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Naked In Front of the Kids

When Should You Stop Walking Around in the Buff?

by babysugar 75

A discussion up for debate at my house nearly every morning, I want to know when you think kids should be shielded from their parents' family jewels.

In some families, nudity is acceptable at any age. A number of conservative folks start hiding their unmentionables when their kids are able to talk and point. For others, the age depends on the gender — naked mama and daughter is OK, but nude dad and teenage daughter is awkward. It can also be influenced by culture.

At what age, if ever, will you shy away from showing it all?

Source: Getty
PollNudity

75 Comments

elwood83353 elwood83353
my parents never walked nude around the house, but then again they never shyed away completely if we(my sis and I) saw them naked. I do remember going nude a couple times at lakes on some backpacking trips when I was about 9 and 10 yrs old. But in that case, us 2 guys, my dad and I went to one end of the lake and sis and mom the other end. Things did get alittle weird when my sis caught me "pleasureing myself" nude one morning with a morning erection when i was 12. She had orders to wake me early for a road trip we were doing one summer. I figured it was the last time before the end of the trip before I could "do it again". Since then she always knocked first. Never did get punshied for that. Just made it weird for a couple days.
HermioneA HermioneA
I have 2 boys, aged 2 & 4, and have never even thought yet about when myself and my husband may stop the nudity.  We don't habitually hang around the house naked, it's generally just when we've showered, getting changed, ready for bed, etc.  I don't think there needs to be a set age when it'll stop, as I'm sure it will, but I'll be steered by any signs of awkwardness instead.
jnk5 jnk5
First off I would really like to address what Anonima shared....My heart just goes out to you right now, I am so sorry to hear about what you went through as an innocent child. God bless you for being able to have the strength to leave and even more so share your story so that others can hopefully learn from it. You are a super woman and your mom was and still is a pathetic coward that doen't even deserve the title "Mother".    I am a mother of 3.....2 boys and a little princess. In our home we are very open with our children. Growing up I was not able to ask or speak about sex, this lead me to an extreme curiosity about the subject. When I was 15 my bestfriend and I expiremented with sex which then lead to me becoming pregnant. I am thankful that unlike most teenagers I had met and found the love of my life and after an agonizing rough road we were able to pull through the challenges that come from a teenage pregnancy and got married years later and had 2 more kids.    Because of the way I was raised I chose to do the exact opposite of my parents. We have always been very open about sex and nudity with our children to the extent that at age 7 1/2 our oldest was in the room with us for the birth of our second son. Then when he was 10 and our younger son was almost 3 they both were in the room with us for the birth of their baby sister.    Our oldest is now 14yrs (one year younger than I was when we had him), our second is 6 and our daugter just turned 4. We are a very close family with an extremely tight bond. Our kids know that they can come to us about anything and no question is off limits. Our oldest is now going through a phase of being a little modest, he prefers to shower with the door locked and we respect that.    I believe that as parents we need to realize that not every child is the same and we need to pay attention and respect when our children want a bit of privacy/modesty at home. As long as your child is comfortable with seeing mom and dad naked I think it is totally fine and will teach them that their body is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I also believe that causes less curiosity about sex and nudity.
jnk5 jnk5
First off I would really like to address what Anonima shared....My heart just goes out to you right now, I am so sorry to hear about what you went through as an innocent child. God bless you for being able to have the strength to leave and even more so share your story so that others can hopefully learn from it. You are a super woman and your mom was and still is a pathetic coward that doen't even deserve the title "Mother".    I am a mother of 3.....2 boys and a little princess. In our home we are very open with our children. Growing up I was not able to ask or speak about sex, this lead me to an extreme curiosity about the subject. When I was 15 my bestfriend and I expiremented with sex which then lead to me becoming pregnant. I am thankful that unlike most teenagers I had met and found the love of my life and after an agonizing rough road we were able to pull through the challenges that come from a teenage pregnancy and got married years later and had 2 more kids.    Because of the way I was raised I chose to do the exact opposite of my parents. We have always been very open about sex and nudity with our children to the extent that at age 7 1/2 our oldest was in the room with us for the birth of our second son. Then when he was 10 and our younger son was almost 3 they both were in the room with us for the birth of their baby sister.    Our oldest is now 14yrs (one year younger than I was when we had him), our second is 6 and our daugter just turned 4. We are a very close family with an extremely tight bond. Our kids know that they can come to us about anything and no question is off limits. Our oldest is now going through a phase of being a little modest, he prefers to shower with the door locked and we respect that.    I believe that as parents we need to realize that not every child is the same and we need to pay attention and respect when our children want a bit of privacy/modesty at home. As long as your child is comfortable with seeing mom and dad naked I think it is totally fine and will teach them that their body is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I also believe that causes less curiosity about sex and nudity.
