Growing up, we had as many as eight people in a house with one bathroom. On school mornings, it was nothing for a couple of us girls to be in the bathroom, showering and doing hair or makeup when Mom or Granny would come in to use the commode.
Dad and the boys usually got in and out in the evening.
The rules of the house in public areas after around five years old were a minimum of gym shorts and a tee shirt. Same sex parents getting dressed in the same bedroom as the kids was the norm. Even now, if I’m at my parents’ house, my mom thinks nothing of coming in to use the bathroom when one of my sisters or nieces or I am in the shower. Not sure about Dad and the nephews or little Bro, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did the manly outside pee thing when they go fishing together.
I basically grew up as an only child (my half siblings are all over 10 yrs older, & the youngest moved out when I was in kindergarten). My father is a Baby Boomer and Navy vet with zero sense of modesty. He was always walking around the house naked (unless we had company) or lounging around in his underwear. I remember Mom complaining about the latter once; he did stop lounging around in his underwear for awhile ;). Mom never brought up the subject again. Mom was much more modest, but she did have a habit of wearing really sheer, but bulky nightgowns, especiallly in the summer. I don’t think it’s ever a problem for parents to be naked in front of their same sex children; for opposite sex children there are too many variables for there to be a single answer.
I put “never appropriate” in both cases (although I don’t agree with the “you sicko” part).
I never saw my parents naked and my kids have not seen me naked (exepct once my oldest boy).
I think modesty is a virtue, but pruddery is stupid. If one of my kids catches me naked there’s is no screaming or anything, a simple “I’m naked, please go out”.
We had a bathroom ratio of 6 to 1 for quite a long time growing up, and we never had to share the bathroom. Maybe once or twice in a dire emergency, I told my sister she could pee while I was in the shower. But to do that with my mom or stepdad or stepdad’s brother would have been weird as hell.
I guess it sounds prudish to people with a more liberal upbringing, but I was brought up to sexualize nudity. I still do. Unless I spend a good amount of time in a nudist camp, that’s not likely to change. Even when I’m by myself, I just don’t spend a lot of time naked. It makes me feel weird and exposed. Like if there’s ever a house fire or tornado, I don’t want to get caught outside in my birthday suit.
My one surprise in this thread is the number of people who feel it’s fine for their opposite sex children to see them naked. Maybe I’m influenced by my upbringing: I can’t ever remember seeing my mother naked; can’t even imagine it. But it wasn’t unusual to see my father coming out of the shower or changing. (He was an Army guy, though, so was probably used to it.) Will probably be the same when/if I have kids: will be sure to cover up in front of any daughters, but not be as vigilantly modest in front of sons.
Unless I’m mistaken, the message I responded to indicated they were going to cover up their nudity as their 2 year old was starting to ask questions. I find that very strange.
And if you don’t think that some have a very strange relationship with non-sexual,nude human bodies then I’m not sure which western society you inhabit. ( and you probably haven’t paid too much attention to the responses in this thread)
I suppose it comes full circle from naked babe of the parent variety, to your children seeing you as an old naked person. Both without shame, but with familiarity, Simply the functions of life, concentric circles. This coming from a guy who has had to deliver suppositories to his grandma.
It depends a lot on circumstances: familiar, societal, individual. I can’t remember ever seeing my father naked (back then, I doubt many Spanish kids ever saw their parents in full frontal), but - if you’re bedridden, damnit, helping you with the bedpan is about as un-sexual an action as I can think of, get your head out of your arse!
So if it’s so unnecessary, why do your daughters avert their eyes when you are naked? If it’s so natural, wouldn’t they just look and not notice?
I think people are in denial about nudity being sexual, honestly. There are only three actions in ones life that require any amount of nudity–sex, going to the bathroom, and bathing. Two of those generally aren’t done with other people around. People in nudist camps have to repeatedly expose themselves to the naked form so they don’t find it sexual, so they are, in effect, admitting that it is sexual, but that they don’t want it to be.
There are a lot of social taboos that are completely unnecessary. I don’t think it does children a service to treat them as if they don’t exist. You’re just delaying their inevitable learning that most people don’t consider it acceptable. At best it’s neutral, and at worst it sets them up for ostracization.
And I say this as someone who occasionally goes around naked at home. I still wouldn’t teach my children that this was normal behavior.
