Parental nudity? - Page 2

[SeekingJoy]

Originally Posted by rightkindofme

Now that's an age gap!

Umm. 4.5. Whoops!

[mamazee]

We both dressed and were naked in front of our older dd until she was really curious about dh's penis, I think she asked to touch it, and then he felt more comfortable at least having that covered around her. The younger one is 1 and we both dress in front of her at this point. If modesty would make someone more comfortable, then do it, but until then I wouldn't worry about it until then.

[ShadowMoon]

Our bodies are normal and natural so where comfortable with nudity. Until someone becomes uncomfortable, we'll keep doing what we're doing.

[GoBecGo]

Originally Posted by mamazee

We both dressed and were naked in front of our older dd until she was really curious about dh's penis, I think she asked to touch it, and then he felt more comfortable at least having that covered around her. The younger one is 1 and we both dress in front of her at this point. If modesty would make someone more comfortable, then do it, but until then I wouldn't worry about it until then.

DD also went through the phase of asking to touch and closely examine both mine and DH's genitals, and we used it as an opening to the conversation about how genitals are private areas, and how usually we don't touch another person's genitals, and how it's not ok for someone else to touch hers and they must ask and if it's anyone but one of her parents (and even if it IS one of her parents) she should talk to us about it, and how it's fine and GOOD to say NO when she is uncomfortable. Then we practised saying no in a firm loud voice. It hasn't been an issue since though DH did wear underwear more for a time to avoid having to reiterate when he was just trying to get to the bathroom

I have been making a point, as an abuse survivor, to always tell her from birth, what i am doing and why when i am anywhere near her genitals, and as soon as she was old enough she began taking charge of her own self care (supervised) and given the choice as to whether she wanted to (sometimes she wanted to wipe when i was daiper changing, sometimes she wanted me to do it fast so she could get back to playing faster).

[Plarka]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

DD also went through the phase of asking to touch and closely examine both mine and DH's genitals, and we used it as an opening to the conversation about how genitals are private areas, and how usually we don't touch another person's genitals, and how it's not ok for someone else to touch hers and they must ask and if it's anyone but one of her parents (and even if it IS one of her parents) she should talk to us about it, and how it's fine and GOOD to say NO when she is uncomfortable. Then we practised saying no in a firm loud voice. It hasn't been an issue since though DH did wear underwear more for a time to avoid having to reiterate when he was just trying to get to the bathroom

I have been making a point, as an abuse survivor, to always tell her from birth, what i am doing and why when i am anywhere near her genitals, and as soon as she was old enough she began taking charge of her own self care (supervised) and given the choice as to whether she wanted to (sometimes she wanted to wipe when i was daiper changing, sometimes she wanted me to do it fast so she could get back to playing faster).

What you did sounds great and I'd like to do it with dd, especially practicing saying no in a loud voice, as dd is very quiet and I'm not sure she would be firm enough if someone was doing something she didn't like, and that scares me. How old was your dd when you had those conversations?

Also, I feel bad now after reading your last paragraph and am wondering if this is not good- if I ask dd if she's peed in her underwear she says no even if she has peed, so I say 'I'm going to check' and pull down her underwear a little bit and feel the underwear quickly. She's 2.5. Should I not be doing that? Is it not good for her privacy, self respect, and sense of her own private places?

[mntnmom]

We are very open with our kids. Just last night, our 5yr old DS wet his underwear, and woke us up to get some help. DH and I both sleep naked and it didn't occur to either of us to put on clothes.
When DD(the oldest child) was about 4, she got a little too curious for DH's comfort. He still usually wears boxers around her, but has relaxed since we've talked about penii (penises?) a bit more and she's gotten less curious. She's almost 7. We've talked about other people's privacy, and the fact that different families feel differently about nakedness. But having a dad and 2 little brothers that she still bathes with, she barely notices nudity herself.

[smerkin]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

DD also went through the phase of asking to touch and closely examine both mine and DH's genitals, and we used it as an opening to the conversation about how genitals are private areas, and how usually we don't touch another person's genitals, and how it's not ok for someone else to touch hers and they must ask and if it's anyone but one of her parents (and even if it IS one of her parents) she should talk to us about it, and how it's fine and GOOD to say NO when she is uncomfortable. Then we practised saying no in a firm loud voice. It hasn't been an issue since though DH did wear underwear more for a time to avoid having to reiterate when he was just trying to get to the bathroom

I have been making a point, as an abuse survivor, to always tell her from birth, what i am doing and why when i am anywhere near her genitals, and as soon as she was old enough she began taking charge of her own self care (supervised) and given the choice as to whether she wanted to (sometimes she wanted to wipe when i was daiper changing, sometimes she wanted me to do it fast so she could get back to playing faster).