Lela2572942 Lela2572942
So what does the poll say??
Amandabrooke Amandabrooke
Ihave two girls they are 11 and 8, since they were infants I have walked around naked with them and shown them to not be ashamed of the way their body looks(nothing perverted), It seemed to be easier to explain to them the natural cycle of womanhood, The natural cycle of puberty and how to properly take care of themselves. By the time they were each about 3 they were able to take a shower or bath without me having to wash them and it worked out great. That way if anyone need to watch them for me the girls would still be able to have a bath before bed and I could trust they wouldn't let anyone touch their no-no spots and they would be able to tell me if someone did.(and It worked to my advantage) To this day I don't shy away from being naked in front of them but I also don't force it either. wiether it's one jumping in the shower after one or having to get dressed in the same room to trying on clothes at a store. It depends on the age, gender, being comfortable and how fast you want them to learn( the "why " questions come quicker).
Kimberly2572227 Kimberly2572227
I think she meat that she showered with her son when he was little.
Sandy2568102 Sandy2568102
 @MrSchmidt  you take a shower with your 25 year old son?
2566743 2566743
My husband sleeps naked and does not "cover up" around the house, even while our daughter was growing up.  As she became more aware of her body, I could see she was very uncomfortable when he was walking around the house.  It took some doing, but I finally convinced him to put on pajamas and cover up when she was around.  I could see she was relieved, and even at 26, she is still very private about her body when she come home for visits. I knew how she felt, because my own father would frequently wear loose fitting boxer shorts, with private parts visible.  There is nothing wrong with the human body- but there are some things a daughter just does not want to see on her father!
wolfcat87 wolfcat87
I say never. I'm 24 and my mother still runs around naked and so do I. My kids run around naked if they like as well. XD
MrSchmidt MrSchmidt
I am 45 and I live with my wife and my 4 sons. I have no problem in walking around naked at home. My eldest son is 25 and he has also no problem. Just like the other ones. Sometimes we take shower together. I think it's a question about how you see a naked body. For us, a naked body is just a body, with no sexual connotation. To see a person naked doesn't mean you will have sex with him.
Anonima Anonima
I don't think a mother should let her husband watch her daughter naked after 8 specially when she is a teenager nor him walking around naked!!! I thing it is perverted and can be an excuse also to be perverted. A mother should always respect when her child is uncomfortable being naked in front of family. My mom would always get mad at me for covering myself when my father was around. She always wanted me to let him see me naked. I always thought it was perverted specially because he took the bathroom lock off and always would go into the bathroom (that had clear curtains) when I was taking a shower and he would also walk into my room without knocking first specially when I was changing clothes (he also took my bedroom lock off). My mother would always say: I think you need a psychologist because that is not normal that you don't want him to see you naked. She would also purposely would open the bathroom and the shower curtain so that he could watch me naked, and if I yelled she would slap me in the face. Because of this he also would send me to take a bath when I was 17 alone in the house with him (which I thin it was perverted too). She never defended me nor said anything to him about it so he knew he could do worst things and she wouldn't care. One time he lay down on my lap when I was 14 and I was very uncomfortable and he said: This is what I like, have boobs on my face....don't tell your mom!!! And many other things happened and I told her and he would immediately say that I was lying and she would believe him and she would call me a liar. He would also ALWAY walked naked in front of me and one time in the tiny hallway he forced me to walk right in front of him naked almost touching him with my body....I ran away when I was 19 because he walked into the bathroom like always when I was in it and I had it and said: I don't want you to see me naked, and he said: oh and what if I watch you naked!! then he slap me in the face and my mother was behind him telling me to shut up. I ran away and she told the whole family I left because I had an attitude. Till this day she lies about it and she plays dumb ignoring all the things she put me through and all the perverted things she let him do to me.
SloppyJoe6412 SloppyJoe6412
