like my friend’s mother did). Nudity’s not beautiful, it’s not ugly, it’s not a big deal…it just is what it is.
