How Old Is to Old? - Wyoming,MI

Who knows if we are in the wrong... but I think as others have said - until either of you are uncomfortable with it. I have a 6 yr old boy, 5 yr old girl and a 17 mos old and we still shower together from time to time (as in we are running late and we HAVE to get out the door! or one of the kids are super filthy dirty and need the help getting clean. We don't make a big issue of nakedness.

I don't have a son but my cousin stopped her youngest when he was 4 because he asked her what happened to her pee pee and tried to exam her. He than ran to his father and told him they needed to go to the store to get her a new one. I still laugh at that.

My son is 5.5 and I still will shower with him... He has NO INTEREST in any of my body parts.. He plays with his toys the whole time... WHEN he starts taking "notice", then it will be time to stop.... Until then, we're okay with it :)

My son is 3 and I was thinking I should stop being naked in front of him. I do still take a shower with him on occasion, like I am in desperate need for a shower and so is he and I cant leave him roaming the house, so he takes a shower with me.
Sometimes when all the stars are aligned right, I haul a$$ to take a shower alone.

But MY question is, how the heck do you get your kids to stay away from you when you are naked? I SWEAR everytime I turn the water off its like a family reunion in my bedroom when I walk out naked.

Not to mention Im lucky if Im able to pee alone.

I don't have boys so I can't answer specifically to your question.

I do believe you have to have balance... take cues from your son. You don't want to send the impression that it is "dirty" or "bad".

My daughter is 17 and we are very open minded, communicate well, etc. I never shielded myself as though I were hiding something bad from her. You don't want to send the message that the body is bad.

Ex: my mom is such a prude. I saw her vagina by accident when she was in the hospital and you would have thought she was going to die because I saw her. I said Gees, you are female, I am female, that is what is looks like...

Daughter and I think nothing of using the same dressing room at a store and if there is not a room available, we will go to the corner area and change there. My body does not bother me... I hate it when I am in the locker room and you see these other women going to extreme to make sure someone does not get a glimpse of a boob or something. That insecurity has to hurt their overall esteem, etc. It makes no sense to me... if I need to change clothes I do.

Yes, I understand there is a point where a little boy would not need to see mom naked but at the same time, balance it so that it is not sending a bad message when you state that you need privacy please.

I think your child is too old when your child says so....at some point, and every kid varies, the child gets embarrassed to see you naked or doesn't want you to see them naked...my oldest is a girl and 5 1/2, she just recently started telling her dad to not walk around in his underwear, though she is totally fine to run around naked herself and doesn't care about her little brothers yet.

I think that I would just die if I could conjure up a visual of my father in the shower.

When you, or your child is uncomfortable with it, then that's the perfect age. :)

I think when they are old enough that they will remember it later. 4 or 5 probably. No guy needs the memory of his naked mother floating around his head.

N.:

my boys are now 9 & 11 - they see my figure behind a shower curtain SOMETIMES...other than that? they've not seen me naked since they were about 5 years old MAYBE six...well...wait - there have been times when I THOUGHT they were downstairs playing and I went to hop in the shower and they saw me naked...

I do NOT make a big deal out of it....

i dont think any child should shower with a parent of the other sex. thats just me, a few times my daughers dad has gave her a shower (hotel) and he had on his underwear (boxer briefs) so its not like she saw anything and she is 3 so its not a big deal right now, im actually mainly the one that gives her a bath sometimes he does but mainly i do all of that, she doesnt really see either of us nude because we are not comfortable with it at all. i saw my mom nude a lot and DID NOT like or appreciate it at all and dont plan on doing that with my daughter

I think around age 2 is old enough to start learning how to take a bath, or play in the water.

I do think it can be extended a year at most but seriously, by age 3 that child should be having their own bath time and their own toys.

I'm with JA...I'm taking cues from my son. He'll be five next week and still constantly walks in on me in the bathroom when/after I'm showering. Which I think is a great lesson in "this is what a middle-aged woman's body really looks like". When he starts avoiding those pop-ins and demands privacy himself when getting dressed, I'll be sure to be more discreet. For now, however, I think he'd be more confused if I was covering up and kicking him out. (Although on weekends when my husband's home to run interference, I DO get two uninterrupted showers, thank goodness!)

My son also showers with my husband usually, but occasionally me when we're in 'get it done' mode. For what it's worth, when I grew up, we showered as a family until I was about seven or so. It was fine, I was fine.

My grandparents were in their 90's when they died... so there's MY topend.

