My sons have never seen me naked. That doesn't affect our conversations about puberty and sex.
- I am a mom of two teenage boys.
- I grew up with a lot of shame around nudity and sex.
I was first taught to feel shameful about nudity before I was old enough for kindergarten. It was at the babysitter, where four of us — two boys and two girls — were in the back playroom. Our in-home care provider was in the kitchen prepping a snack. A few minutes later, she returned to find us gathered around one pantsless playmate, examining what made our bodies different.
Yelling and threats of spankings ensued, and I learned a valuable lesson: Nakedness was wrong.
Growing up in a conservative small town in the 1990s and attending an evangelical church meant I was also inundated with purity culture.
Some of my good friends wore purity rings, and we all took abstinence pledges on numerous occasions. While not all of those lessons stuck, the residual shame did.
Paired with the earlier babysitter incident, purity culture left me with a deep embarrassment at being seen naked, seeing others naked, and daring to think about sex.
Now that I'm a mom to two teenage boys, I'm working on not passing on my shame to them, while also having open and honest conversations about our bodies.
I had a lot of shame growing up
In college, I shared bedrooms and bathrooms with numerous roommates. There, I was quick to wrap myself in a towel when exiting the shower and made sure the door was shut tightly before changing. Any other activities requiring nudity happened with the lights off — and alcohol and a lot of shame.
This translated to marriage in a similar way. Sex only in the dark, back turned when I put on my bra, and a locked door when I showered. Learning to be comfortable with my own and my husband's nudity took time.
After almost 18 years of marriage, I can now change in front of my husband. While I find the human body beautiful and miraculous, parts of it still weird me out. His upbringing was starkly different from mine, so this discomfort required patience on his end.
Then we became parents
It comes as no surprise, then, that when we became parents 10 years ago, I had no desire to wander around the house without clothes.
Our sons were adopted at ages 7 and 8, and initially, we were strangers to them. So my "no nudity" policy made sense. Like my college days, I either changed in the bathroom or exited with a towel around me. This time my roommates were my elementary-age sons, not fellow coeds.
I've worked hard not to pass my childhood shame onto my sons, so we've talked openly about our bodies and consent from day one.
In our early days as a family, when our sons weren't interested in hugging strangers, we didn't make them.
We taught them early on to knock before entering our bedroom or bathroom, and we've reciprocated that boundary for them. Teenage boys don't want their parents barging into their bedrooms either.
We've had similarly open conversations about puberty and sex, the types of talks neither my husband nor I remember having with our parents. We've talked about asking permission for any kind of physical activity with a partner and the dangers of adding too much alcohol to those situations.
And while these discussions initially made me uncomfortable and reminded me of my past shame about nudity and sex, they became easier with time, creating an openness with my sons I'm grateful for today.
So, no, my teenage sons have never seen me naked, but I hope the transparency of the rest of our relationship gives them more comfort and confidence than I had at their age.