This reminds me of a story I read once -- a Japanese book called "Totto-chan". (I forget the name of the author -- Tetsuko something?) Anyway, it's a memoir of the author's childhood experiences in a progressive elementary school during WWII. And one of the things the principal would do was that during the summer, he basically let all the kids go skinny-dipping in the pool. His reasoning was that he didn't want them to be "morbidly curious" about other people's naked bodies, or think that nakedness was dirty or shameful. Plus, the kids were all much happier and much more comfortable that way.
@ladyM2000: I wouldn't think that anyone in wartime-era Japan would have even batted an eye about that. My folks lived there in the late 50s-early 60s, and the tradition of communal bathing was very much alive-everyone in the family goes and bathes together with everyone from the neighborhood in large bathhouses, all quite happily and unconcernedly nekkid. It took a little getting used to from their shy western perspective, but probably led to a healthier, more relaxed attitude about bodies in general.
@chritter is a nocturnal feminist mancatfish: Yeah, I guess you're right. Although I do remember reading that some concerned parents tried to make their kids wear bathing suits -- which, of course, they immediately shed upon their arrival at school. (Also, I think that the author was trying to explain this attitude to later generations. But that's just my take on it.)
@ladyM2000: Well, cultural mores are complicated, and I'm not familiar enough with Japan to really understand the dynamics in play. There could easily be a compartmentalization between "bathing" (done naked) and recreational "swimming" (NOT naked) that would explain that nicely.
I had to Google Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by the way, sounds like a lovely little book.
I got to this post late because I had to put my two little nudists to bed.
The hard part for me in dealing with naked kids is not teaching them when it is and isn't ok. They are observant creatures and notice what everyone else is wearing. They pick up on gender norms pretty easily, I'm sure they'll figure this out too.
The hard part for me anyway, is teaching them that their little bodies are perfect and awesome in the real world. They are shown so much shame, from all the kids shows and movies showing embarrassment at exposure, to the awkward glances from friends' parents when they are playing in our yard and the kids strip. I want to foster comfort and joy in their bodies and am fighting the world we live in every step of the way.
if i have kids, I swear to allow them to be little jay birds for as long as they please. I don't want them to ever feel demonization of their bodies or sexualities from me. They'll get that enough from the rest of the world.
Although Europe has a host of its own problems when it comes to sex, on this they are right on. It pisses me off how much we Americans freak out about nudity. That we intrinsically tie nudity to sex is bizarre and problematic. Nudity is NOT sex. Period. It is not sexual, and when we sexualize it this only leads to stigmatization and victimization. For instance, we don't see men's bare chests as inherently sexual (even though a nicely groomed, cut chest can be extremely sexually alluring) -- and men are allowed to bare their chests in public without fear of legal retribution. Women, not so much. Personally, I'd love to see what would happen if we repealed indecency laws as applied to a woman's bare chest. The more women we see showing their breasts in public, I bet you good money the harder it becomes to sexualize breasts.
I think I'm going off on a tangent here... I guess what I'm saying is, nudity has only as much power as we decide to give it. Why should we do that? It's a human body. We've all got one. Sure, some of us have slightly different parts than others, and all our specific parts are unique in their own ways, but at the end of the day, they're just bodies. That's all they are. Useful tools, each with its own particular uniqueness and beauty to it.
And as to the danger of pedophiles: I can't get behind that part of the argument any more than I can get behind the argument that dressing a certain way makes a woman more likely to get raped. Pedophiles and rapists are sick, twisted fucks who will find any excuse to take what they want from others. They don't look at their prey as human; they look at them as a means to an end. Whether that means is dressed to the nines, wearing burlap, or wearing nothing at all is really pretty irrelevant to the entire enterprise of dehumanization.
I used to love baths solely because bathing was prefaced by taking off all your clothes -- ergo I would get naked, then dash away from the tub, making my mother chase me all through the house. I recall they made me stop streaking at some point (age 8? sooner?) and I was very sore about it.
My partner has the strangest habit of flinging off all of his clothes, save underpants, whenever he's at his family home or at our shared apartment. I also heard that he used to bathe with his mother and father when he was littler, but this is not at all uncommon in his home country. I've taken after him and I'll bum around in just a pair of underpants when I'm in my apartment; I actually do my exercise routine this way too. Very freeing!
If you have experienced a Texan summer, you may understand the motivation here.
People equate nakedness with sex. The reason people have a problem with seeing naked kids in public is the same reason why people have a problem seeing a woman breastfeeding her baby.
@amowls: I hadn't thought to compare the two, but that's a really good point. In fact, I've heard arguments that breastfeeding women are pedophiles because they get enjoyment out of letting their child breastfeed. People suck a lot.