I don't know what ages are the kids of the parentes who posted here, but it seems that few of them have reached puberty -and for those who did, the comments are a bit awkward to me. I am no prude and nor is my husband, so when our kids were born (daughter the first, son three years after) we had no problem being naked in front of them, or bathing together. When they started school and bringing friends home, we had to explain that not all families see things the same way so it was not ok to be undressed in front of other people: they accepted it right away, and to some extent seemed relieved. I think they were starting to desire modesty, although we did nothing to impose it. By the time my girl was about 8, she was clearly not comfortable seeing me or my husband in the buff -so we just stopped. At that time my son accepted it but in his preteens he went through an exhibitionist phase -parading across the house in the nude for no good reason. We just pretended we did not care, which is hard when you have to set two different breakfast times (my daughter would run away and slam her door when she saw his brother in Adam's suit). But the peak of awkwardness was one time he was naked in his room, I walked in wearing a regular, modest slip, and he had an unmistakable erection -which he covered quickly, but not enough for me not to notice. From then on it has been full street attire or closed doors for me. Luckily my son grew past that nudity phase. In summary, I am sorry but I have trouble believing all these families went through their kids' puberty without having any of these issues.
giljasaon20 giljasaon20
Honestly, I think that nudity is perfectly fine in front of your kids in your own home. If you have changed their diapers and bathed them, what makes being naked around them any different. As a kid, both of my parents would walk around upstairs naked after/before a shower, or getting dressed/changed. I have 3 siblings, a brother 2 years younger, his twin sister, and a sister 18 months older. We saw our parents and each other fully naked until my older sister left for college, and it was never weird, because it was only a penis/vagina. We never made a big deal of it in our house, since we were all close, and had to get ready for school at similar times, and shower at similar times.
misterbean misterbean
There generally seems to be the notion that Parents stopped their kids from ?? whatever ~ Nudity was never an issue around home, though we were considerate if there were to be guests. Doors were never really closed and respect for one anothers space was really never an issue. Our pool and spa area was not entirely shrouded and while the neighbours commented once there was no issue. They subsequently were frequently nude in their backyard also. The other neighbours who could see if they made the effort were always nude in their outdoor spa. .It's gets cold here in winter and no-one was undressed if it was uncomfortable - but we all longed for warm weather and the freedom to be bare. It really is a most comfortable way to live. At the river beach near home it was always a mix of nude people and those wearing costumes though in costumes topless women were the norm. With visitors for pool centric BBQues and parties the kids were the most naturally nude though it was rare for anyone not to strip off and swim. It just happened and no-one would ever be encouraged in any direction. It generally seemed to take adults about an hour to just relax being nude. We were all lucky that our kids seem to be well adjusted and in apparently stable relationships. but to credit nudity with that seems to be stretching a lot of logic. We often noticed that our kids seemed to be more independent thinkers and needed no real discipline. This was echoed in their schooling. We have been to a number of holiday places , nude beaches and and social events like swim nights. We like the fact that kids are so well included at such places and know they are safe when out of sight. In contrast to non-nudist places where alcohol and recreational drugs seem more abused and prevalent. Reading the comments here seems to us that parents appear to be following some sort of assumed notion of behaviour or modesty code that is being passed down the generations. Good luck and we hope it works for you..
Baggies Baggies
As far back as I can remember, after our evening baths, my brother, sister and I never got dressed again. Once we got big enough that we wouldn't all fit in the tub at once, we took separate baths, but we would stay naked for the rest of the evening ranging anywhere from a few minutes to a couple or three hours. Why get dressed only to get undressed for bed? We had always done that and it was until I left to go to college before I had even thought about it. We would either play with our toys, or go watch television, or sit at the dining room table doing our homework, whatever, if it was after having our evening bath, we would be naked doing it. No one pondered whether it was right or wrong being naked in front of the parents or siblings. I remember in the summertime when we could stay up later because we didn't have school the next day, sometimes Mom and Dad would be naked, too. Mom used to wash dishes naked after her bath and before bed. It wasn't like "Look at me, I'm naked!" No one actually paid her any mind. As kids, while playing outdoors in the yard, if we wanted to take our clothes off, we did. A lot of the time Mom would have us take them off to avoid our getting them dirty. I'm glad we weren't taught that being naked was shameful or ugly, but rather we were taught to be a bit more modest around others because that was the polite and proper