I suppose I don’t get why one viewpoint is necessarily stranger than the other. Why is it “more strange” to find nudity sexual than it is to find it nonsexual? Even in this thread, each side is accusing the other side of being strange. But why does the other side have to be strange? Or righter or wronger than the other? Why can’t it just be a preference, like favorite food or hair color? People don’t argue that blue is stranger than red (not sober, anyway).
The only time I see naked people in my life is in a sexual context. It makes sense that nudity would be sexualized to people who have similar experiences. It might be a big deal if this taboo were causing me to miss out on something important, but I don’t think I’m losing out on *anything *by not seeing friends and family and/or strangers casually naked. Maybe if I lived in a country where nude beaches were fun to go to, I could agree that I’m missing out on something.
As it is, I simply don’t see the point of purposely overcoming this particular taboo, except to gain internet cred.
I think you misunderstood me. In post #18, CrazyCatLady appears to be describing a dilemma that I don’t believe significantly exists. In order to illustrate my reading of her post, I will restate it (that is, my understanding of it) in exaggerated form - just so as to highlight the contrast (I mention all of this because I want it to be absolutely crystal clear that I am not trying to put words in her mouth.
Anyway, the quote was this one:
Which (and remember, this is an illustrative caricature only) reads as if it’s hinting at a dilemma that goes something like: “How are parents who are not uptight about nudity going to teach their kids to be uptight about nudity?”.
And my point is: They probably won’t, because it’s probably not high on their agenda.
I think CrazyCatLady’s point is valid for kids who are too young to be reasoned with. With kids that young, it’s monkey-see, monkey-do. A child who strips naked in daycare all the time will probably be asked not to come back (and more hysterical types may suggest that they’ve been exposed to inappropriate sexual content/contact, casting you the parent in a negative light).
Not having children myself, I don’t know exactly when a child of nudists is old enough to be told and understand that they can only go naked at home. But it’s not something we’re born knowing.
The fact that I was naked/getting dressed/undressed/into or out of bed has never stopped either of my children (daughter and son, post-teens, now) from walking into our room to talk to me or their mother.
They didn’t care, I don’t either. That said, they are both somewhat more modest when undressed themselves, as you might expect.
In Japan, fathers usually bath with the children, and usually girls will stop doing so around 9 to 11. I saw a program once where a father would bath with his grown daughter, but that would be extremely rare.
I’m American, wife is Taiwanese and we live in Japan. I grew up with an extremely prudish mother in a conservative Mormon family, and may have seen my mother with her special Mormon underwear (full body armor) occasionally, but never, ever naked. But my father molested my sisters, which is much worse.
My thoughts on the matter are:
Whatever the individual parent thinks is best. I’ve never had an opposite sex child so I wouldn’t know, but my little one is seven and I still briefly go topless around her, but then again she nursed until she was 3.5 and still remembers so every time she sees them she gets those hungry eyes.
I don’t know when I stopped with my other daughter. Probably around the time she became more modest about her own body.
I just don’t think it’s a genuine (or at least genuine and frequent) problem. Kids sometimes do things from which adults refrain, and this may cause embarrassment.
But I don’t think a kid who grows up occasionally seeing its parents naked is significantly more likely to spontaneously strip off in the wrong place than any other kid.
No. You responded to a message that said they were going to be “more careful”, assumed that meant something that was not stated and was not true.
That was 25 years ago so the exact details are fuzzy but the general principle was trying to balance that healthy attitude towards their bodies with respecting the fact that some people value their privacy and that they have a right to privacy.
If you want to respond to the varying attitudes in the thread, don’t quote a specific one that doesn’t have the attitudes you are concerned about.
FWIW there is a correlation between the acceptability of nudity and the age for first-time sex: in countries where nudity is barely taboo teenagers typically start having sex much later. In many northern European countries it is normal to take your clothes off to go for a swim and nudity on tv isn’t a problem.
I don’t really understand the difference that many people here make between same-sex and opposite sex: why on earth does that matter when it comes to seeing your parents naked? It appears to presume the sexual preference of the child, for one thing, and secondly ignores the fact that that is particularly unlikely to factor in at all, when it comes to the nudity of a parent.
My parents didn’t parade around naked all day, but if they needed to take their clothes off they wouldn’t run and hide (same for grandparents, other family members, friends etc). They still don’t. And we used to go in the ‘family’ changing rooms at the swimming pool, but I’m guessing the US wouldn’t have those!
My children will see me naked whenever it is appropriate to be naked.
Just all seems very OTT to me and overly obsessed with boobies and willies
