When Should You Stop Being Naked In Front Of Your Kids?

I'm American, of course I'm going to be a prude about nudity.

I recently admitted something on Twitter that caused a minor stir: I wear a swimsuit to take baths with my 4-year-old son. I only mentioned it because it was in the context of taking baths with my son, who likes having company, and I worried that if I didn’t add the disclaimer of “I was wearing a swimsuit,” that Twitter would spin out of control about how inappropriate it was. (Sounds crazy, but I saw multiple people recently argue that if a toddler girl “only wants mommy” the only explanation is that her father is abusing her. People are insane.)

I think Twitter is unfortunately made up of extremely paranoid people who see sexual weirdness (especially involving children) in places where there is none. Sometimes it’s driven by their own trauma, so I typically don’t want to argue with them even when they’re being absurd. In fact, I thought I was safe by mentioning the swimsuit thing, only to have several people accuse me of “sexualizing” the bath by not being naked.

Most people who criticized me weren’t going there though. They just thought I was being a priggish, uptight American who had issues with nudity. And I suppose they’re right that I was just acting in accordance with my own upbringing and culture. In my family, the parent of the opposite gender stopped being naked around their child once that kid was old enough to remember. This meant my mom stopped getting naked in front of my brother around preschool age. My dad probably stopped getting naked in front of me at an even earlier age. I don’t think it matters that much, but I guess I always thought people weren’t meant to grow up remembering what their opposite-sex parent’s genitalia look like. My husband had a very similar upbringing.

This might seem insane to Europeans. I’ve been told there are people who continue to see their parents naked indefinitely. And you know what? That’s probably fine too. I don’t think either culture has “issues” with nudity or boundaries. But given that I live in America, it makes sense that I’d do things the American way.