Um? This one time? At band camp? I wrote this thing? And the people of Boston want to call the DSS?
I wish I did not care. I wish I could shrug off the trolls, the haters, the creepers.
My skin is too thin for this writing stuff. And yet I keep plugging away at it. Is this the definition of thick-headed, or persistence? I no longer know.
This time, they cut me to the quick. Can you smell the blood from where you are? Oof. I am down for the count.
I know I’m not supposed to read the comments. I know anything about nudity seems to whip Bostonians into a Puritanical feeding frenzy. I know the things I am supposed to know—with my mind—but my heart and my gut get scared.
Question my sanity, sure, but don’t question my mothering. Or my hair.
Please go read the article if 1) you’re feeling sassy and protective and 2) you’ve been naked in front of your offspring.
If everyone wears Haz Mat Couture for bathtime at your house, though? Forget I mentioned it. Boston Globe what? La la la la la la la la la…
{ 92 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been reading your blog for a super long time (not sure if I’ve ever commented), and I am also a Sunday Globe reader on occasion. When I saw the piece in the magazine on Sunday, I was so excited! I remembered it from the similar entry on the site, and I was so pleased that it had been published. So really, the trolls can go screw. A a million congratulations! So there.
Oh lordy. What a bunch of uptight pains in the ass.
Sorry, Jenn. I just don’t know why folks are driven to say such ridiculous things. If it makes you feel any better, go check out some of the comments on Dooce. Such vitriol.
It’s a good essay, and it’s ok to be naked in front of your kids. And it’s not like you’re MAKING anybody sing to your butt!
Maybe you could read the comments on the last Judith Warner piece instead? For placebo effect?
Parenting: Yer doin’ it right.
I already left my sassy, protective comment. I wish more people would. The people who had rude things to say are just showing how sick THEY are that they would take something so sweet and loving as your article and twist it to fit their warped minds. It’s just sick to project those things onto you. And to say you have helmet hair? WHAT? It’s just absurd! I would have read the comments, too, Jenn and I would be cut to the quick, too. I’m so sorry people don’t think about the PERSON who wrote it who has feelings. The haters are just miserable pukes and should all be deleted. The fact that a LOT of commenters seemed to think the Redheaded Mommy had written part of the article? I think the calls for DSS came for her first. Still not fair, though. Jenn, never stop writing. Your writing is a gift to all of us and we’d be lost without it. You are SO talented and that article was pure sweetness. Your girls are so loved and that doen’t get negated because some loser writes something horrible in a comment. You know the truth and so do we. You are a GREAT mother and your girls are so lucky to have you.
My favorite is that you are leading your daughters to hell for sins of the flesh. Ha!
That was some of the most entertaining stuff I’ve ever read.
And you do NOT have helmet hair. You are pretty damn beautiful, if pictures are to be believed!
Jenn, as usual, you RAWK. I remember the original post, and thought the same thing then. Heck, that’s what I think of you. Period.
I went to the site, and found that there are MANY supportive comments, too. I think it’s okay for you to read the comments – as long as you keep in mind that the more public the venue, the more lunatics that will be drawn to it. [awkward sentence, anyone? - I'm NOT a writer
]
I guess what I’m trying to say is, skip the lunatics’ comments. They’re pretty easy to spot amongst the well reasoned pro-and con-comments.
One of the comments that stood out for me said something like “you can tell that she has a warmth that many others lack’.
Yup, she does.
Love and hugs to you.
Lorrian
seriously, don’t sweat it.
people who think nudity and sexuality are synonymous will always freak out about this sort of thing.
any person that sexualizes a naked child( or a nursing mother, for that matter) has issues.
Ay-yi. I never saw my dad naked until he was dying and I changed his diapers.
My mother, on the other hand, I saw naked all the time in the way you describe–one needing the sink while the other showered, changing rooms at the mall–never gratuitous but never pretending we didn’t both have the same parts. Your girls will hit a point when they don’t want flesh to see or be seen. And then, probably, move one. It just makes it easier in the changing room to have one clothed person run back and forth.
Maybe this is one for the mirror.
1. got published, told the truth – f*** the nasty comments
I am (almost) the same way and I have different gender children.
I am not as comfortable as you. I am trying, with the same hopes as you for my kids being at home in their own bodies.
Keep on keepin’ on.
keep knowin’ that we love you.
I think I mentioned last time you wrote about this, I was raised just like you are raising your girls. My mom was divorced, and we had an all female household.
My mother was very similar to you. She didn’t hide her body at all. As the modest one of the bunch, it shocked my sensibilities at the time. However, now I am grown, with kids of my own, and there is comfort looking down at my stretch marked boobs and remembering that my mother’s were like that too.