This reminds me of the incident in "Cherry" when young Mary Karr rides her bike around her neighborhood when she's 10-ish. Her mom is cool with it, everyone else freaks the eff out. It's a pretty hysterical memory, I must say.
Speaking of sexualizing children, I have a friend, great mom, great person, who still creeps me out by referring to her 1 year old baby girl as "sexy" and clearly doesn't think anything of it.
In contrast to most of the commenters so far, I was a veritable never-nude as a child. I didn't even like bathing without a swimsuit on. A couple of my nieces/nephews have gone through the no-clothes phase, but the boundaries between acceptable and inappropriate were always fairly self-evident. They never nudified in front of non-family, and in return, they were allowed to strip down to diapers at home.
I see this quite often with children's bathing suits. At some point, the kids move from swim diapers to swim trunks and the girls move into one pieces or strange two pieces. I am personally comfortable for all people to be topless on the beach, so I have no problem with older children wearing only bottoms and I figure once girls want to cover up, they will and that will probably correspond with her friends and the law.
Or maybe they never will, but since our indecency laws forbid this, it creates a challenge. I wonder if it more difficult to explain to a little girl that she needs to cover her chest after years of bathing topless or if as a parent, you should place her in a one piece suit or two piece that covers her chest in order to avoid having that discussion until she is at an age that can better understand without feeling ashamed of her body.
I have heard that children that live in nudist colonies understand having to adorn clothes in front of others and perhaps the teaching style that those parents use would be the best way to approach the subject with a child who is not ashamed of her body at the age that our government requires it. That also being said, do any of our legal minded Jezzies know when indecent exposure laws kick in for children? I imagine a 16 year old could get in trouble but how about 10 or 12?
@SundaysAndCybele: These indecency laws make no sense to me. Not everyone develops at the same rate, and an 11-year old can have more in the boob area than a 16-year old.
I went around topless until I was about 13. Then I started checking out boys at the beach and got self-conscious (mostly because the boys got so embarrassed if I talked to them without a top on). Around 18 I went back to topless (sporadically).
@SundaysAndCybele: It depends on where you live. I know in Oregon, at least, it's legal to be nude publicly at any age as long as it has no "intent to arouse".
I wish that we would quit sexualizing nudity so much. I can only imagine how much I would have enjoyed summers and swimming more if I were allowed to be topless. Breasts don't want to be caged, man.
For me it is simple: context. A friend of mine was carrying her 3 year old not-yet-trained daughter around the table during a dinner party- sorry- I don't need to inadvertently be peering into baby cooch during dinner!
@hollygirl: For some reason I really resent the term "baby cooch," but apart from that, what's wrong with it? I really, truly don't understand. It's not like your friend sat her down in the middle of the table and let her pee in your wine glass, right?
@haguenite: Sorry to have offended you. I can't explain why I don't want to look at genitals in my face while I'm eating. I thought it sort of went without saying. And yeah- kids do shit and piss spontaneously during training time, so that's there too.
My family has always been pretty relaxed when it comes to nudity. My mom's favorite picture is us three girl sitting on top of a car, totally naked except the oldest had on a pair of underwear.
A story that gets told is how when my dad was in the hospital to get something removed, my sister stripped of her clothes and started to run around naked.
Geez, I remember being relatively old (probably around 8) and just walking around the house with only underwear on.
That being said, except for the hospital incident, my parents did a good job of making us aware of when clothing was the appropriate choice.
I think adults struggling with toddler and preschooler nudity have some internal things to resolve--be they the predatory type or the type who are comlpletely horrified by the nudity. Those are two extremes of a spectrum of imbalance in my honest opinion.
My daughter was a free wheeling nudie as a toddler and preschooler. It was not uncommon to see her naked in the front or back yard picking blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, playing in the sprinkler or kiddie pool, or just peeing on the lawn.
Around the house she also sometimes liked to roam nekkid. Most toddlers and pre-schoolers do not like to roam around with poop on their fannies, I'm really unclear how this came up as an issue.
Today my daughter is an appropriately modest and fashion conscience 10 year old. She didn't need us to rigidly impose modesty, the tendency to be more modest as we get older is a part of our culture that is picked up quite readily by many (but possibly not all) children.
"there's a fine line between letting a child express his freedom and feel no Genesis-style shame in nudity, and letting him think he makes the rules."
This is a wonderful sentence that I think it's true in most things related to child-rearing. As for the nudity, I agree that it says more about the person and his/her personal issues about it. In my family, it wasn't a big deal, although there was always an emphasis on appropriateness, but I know people who seem to be very much against it and find it in extremely poor taste, always arguing about the possible consequences for the kid. And I have a friend who until his teens, used to walk around naked in his house, as his four older sisters did, and he seems perfectly fine, and doesn't have any hang-ups about nudity or the human body in general. Of course, upon finding out that particular aspect of his upbringing, a lot of people's perception about him change instantly, so yeah, it's more about our own projections and issues.
