Joy - posted on 06/04/2012 ( 26 moms have responded )
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So, I've seen this topic done and debated to death in recent years but up until now, I never really gave it a second thought. I'm a "shower with your child until whenever" type of girl. It just doesn't bother me. I grew up in a household where it was perfectly normal to see my mom going pee or my brothers sitting on the toilet taking a poop while reading a book. No biggie. I've raised my son (4.5 years old) the same. We have always showered together. No one in my home pees, poops or does pretty much anything in the bathroom with the door closed. I don't even know for sure that my bathroom door 100% closes.
So....where does your privacy begin? Like, in our house, none of really has any privacy. We pee, poop and shower with the door open. Unless it's a really stinky poop, then the door gets pushed in the direction of closed lol LIGHT A MATCH! I've always showered/bathed with Jacob. As time has passed, he's asked me questions and I've answered. Tonight was the first time that we've showered together in a long time (we were in a hurry) and he asked me (about my boobs) what those "round pink circles" were. I told him that they are called nipples and areola and that he has them too (showed him) and that the reason mine are larger and pinker is because I'm a grown-up and I'm a girl. Two seconds later he pointed to my crotch and asked me why I have hair down there. I told him that it's because I'm a grown up and that one day when he grows up some, he'll have hair there too. I told him that it's called pubic hair.
To me, these are natural questions with natural answers. Similar to, "Mommy, why is the sky blue?" or "Mommy, why is my toe bleeding?"
Is it just me? Or am I some sort of weird freak who just isn't bothered by the real questions he's asking? It's anatomy. It's not a tour of my vagina. Over time, I've run into some seriously strange (to me) people who think that I'm doing some sort of disservice to my son. My MIL, for one. She thinks I should have NEVER exposed my son to my naked body. Ever. She thinks it's weird that still to this day, when he's upset, he comes to me an lays his head on my left breast. She thinks it's weird that I don't feel uncomfortable answering his questions and I sit here looking at her with my jaw on the floor because I don't understand her at ALL. Seriously, it bothers me when I hear about people who shy away from such real, natural contact with their babies. I think of the way we have evolved as a species, how skin on skin our ancestors were. And it really just doesn't make sense to me how anyone could ever take something as simple as bathing with a child and think it wrong. It's MY CHILD. I'm not bathing with your child. I guess I'm a little up in arms about it at the start because I've seen so many threads about it over the years. But I'm here to tell all of you, those of you who think that bathing/showering with your young children.....being naked in front of them...for those of you who think it's "wrong" in some way.....I just don't get it. I just don't. There is only perversion in something if YOU put it there. Your (my) child doesn't know any better. If you teach them from the start that human contact, being naked, asking questions is wrong? You know what you'll end up with? A grown child who has no answers and has to seek them on their own, in their own way, which may not be pretty. Sheltered children are always the most misbehaved. I married a southern Baptist minister's son. I know about sheltered lol I guess, to sum up, if you have a "bad feeling" about bathing with your child or being naked around them, then don't do it. But don't throw stones at someone else who is ok with it, who thinks it's the most natural thing in the world.
What do YOU think?
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