That is great! I will have to remember that one. DH and I have been having some good convos and I think that what most everyone is saying about just being natural until someone is uncomfortable is great. My DH loves to hold and bathe our daughter and I agree that its great bonding time. Plus, I do think it will make her comfortable and confident with herself and with us. Thanks for everyone's input, I love to hear how other families do things.

[GoBecGo]

Originally Posted by Plarka

What you did sounds great and I'd like to do it with dd, especially practicing saying no in a loud voice, as dd is very quiet and I'm not sure she would be firm enough if someone was doing something she didn't like, and that scares me. How old was your dd when you had those conversations?

She was about 2.5. She's REALLY outspoken so it wasn't hard for her. Something i've read (in Protecting the Gift, a really good book for advice on this sort of thing) is that it's best to teach the child how to be specific - "NO!" is valuable, but "NO! Do NOT touch my vulva!" or "NO! You should NOT show your penis/vagina!" is priceless and will have any paedophile running for the hills. Kids who are able to use the words "vulva" and "penis" in court with accuracy and confidence are listened to and believed more that those who have to say "peepee" "weewee" "flower" "tuppence" or whatever. That is terribly sad, but it's true.

This sounds bonkers but we also have practice kidnappings, where one of us will pick DD up and pretend to take her off and she shouts "HELP! THIS (man or woman) IS NOT MY PARENT! I NEED HELP!" - much more effective in getting bystander help than just crying, adults see kids crying as they struggle with (probably) their parents all the time.

Also, I feel bad now after reading your last paragraph and am wondering if this is not good- if I ask dd if she's peed in her underwear she says no even if she has peed, so I say 'I'm going to check' and pull down her underwear a little bit and feel the underwear quickly. She's 2.5. Should I not be doing that? Is it not good for her privacy, self respect, and sense of her own private places?

It would be met with disdain by my DD, lol, but every child is different. If you offer her clean underwear (rather than checking hers) will she change them if she needs to? With DD she voided when she wet herself so you could see from quite a distance what had happened! If i could i would offer her baby-bum-bath - to sit in a sinkful of warm water so she could wash herself. If i couldn't i would just change her and help her wash when we got in. She DID sometimes resist going to the toilet, but i would talk to her about keeping her body healthy by going to wee and poo in the loo whenever she needed. If you say "i'm going to check - ok?" will she let you? Usually at that age they are SO concerned about playing whatever they were playing that they can't bear to stop to deal with these things.

In general it's good to remember that loving touch is not malign. So long as she knows what you're doing and why you are respecting her while still taking care of her. I often give DD massages, i have done since she was 1 day old, but if another person (apart from her dad) gave her one it'd be a bit odd. I can imagine an abuser using massage as a grooming technique and it's important to me that DD experiences loving touch so she has a comparison should she ever need one. I know when i was abused it didn't feel "right" but i didn't know the proper words for my genitals, i didn't know how to verbalise what was happening and i wasn't sure enough that it WASN'T my fault to "risk" speaking up. IME a LOT of abusive touch is non-sexual, especially at the start, so if you are checking your DD has pee'd, with her knowledge/consent (if possible) and she understands it is to help her care for herself, she has that, under her belt as it were, in ANY other situation where that sort of touch is happening. Context IS everything, if someone touches her pants when she is 3 or 4 or 8 even if she doesn't remember you checking her now consciously, she's incredibly likely to know if it feels "off" because somewhere she has the experience of a loving parent doing something similar to care for her. A predator will find it much harder to convince her that what they are doing is necessary or loving because you already gave her that context. So don't feel bad. Kids NEED loving human contact, and for me protecting DD from predators isn't about not touching her, but about teaching her how to discern someone's intentions from their touch, and how to object as forcibly as possible when she needs to.

[Harmony96]

DH and I don't actively cover around DD (well, DD is usually sleeping when DH is getting ready in the morning so it's usually a moot point). But she still takes a shower w/ me.

