Parental Nudity

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I'm wondering at what age parental nudity became an issue for you, or rather when you decided to be more private about being nude in front of your children. Does sex make a difference i.e. mom being naked in front of son or dad being naked in front of daughter? I guess I'm not sure what is "normal" and I'm not finding any good information in any of my parenting books.

Thanks!

[BeckaBlue]

kenzie's almst 6 and i still have no issues. i don't see it being an issue anytime soon. i'd prefer never being an issue at all, but I know i was uncomfortable with my mom not being fully clothed after i was about 9 or so.

[ArmsOfLove]

the normal expert consensus is to respect your child's natural developing modesty and that nudity is okay until one or the other is uncomfortable. I do not believe that the sex of the parent or the child matters--though it might affect how different situations are handled. For example, dh would wear a bathing suit if he were going to shower with dd who is 5. She's *right there* and he's not comfortable with that at all (small shower-only stall).

[Close2MyHeart]

I am rarely naked in front of any of my children anymore. Dh has issues w/ it. He's VERY modest.

[MarynMunchkins]

None of my kids think anything about my or dh being naked. Well, except Colin, who views it as license to nurse.

My older two kids are now uncomfortable with it... so I respect their modesty. They are 9 and 7... and keeping clothes on the oldest was a chore in itself when he was little... so I think it's funny that he is so modest now.

[Radosny Matka]

I still undress and occassionaly shower with my 4 year old. We will stop when either one of us starts to feel uncomfortable.

[amstermarie]

i still shower w/ both my boys. dh does too, but he said if we had a girl he would not shower w/ her, not even when she was tiny tiny. it kind of upset me some, i can shower w/ boys, but not him w/ girls he says its natural for moms but not for dads. for the record he also said he would not change a little girls diaper. he claims people and things would be imagined . o we had a heated argument over that one. but we are having another boy so it wont be an issue.

Ds was almost five when I started to be more careful.

We just followed DH's or the children's preference for modesty.

We have a big shower, with two shower heads. I have photos of Jonathan and Kiyanna in a little 'tub' when ds would have been about 3½ and dd a baby. I know DH and I were still naked at that time. Soon after that (before ds turned 4) DH was uncomfortable with me being naked in front of ds. And DH was no longer nude in front of dd once she was about 3.

DH was never naked in front of my oldest daughter - since he is her step-dad.

I'm occasionally naked or with a naked daughter. And Kiyanna is occasionally naked in front of family or rarely someone else. She 'pretends' modesty because her older siblings are modest. LOL

[GodisGood]

My boys are too young to notice anything...I'm just not comfortable. I don't want one of their earliest memories of me to be my saggy fat body getting out of the shower!

dh has always been pretty careful in front of dd but will occasionally change with her there. i still dress in front of her if she's there but i have stopped taking baths w/ her but that's mainly b/c i love my quiet time in the tub. lol dd (4) is starting to become a little modest about herself but that's only w/ other people, not us. we'll just follow her cues i think.

[JavaMama]

That's a good question and it just varies from family to family.

For us, we still change and shower when the kids are around. In fact, we had to tear out the shower in the house to make room to run plumbing for our second bathroom and we only have a bathtub in the house for now. When dh or I take our "shower" in the bathtub we usually end up with one or both of the kids hopping in with us. It gets crowded!

If at some point I feel uncomfortable with it, or dh does we'll get more modest. And when we notice the kids are uncomfortable we'll be more modest. Really, dd is VERY immodest (it's a baaaad thing when she wears a dress LOL) and ds is still nursing so it's not like he doesn't see my boobs all the time!

I mean, how modest would you expect us to be when we used to sleep only in our undies before kids!

[AttachedMamma]

Our DD will be 5 in the fall. DH and I still shower w/her and it's a non-issue (she loves showering w/us). But, we'll follow DD's cues about this. I wonder how that will happen. I hope a friend doesn't make her feel shameful about showering w/her parents. It's possible someone could say, "you shower w/your dad?! Yuk!" and that would change things (though I would feel very sad if it happened that way rather than her just developing her need for her own personal space and simply telling us that she prefers to shower alone."

cindi