I have a four year old son that loves the beach, he also loves pulling his bathing shorts down to pee or for whatever reason and starts running around naked.
He has two parents watching him, so I say no big woop. Nothing bad is going to happen under the observation of us two parents.
My wife however not only thinks it is rude to other beach goers to have to see GASP a sexually undeveloped child, but that a pedophile could see him at a distance and jerk off or something when they go back home. And I am like so what? If someone is disturbed by seeing a naked child they have issues, and for the pedos well they aren’t going to touch or talk to him and if they see him from 200 feet away and wank off later what do I care? They certainly have no possible way of knowing where my son lives.
This bugs my wife so much she would prefer to avoid the beach because she hates our son being naked in public.
I would not be disturbed.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear rude remarks directed towards your family though, which could ruin a pleasant day. It depends on the local culture. Where I am, it would be considered trashy, but not unheard of. I could see some busybody “helpfully” lecturing you about pedophiles.
Different countries, different mores. I remember in Soviet Russia 30-40 years ago (which was extremely prudish otherwise, by the way) little kids ran around naked on the beach regularly. I would say up to 5 year olds. I am pretty sure Europe is pretty relaxed about it too. US is very uptight in that respect.
Oh and I am in the US. It would be mildly weird, just because it would be so unusual.
I’d have no problem with it. Of course, when my older daughter was that age, we couldn’t keep clothes on her, so I have some personal experience with naked 4-year-olds.
It wouldn’t disturb me, I too have had experience with little naked bodies running around after bath time. however if I were you I would worry about pedophiles eyeballing your little boy. All it takes is one moment that you look away.
I would only have a problem with it if he’s peeing on the sand where people may step or sit. But I assume he’s not doing that.
I don’t know at what age I’d start to feel uncomfortable with a kid’s nudity. I mean, “prepubescent” can describe a ten year old just as much as a four year old. But I’m guessing seeing a naked ten year old at the beach probably would bother me, for reasons I can’t articulate. Maybe it’s because kids aren’t really all that innocent at that age, but a four-year-old is unquestionably so.
No issue for me. It’s a young kid. I can’t recall how old girls were before they started wearing tops. Maybe 6 or 7? All us kids were topless at the beach at that age. Bottomless is more unusual but for a 3 or 4 year old no big deal.
A few years ago I was alone with a friend’s daughter in a marketplace. They had a stall. She was naked and I told her to put some clothes on and she did. I think I taught her the important lesson of being ashamed of your nudity.
It was my friend and his girlfriend’s stall. Well actually it was their parked car with some of their belongings on the ground. The girlfriend might have been nearby but not right next to me.
A naked 4 year old at the beach with his parents is just innocent nudity. I don’t see a problem with it. I might be concerned about where they pee, though.
aceplace brings up something I wonder about now and then. When should girls start covering up on top? Sure, I understand they develop at different ages and there’s no strict line, but can we an approximate line? Maybe 7 years old? I guess this question is directed at the women here as they have experience in this that I lack.
Out of morbid curiosity, I’d be on the lookout for adults freaking out in some entertaining fashion.
It would occur to me that this situation might be especially triggering for a pedophile, but I believe being around children in swimming suits is already usually triggering; I think being a bit more aware is a good idea in this situation.
Pedophiles can get turned on by children anywhere at any time, naked or not. Why let that keep you off the beach? And a pedophile looking to abduct a child will abduct one that’s easy to abduct. Not the naked child 200 yards away on the beach watched by his parents.
Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. In fact, he’d probably be joined by my 3 y.o. daughter, whose favorite outfit is nothing, or accessories only (like this ratty tutu and her dad’s fedora).
It is unusual these days, but I can recall being 5 or so and using the wading pool in just underpants along with the neighbor boy, on a regular basis.
I keep getting a vision of a beach filled with streaking, romping, peeing toddlers and it makes me laugh.