In my own childhood, I *think* I have a very early memory (faded and blurry) of my dad peeing in the backyard. I don't remember having any big conversation about it or anything and it wasn't a frequent occurrence (if it even happened at all), but then once I was grown and with my DH, the memory came back. I don't consider myself scarred or anything.

[SparklingGemini]

We're both equally nude around DD. We often take family showers/baths together and when the grandparents are out of town, we use their pool to go skinny dipping together.

We'll probably continue until DD(and any future children)start to seem uncomfortable.

My parents were very free in front of me. I think my dad started covering up when I was a preteen and my mom, well, she's still nude in front of me whenever.

[Plarka]

Thanks so much GoBecGo for your great reply! Sorry to the OP for hijacking, but I have another question! I've been calling dd's 'parts' her peepee but wanting to use a more correct term and the v word never seemed right to me, since that's really the inside part. You used the word vulva, so is that really the correct term for what we would be referring to? The outside part?

I'm so sorry to hijack this!

[Anandamama]

I agree with most of the PPs that we can only do what we're comfortable with. I wish I was more comfortable being nude but I feel somewhat self-conscious about my body these days.

I do want to add that I have spent time in communities where in warm weather, nudity was the norm. I was always so impressed with how quickly it became normalized, even for new-comers who had no previous experience with nudity. To see all the different body types (age, sex, weight, fitness, etc.) just being without it being a display and without it being attached to sexuality or bathing... was wonderful, and a big relief. It was like, "Yes, we all have bodies! All bodies are different and also much the same... and... big deal." The thing that made the biggest impression on me was to see adolescents being completely unselfconsciously nude within the community. If adolescents can feel that comfortable with their bodies, just hanging out with families and friends, there is something good going on!

All told, I wish our culture was a lot more comfortable with casual nudity and didn't associate seeing bodies so much with sexuality. In my opinion, this strange tension in the US culture between prudery and obsession with sexuality makes for a LOT of problems.

[GoBecGo]

Originally Posted by Plarka

Thanks so much GoBecGo for your great reply! Sorry to the OP for hijacking, but I have another question! I've been calling dd's 'parts' her peepee but wanting to use a more correct term and the v word never seemed right to me, since that's really the inside part. You used the word vulva, so is that really the correct term for what we would be referring to? The outside part?

I'm so sorry to hijack this!

The vulva is the whole area, you're correct, the vagina is the vagina, not the whole area (although vagina, even when not completely correct, will stand up firmer in court so long as the child understands the area she is referring to, the greater clarity the child has the better the case will be). I taught DD vulva, vagina, pee-hole (urethra is tough for some adults to pronounce!), anus, penis, testicles, nipples (along with forehead, elbow, collar bone, knuckles, you name it! ). Yesterday she told me SHE has a "little penis which hasn't grown big yet" and then asked "is it called a venis?" so i think i'll teach her clitoris now too. In talking about the vagina i have told DD it's the place in the vulva where babies come out (we're preparing for our second homebirth in a few months and she will be around the house then). I felt it important she knew about it and was able to name it even though it's pretty much redundant until puberty because the law distinguishes pretty strongly between molestation and rape and if something is put inside her vagina it's important she can communicate that.

It should be noted that i'm co-parenting with my XP and he doesn't use those terms at all - he refers to "her bits" and DD will use both. But if she says "my bits hurt when i pee!" and i say "whereabouts in your bits?" she can name it. So i think once you teach these terms, if saying them in regular life makes you or her daddy cringe so long as you have a re-cap every now and then you're fine.

[MittensKittens]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

Yesterday she told me SHE has a "little penis which hasn't grown big yet" and then asked "is it called a venis?"

That is wonderful!

We are comfortable with nudity around in this house. I was also abused. I knew the correct terms at the time, but that did not help me. We never got to court or even the police, because of family pressure. GoBecGo, I admire your choices in trying to keep your children safe. "Help me, this person is not my parent", is something we will be practising too. Thank you for the idea, I think that could potentially save lives!