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I had to Google Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by the way, sounds like a lovely little book.
07/16/09
The hard part for me in dealing with naked kids is not teaching them when it is and isn't ok. They are observant creatures and notice what everyone else is wearing. They pick up on gender norms pretty easily, I'm sure they'll figure this out too.
The hard part for me anyway, is teaching them that their little bodies are perfect and awesome in the real world. They are shown so much shame, from all the kids shows and movies showing embarrassment at exposure, to the awkward glances from friends' parents when they are playing in our yard and the kids strip. I want to foster comfort and joy in their bodies and am fighting the world we live in every step of the way.
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I think I'm going off on a tangent here... I guess what I'm saying is, nudity has only as much power as we decide to give it. Why should we do that? It's a human body. We've all got one. Sure, some of us have slightly different parts than others, and all our specific parts are unique in their own ways, but at the end of the day, they're just bodies. That's all they are. Useful tools, each with its own particular uniqueness and beauty to it.
And as to the danger of pedophiles: I can't get behind that part of the argument any more than I can get behind the argument that dressing a certain way makes a woman more likely to get raped. Pedophiles and rapists are sick, twisted fucks who will find any excuse to take what they want from others. They don't look at their prey as human; they look at them as a means to an end. Whether that means is dressed to the nines, wearing burlap, or wearing nothing at all is really pretty irrelevant to the entire enterprise of dehumanization.
07/16/09
My partner has the strangest habit of flinging off all of his clothes, save underpants, whenever he's at his family home or at our shared apartment. I also heard that he used to bathe with his mother and father when he was littler, but this is not at all uncommon in his home country. I've taken after him and I'll bum around in just a pair of underpants when I'm in my apartment; I actually do my exercise routine this way too. Very freeing!
If you have experienced a Texan summer, you may understand the motivation here.
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Or maybe they never will, but since our indecency laws forbid this, it creates a challenge. I wonder if it more difficult to explain to a little girl that she needs to cover her chest after years of bathing topless or if as a parent, you should place her in a one piece suit or two piece that covers her chest in order to avoid having that discussion until she is at an age that can better understand without feeling ashamed of her body.
I have heard that children that live in nudist colonies understand having to adorn clothes in front of others and perhaps the teaching style that those parents use would be the best way to approach the subject with a child who is not ashamed of her body at the age that our government requires it. That also being said, do any of our legal minded Jezzies know when indecent exposure laws kick in for children? I imagine a 16 year old could get in trouble but how about 10 or 12?
07/16/09
I went around topless until I was about 13. Then I started checking out boys at the beach and got self-conscious (mostly because the boys got so embarrassed if I talked to them without a top on). Around 18 I went back to topless (sporadically).
07/16/09
I wish that we would quit sexualizing nudity so much. I can only imagine how much I would have enjoyed summers and swimming more if I were allowed to be topless. Breasts don't want to be caged, man.
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A story that gets told is how when my dad was in the hospital to get something removed, my sister stripped of her clothes and started to run around naked.
Geez, I remember being relatively old (probably around 8) and just walking around the house with only underwear on.
That being said, except for the hospital incident, my parents did a good job of making us aware of when clothing was the appropriate choice.
07/16/09
My daughter was a free wheeling nudie as a toddler and preschooler. It was not uncommon to see her naked in the front or back yard picking blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, playing in the sprinkler or kiddie pool, or just peeing on the lawn.
Around the house she also sometimes liked to roam nekkid. Most toddlers and pre-schoolers do not like to roam around with poop on their fannies, I'm really unclear how this came up as an issue.
Today my daughter is an appropriately modest and fashion conscience 10 year old. She didn't need us to rigidly impose modesty, the tendency to be more modest as we get older is a part of our culture that is picked up quite readily by many (but possibly not all) children.
07/16/09
This is a wonderful sentence that I think it's true in most things related to child-rearing. As for the nudity, I agree that it says more about the person and his/her personal issues about it. In my family, it wasn't a big deal, although there was always an emphasis on appropriateness, but I know people who seem to be very much against it and find it in extremely poor taste, always arguing about the possible consequences for the kid. And I have a friend who until his teens, used to walk around naked in his house, as his four older sisters did, and he seems perfectly fine, and doesn't have any hang-ups about nudity or the human body in general. Of course, upon finding out that particular aspect of his upbringing, a lot of people's perception about him change instantly, so yeah, it's more about our own projections and issues.