Thursday, July 16, 2009

"Masturbation is another landmine"

Great article in yesterdays NYTimes about nudity and kids.

My two year old son does not want to be naked but his friend, a girl also two, strips down anywhere to run through a sprinkler in the park.

Do you let your kids run around naked? Sphere: Related Content

3 comments:

Irukandji said...

I think people in this country are too uptight about nakedness and children. I loved running around naked; probably for too long, but I lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere. If your son doesn't want to take his clothes off at age 2, it is because you have taught him that it's not appropriate. or someone has. It just underlines the US ambiguity of nakedness. There is no reason whatsoever why a 2 year old child should not be able to shed his/her clothes on a sunny day and just be a child. They need to be able to experience what we as grown ups long for each day. To be free like children.

John said...

Thanks for the responses. My wife and I talked about this article in relation to our son. We can't identify any behavior we have displayed to make our son so shy in this situation. We had him naked at home often enough to help avoid diaper rash and such things. Perhaps we would not be able to recognize our own hangups over nudity. My wife identifies our son has some sensory issues such as not wanting to touched. For example he dislikes having is hand held or his face touched. My wife thinks this might be related.

either way this is a fun story.

RubyV said...

We have a nudist.

I'm sure this doesn't surprise you. The Pixie will strip down anytime, anywhere to jump into the sprinklers. Granted, there was an incident where my MIL was called disgusting for allowing this.

I call bullshit.

What's disgusting is how we sexualize children. I'd rather have Pixie naked on the beach than in a prostitot bikini. What 5 YO needs a string bikini?

Naked good. Prostitot clothing, bad.

But then, we're pretty comfortable with nudity in our home anyway. And, I was one of those people who nursed her kid in public. Till she was three.

One thing that bothered me about the article: the double standard that nudity is more acceptable for boys than for girls. Girls MUST be more modest, for some G-dess forsaken reason.

FWIW, I do have a friend with a child who has sensory issues who had a very hard time with nudity. He needed clothing against his skin.

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