Nudity is no issue in my family, and never (at least in living memory) has been. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandkids, sibs... we've all seen each other naked. When we live/ travel/ camp/ etc. together, then it's a daily thing.

Equating nudity with sex is something only some families do.

Equating being old with being gross, instead of reverence, ditto. Although that tends to be the norm in this country... that only the pubescent are beautiful I find to be a crying shame.

My opinion is that when either party becomes uncomfortable with the showering it should end. My oldest son stopped right before his 5th birthday, middle son around 4.5, and my youngest is 5.5 and still comfortable with it-although I am starting to put a stop to them because he is simply too wild in there sometimes!

I think once the kids are in school, they need to be taking showers on their own and learning about "privacy" so they'll know to respect the privacy of others.

Nudity is not an issue in our family. In fact we're like Riley's family. Must be a European cultural difference? Old, young and in between, all naked. No-one cares, and it's certainly not sexual in any way.

Probably now is a good time to start backing away from this. I know he is a sweet innocent boy, but he is beginning to mature. Did you know puberty begins at about the age of 9, but even infants have sexual feelings. Your boy may not have looked at you naked and thought anything of it in the past, but soon he may be aroused.

My son is 5.5 and I am starting to lesson his exposure. He sees me change but typically with undergarments and he walks in on me in the shower, but I am trying to make it more about privacy than nudity - I have no issues with nudity personally and I do not want him to have any as well. So, I think around the 5 going into 6 is a standard transition period of learning and understanding privacy.

My girls are 4 and 5 1/2 and haven't seen Dad coming out of the shower for more than a year. I started teaching them modesty and privacy at that point. They haven't showered with me since then but they haven't asked to either. I think they were ready! I also did not grow up in a "naked" house. We were clothed and modest!

I grew up in a very modest home. I can't ever recall seeing my mom in less than a full slip, except I saw her once in a bikini bathing suit. The rest of the time she wore a one piece bathing suit.

My kids and I bathed together until they didn't want to, and that was around 5. All of my kids were/are more "exposed" to their kids than they were with us or we with them.

My girls were very modest from puberty to marriage, but have nursed in front of me with a cover up (DIL too), but mostly a coverup very carelessly tossed over the baby's head. I have seen their bare breasts upon occasion before or after the baby latches on. To me that's not sensual. A baby is supposed to nurse.

Based on the conversations I've heard, all of my kids have gone skinny dipping with their spouses. I believe all of their skinny dipping sessions were done in private with their spouse, not with others.

I have known several families (three, if I remember right) where the entire family is nude around each other in their home. I've never been to their home when they were nude. They tell me they have been to several beaches in Europe where entire families visit the beach without bathing suits. They tell me toplessness is common over there, and nudity is accepted on remote beaches. When I was in Nice, France, back in the 60's only about 20% of the women on the French Rivera were topless.

Good or bad depends on the family's attitude about nudity more than anything else.

Good luck to you and yours.

My son just turned 4 and I have not taken a bath with him since he was a little over 3. I still use the bathroom in front of him and change in front of him but I try to be modest. I don't really care if he sees my boobs though.

My youngest son will be 5 in June and he is starting to ask questions or point and try to touch. As it is right now if he comes in to use the bathroom I shut the shower doors so he can't see anything. He hasn't taken a bath with me for over a year.

For my husband the first time my daughter reached up and touched "him" was the last time she was allowed in with him. She is now 3 1/2 and its been about a year and a half since she has taken a bath with him.

I still take bubble baths with my daughter. She loves playing in the bubbles with me. Im sure with in the next year or so that will also stop.

At four and a half, he is close to school age (and maybe already in preschool) and should be learning about respecting privacy as well as learning about the ideas of "private parts" of our bodies we don't show to others except the doctor or mom/dad if we're hurt,etc. So I think it's time to stop the showering or letting him see you naked. I would not make a big deal of stopping but just let it happen; if you make a big deal of it or "announce" it to him, he will be confused and think something bad has been going on. Just drop doing it without any attention to the fact.

For me, the cut-off would be about 3-1/2 - definitely before age 4.

I think I stopped when they were about 4 ish.

I raised my kids with modesty. When they were 5 or 6 I stopped being in the bathroom while they showered or bathed and they never showered with me although I would put them in their walkers in the bathroom while showering. My daughter is now 28 and we were talking about it when she said her husbands family runs around in their underwear no matter who is there and how she isn't comfortable with that. My granddaughter is 5 and she showers with her mom but was never allowed in the bathroom while her dad was showering when he was alive and that was when she was 3.