- My wife and I are parents to two boys ages 2 and 5.
- We were raised with very different views and approaches to nudity.
I grew up in a heteronormative house where the rules of nudity were simple and unspoken: Mom could be nude in front of me and my sister. Mom could be nude in front of dad. Mom could never be nude in front of all of us at the same time, and mom could never, ever be nude in front of my brother. Period.
To be clear, we weren't taught to be ashamed of our bodies. I can recall watching in horror on more than one occasion as my mom walked naked through a women's locker room. But there was a clear gender distinction that existed for as long as I can remember, and I followed those rules for most of my adolescence.
My wife, Sam, grew up in a house where anyone could — and would — walk around naked. The first time I stayed with Sam's family, her brother, a teen at the time, came running naked into her bedroom with his penis flopping around. "Oh my God," I squealed as I yanked the covers over my head. I hadn't seen my own brother naked since we were in diapers, and I preferred it that way.
Now we are raising our two sons to love their bodies, and that includes running around naked in the house.
We want to teach them boundaries
Sam and I were raised on opposite sides of the nudity spectrum and, oddly, after meeting in college, I became the one more likely to disrobe in front of others. After I gave birth to our first son, Sam bonded by taking showers with him. Skin to skin, she would wrap her slippery arms around his little body as the water rained gently on their heads. I would be perched on top of the toilet in a panic that he might slide through her arms as she lathered them both.
Now our boys are 5 and 2. The little one is constantly being reminded to get his hands out of his diaper. "Bye-bye penis," we say. He lifts up our shirts and says "boobies," any chance he gets.
At their age, we're focused on teaching them that bodies have boundaries and that you need permission to touch someone else, but we also let them run around free — and naked — in our home. Sam and I do the same. Well, we don't usually run around naked, but we do change and bathe in front of them. Our home is our comfort zone. It's a place where none of the outside rules of the world apply.
We want them to grow up without shame about their bodies
I'm not so naive as to think there won't ever come a time when our boys won't want to see their mom's nude bodies, or that they won't want us to see theirs. For now, we want to encourage curiosity and questions instead of embarrassment and shame. There's no shortage of shame waiting for them in the future, especially in our society of stigma, where we're taught to cover up and hide our bodies and their imperfections.
For as long as I am able, I want to provide a haven for my children, a place where they can be the wild little creatures that they are, where they will be told that their bodies are beautiful, and taught to exhibit body positivity rather than shame.
In our home, penis and vagina are not bad words. They are parts of who we are.
Sometimes we lament that they're growing up too fast, but when our boys no longer want to hop in the shower with moms, we'll be there to respect and celebrate their autonomy.