[GoBecGo]

The thing that thrilled me so much about the venis/clitoris questioning is that she has already, at 3 and without any sort of discussion, grasped that her clitoris is the analogue of the penis. I know that seems a crazy thing to be happy about but it makes me feel like she has a decent grip on aspects of biology which underlie so much of the science beyond it. There are a lot of engineers and scientists in my family and it's lovely to see her view of the world seems to be from that POV. It's led to some great discussions about the baby i'm carrying too (she'd like a girl, we think it's a boy) and how it all goes later on - baby girls grow into little girls, into big girls into women and baby boys grow into little boys, into big boys, into men. It's great

I cannot take credit for my tips or ideas, it's almost all from Protecting the Gift - seriously that has been such a wonderful empowering book for me. Especially as a victim of abuse (i too never sought conviction due more to complicated family situation more than out and out pressure) one can feel so helpless as a parent. I felt a little like i knew i wanted to do whatever i could to protect her, but i had no idea where to even start. That book made such a difference, it's full of good ideas and realities (like how we tell children "don't talk to strangers" but that means if they get lost they have no idea how to pick a good stranger, like a mama with little kids, to go to for help, and if they're sitting waiting for help to come they are FAR more likely to encounter a predator than if they are active in helping themselves, because predators are LOOKing for vulnerable kids) and allows one to face up to the (unlikely - this book does not scaremonger) possibilities and think up ways to protect against them when so many of us prefer to pretend these things don't can't or won't happen. I'm generally a parenting-by-heart type, and put little store in what books say, but i cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Plarka]

GoBecGo, this is so helpful! A friend of mine's dd was abused at 2 yrs old, years ago, and I have been wondering how to prevent that from happening to my 2 yr old dd, so this is really giving me good ideas. So, would you recommend everyone have this book? it's not just for abuse survivors or something?

I need to get up the guts to teach her the word vulva now, and maybe the others, they're not words I used, and I have never even used the word vulva or even known what it was!

[GoBecGo]

Yes, it's aimed at everyone. It's easy to read, honest and really stuffed full of ideas. For little kids the focus is on how to help YOU vet the people your kids will be around/cared for by, and how to act on things which you feel. For older kids it has suggestions on how to teach them to honour their gut feelings without freaking out and how to look after themselves. The "gift" the title indicates protecting is the one of gut feeling, inherent aversion, inexplicable fear. SO SO many parents (mine were two) turn a blind eye to dangerous people and/or signs of abuse because they have little or no evidence to go on and it'd be SO rude to imply or accuse someone of being an abuser when it wasn't true. It discusses things like NOT making little kids sit on laps or give kisses to people THEY aren't comfortable around simply for politeness' sake. The sad truth is that when abuse is revealed, usually one or both parents suspected the abuser of something off, but didn't have the guts to act on that feeling. It's not about OVER reacting. There are people in my life i'm not sure about. I am not saying they are sexual predators who abuse children, i'm just saying i'm not 100% comfy with them for some reason. I don't leave DD alone with them, but nor do i teach her to fear them or call the police or anything. I let her set her own boundaries with them and i watch her like a hawk when i'm around them. I can honestly say that i wouldn't mind if a known paedophile lived next door to me, because i feel confident i can protect DD using instinct and common sense from someone like that. One of the best things that has happened to me since having her is that i now feel able to accept that these things happen in this world, and i have a two-pronged attack of prevention and of raising a strong resilient child who knowns her mama is in her corner ready to fight if need be. From what i have read and experienced abuse can be damaging but it is society's approach (from parents to the court system and everything in between) afterwards which can cause the real deep down scars.

I think one of the best points the author makes, and he makes it early on, is that in nature every animal and hunter knows not to mess with a female with young unless absolutely forced to. Otherwise docile and fearful animals will kill without provocation when they have young to care for. Our society teaches us the lie that women are weak and women with small children the most vulnerable of all. And it is a lie. Simply and truly, a lie. I can remember the day after i read that section walking down a not-so-nice street in the city and feeling the power of the mama bear inside me and KNOWING i would do murder or die if anyone messed with me or my kid - a level of determination very very rare in attackers of any kind. Violent criminals weigh their risks, mama's do not.

[smerkin]

Originally Posted by Plarka

Thanks so much GoBecGo for your great reply! Sorry to the OP for hijacking, but I have another question! I've been calling dd's 'parts' her peepee but wanting to use a more correct term and the v word never seemed right to me, since that's really the inside part. You used the word vulva, so is that really the correct term for what we would be referring to? The outside part?

I'm so sorry to hijack this!

NOT a problem!! I'm loving where this is going and learning a lot. Thanks, everyone!!

[naturallymommy]

I'm pretty open, my mom was too. I don't think nudity is a big deal at all, but I was also raised in Europe, that may have had something to do with how I feel.