Ask Momspreading: When Do We Have to Stop Being a Naked Family?

My anti-parenting-advice parenting-advice column, Substack edition!

Hello dears,

You may know that I’ve been publishing my anti-parenting-advice parenting-advice column, Good Enough Parent for over a year now in Romper. It’s been a delight - we’ve discussed having a second kid, ADHD, the gaze of other parents, family game night and more! Now that it looks like Romper has gotten a major demotion and my column is dead, I’m going rogue and keeping the anti-advice advice going over here on Substack.

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And if you have a parenting question, big, small, silly, existential that you’d like me to consider for my next post, send me a DM or email!!!

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Dear Momspreading,

It’s summer, and that means my almost 5-year-old son is returning to his annual tradition of running around naked for three months. I kind of love it, he’s adorable and he feels uninhibited and happy. But as he gets older, I wonder, when is too old to be naked at the park? Or even naked in the living room? Also, what about our nudity? My wife tends to cover up, but I love nothing more than hanging out in the nude at home, and I’ve done so comfortably until I suddenly realized I have a son about to go to Kindergarten. Is that weird? Help!

Dearest Parent,

It has been several months since I have taken a bath with either of my children, now six and eight. I’ve got tell you, I’m BEREAVED. We’ve taken baths together since they were infants, and I love their juicy little butts covered in bubbles, the game my son invented where a cat family drives boats over my boobs, the freedom and safety of our physical intimacy in a world where I have not always felt freedom and safety around physical intimacy.

But the time, it seems, has come. Some of it is logistics — the challenge of Tetris-ing our two bodies into one tub has increased over the years (it’s mostly their fault for growing). But it’s also, just, time. They still love to snuggle and hug. They still try to feel me up under my shirt often (this I set a boundary around). My daughter still enjoys what she calls “vulva freedom time” (in this house, we recognize the importance of giving your vag breathers!) around the house, though my son has started to ask her to put on underwear. But they are just older, and our bodies on top of one another makes less sense.

Some of this is the work of child development. They, (like your son will, eventually, most likely) are starting to think of themselves more and more as separate from their parents. Their bodies are their own. They are realizing that other people’s gazes - for better or worse - are different from theirs (I love when a young child closes their own eyes and thinks you can no longer see them). All of this is very natural, and on its own very healthy. It’s also unavoidable — though there will always be a handful of kiddos who come to this late or not at all. Your son will probably get there (five is a general marker for developing some sense of bodily privacy, but it varies), but for his sake, if he seems comfortable with running naked in the sprinkler at the park, it’s probably fine.

The question of your nudity overlaps with this but also has its own distinct flavor. Your kid is not in control of that - and may not be able to articulate or even understand his own comfort with it. There’s no hard and fast rule. Every family is different — some kids sleep with their parents until they are quite old, others think it’s insane that their parents have bodies.

You’ll bring your own shit from your own childhood into this equation too — and though I’d encourage you not to judge it, you might learn to recognize it so you can separate it from what’s actually happening now and make a clearer decision.

The word hanging on both of our lips, I’d imagine, is consent. There may be adults reading this who, based on their own childhood experiences of abuse or just creepiness, lack of boundaries, etc., think that my approval of your situation is horrific.

But bodies are complicated — it’s hard to convey to our children both that their bodies are private, under their control, and also that they are joyous. But it is possible. This work comes from noticing your particular child, their personality, their responses to other’s bodies and their own. You can always make neutral statements like “If you change out here by the pool, people will see your body. I think that’s okay but it’s your body.” Or, as I had to navigate in explaining to my son that past a certain age, peeing into a bush or the like was weird, “it’s kind of more expected that a young child who can’t hold it might do that, but for an older kid, it’s just surprising, and it could make someone uncomfortable, even if you feel comfortable doing it.”

Also, there are some things that we just can’t know for sure our kids are cool with, even if they say they are. It’s fine to hold a towel up to cover your kid, to suggest they keep their undies on, in a chill way. “People can have lots of confusing feelings about bodies,” is another thing to explain, “and sometimes we respect that even if we’re not confused ourselves.” Don’t confuse consent and privacy with shame — adding morality too it (it’s something to be ashamed of to run naked through the sprinkler) could get icky. Whatever you communicate about bodies will be more than about this one thing, though, too.

At home, I say treasure your last moments, however long they are, of full on body comfort. Trust me, it will likely start to shift soon on its own, and you’ll take your kid’s lead, and then, like my friend whose daughter is going to sleep away camp for the first time, or me with my baths, you may grieve that they are changing and growing. That grief is okay, even if what’s happening isn’t really a bad thing, it can still be a sad thing.

When that happens, treat yourself and your child to some tasteful robes, and if you feel the instinct to cover up, see how it feels. But for now, enjoy the sprinkler and your vulva freedom time, friend.