thing to do. We lived a couple of miles out of town and had no neighbors, so if we weren't going anywhere or no one was coming to visit, what difference did it make? I remember once I got an insect sting on my penis while climbing a tree when I was between 9 or 10 years old. My sister teased me about it. It didn't embarrass me, it mad me mad because it hurt and she was laughing about it. (Modesty had nothing to do with it.) We each have finished college, have good jobs, my brother is an executive, and we each have kids. None of us have any problems from an overly permissive childhood, and we let our kids dress or undress as they want just as we did, even when their cousins are over for a visit. We put in a pool a couple of years back and my brother and sister each brought their family over for a backyard cook out soon afterwards. None of their kids (ranging from 5 to 13) even inquired whether or not they had to wear swimsuits, as soon as they saw the pool they shucked their clothes off and got in. What's the problem with being naked around parents or siblings? I think it's parents that put that "modesty thing" in the minds of the kids making for awkward situations.
Mikeytosh Mikeytosh
Nudity in the family cannot be legislated and we should not use our own convictions to judge others on matters that cannot be clearly defined as right or wrong such as this. I believe that generally it is good when there is openness in this are right through regardless of age as long as there is no sexual connotation. Simple openness towards nudity in a family allows trust and comfort to exist, bear in mind that anything can happen. If a girl is not comfortable with seeing and being seen naked by hr father then what happens if either of them are physically unable to bathe themselves and no one else is around. Many persons also have a problem caring for their aged parents or sick adult child because of being uncomfortable seeing them naked, this should not be the case. I don't think parents should allow children to see them having sex, but if it happens it should not be seen as the child committing a sin. families where nudity is the norm even among children in their teens or older and both parents I believe is quite okay, so long as nothing sexual is happening. By the way a teenage boy getting an erection from seeing his sister is quite normal, generally nothing sexual is attached it's just a normal reflex action.
MIDDLETON MIDDLETON
hI Nudity in our house was never really an issue. My daughters saw me naked upto the age of 5 and I am quite sure that it would have continued if my ex-wife had not have strayed. It was just something with which they grew up with and that was that
hey thats a nice story! something similar happened to me like that but i am the daughter. i was fourteen years old and i saw my dad sleeping naked. i went up to him and felt his penis. it grew hard in my hands and i gave it a nice long lick! then i just left and i masturbated myself in my room! i bet ur ddaughter was very happy
for sure nudity is seen different in diff cultures, but i was raised to respect other people - no matter how they are at this issue - was born in the tropics and was accustomed to see people bathing all nude in sight of everybody and this is why i still LOVE to see nudes without sexual feelings !
As long as it's non sexual, I see no problem with it
im a 17 year old girl and i have a 14 year old brother. i love walking around the house topless and even naked because my brother gets soo aroused and always gets erections. im the only one in my family who is open about nudity and everyone else covers up all the time.
im a 15 year old teen and i live with my aunt who is 33 years old. one time when i was 13 i accidentally walked in on my aunt who was naked about to get in the shower and i saw everything. i only had boxers on so my erection was poking through. she knew i liked what i saw so she asked me to shower with her. i said yes and from then on we showered together every single day and i love it! we are not embarrassed anymore about sharing our bodies with each other
We live in an open door house, and I hope to continue that as my daughter (now 4) gets older. She often sees me naked, and prefers to shower with me than with her mum. I don't see a problem with it because I'm not going to teach her that it is a problem. We will teach her to respect that other people might not like it though. I decided to search the academic literature on this to see if anyone had really studied it. Psychologists have for years postulated harm to children who see their parents naked or having sex. Paul Okami published the results of a study in 1998 which showed that exposure to parental nudity is associated with better outcomes relating to sex, drug abuse and petty crime ie better adjusted adolescents. Amazingly, children who saw their parents having sex tended to grow up to have improved ability to relate to adults outside the family and have higher levels of self-acceptance. I was quite amazed that the incidence of children who see their parents having sex was put at between 9% and 40%. Reference: Title: Early childhood exposure to parental nudity and scenes of parental sexuality (‘primal scenes’): an 18-year longitudinal study of outcome Date: 1998 Author: Paul Okami, Richard Olmstead, Paul R. Abramson, Laura Pendleton Publication: Archives of Sexual Behavior. Volume: 27. Issue: 4
im a 14 year old boy and my mom walks around naked all the time i used to not mind but now i get kinda turned on
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