You’re doing fine Jen.
I often can’t understand how people can be so full of their own certainty about the “right’ ways to parent. . .and, more importantly, you *so* do *not* have helmet hair. . .
Thanks as always for your perspective, wisdom, and humor.
C’mon, you know those priggy, uptight commenters. You’ve met them, I’m sure, and you know how unhappy and narrow they are. Ignore them. They are not your people. And besides the vast majority of the commenters were right there with you.
LOVED the essay, BTW.
Holy crap. You weren’t kidding about the puritans. I hope you send some of your essays to San Francisco-based publications though that might be like preaching to the choir. Here in Berkeley a mother would probably scold you covering up in front of your kids (or feeding with a bottle, or giving your child anything that is not sweetened with agave nectar…)
I grew up in a house where my parents walked around nude while getting ready in the morning. When it no longer felt comfortable for me to be naked in front of them, I stopped and nothing was said about it. I think a kid’s modesty kicks in on its own. I can’t understand the logic behind the argument that raising your daughters in a household that doesn’t shield them from nudity will turn them into the kind of girls that don’t know when to cover up.
I think you’re doing a great job, Jen. There is absolutely nothing freakish or sick about your teaching your girls to be comfortable in their skin.
I happened across a quote on a different website which, while about a completely different topic, seems oddly applicable:
“ Their look of shock says it all. Look closely at their faces. These are clearly people who are used to being shocked. It comes naturally to them. It happens to them all the time. They are morons. “
My husband had sent this to me from the boston.com website; he didn’t realize that I read your blog regularly (though sometimes I send him links to posts, all of which he loves).
Just don’t tell anyone my almost-five-year-old son touched my nipple last week and asked me if that’s where the milk used to come out.
You’re right: Never read the comments in a local newspaper. These articles bring out all the looneys and tsk-tskers. Lately the very conservative folks have taken over a lot of forums. Ignore them.
Most young women in the U.S. have grown up without ever seeing a woman’s body that hasn’t been air brushed, nipped, tucked, enlarged in some places and shrunken in others, tanned, trimmed and waxed. They have no idea what a real woman looks like because all they’ve ever seen are centerfolds, actresses and models after the photos have been digitally mainpulated almost beyond recognition. When young women are seeking plastic surgery because they think their genitals are ugly, something is truly wrong with our culture.
You go, girl.
I didn’t make it past the first page of the comments. I can’t take the stupidity. But on the bright side, it’s not often you can be credited with corrupting civilization as we know it! You must be all powerful.
I thought it was a lovely essay and a lovely way to live. Your girls will be better for it.
It takes a lot to shock me. But I was shocked by how vindictive, mean-spirited, and uptight many of those comments are.
It’s different with boys — but Jenn, if I had girls, I’d be doing more or less what you are.
Well, I’m in Boston and I liked it. In fact, I liked it as I was reading it, before I realized who wrote it. I checked (I don’t sometimes. Check who wrote it. Is that bad?) because I thought I recognized the style as your and lo and behold… You! Great surprise for a Sunday (or actually Monday, by the time I got to read the Sunday paper).
Holy crap, Jenn. As a born and bred Bostonian (well, okay a suburb of Boston) I don’t know why I’m surprised at the obnoxious and puritanical vindictiveness of some of the comments. Jenn, you know how uptight these people are. Walk away.
I thought the article was brilliant. I also have two daughters, ages 6.5 and 9, and horror of horrors, we still bathe and shower together occasionally. In fact we’ve had some really meaningful and important conversations in the bath. We’ll keep doing it as long as the girls are comfortable with it. My 6.5 year old is much more modest than my 9-year-old.
My mother never hid her body and I won’t hide mine — it is too important. I’m all about nurturing a positive, realistic, beautiful body image for my daughters which isn’t easy when little girls are bombarded with unrealistic, airbrushed, thinned-out images of perfect bodies. Everywhere they go.
I think this is a really important article, Jenn. But honestly, fuck the haters. They’re never going to get it. xo
O, Corrupter of Civilization!
I liked your essay and think you’re right on. Please don’t mind the haters.
People are ridiculous. Seriously, is there ANYONE who is not naked in front of their children? Are there mothers who conceal their bums at all times. How would you even do that? And if you were all covering up and freaking out wouldn’t that be WORSE?
Internet brings out the nuts.
Also: YAY BOSTON GLOBE COOL! U R FAMUS!
Seeing you comfortable with your body is great…maybe it will not will make them fully comfortable with theirs in the short run. Maybe in the long run it will help. They probably won’t have deep-seated neuroses and self-hate. So that’s good!
This having a body thing is hard. And being a female and so on and so forth. I think this is a great start. I just wish there was some antidote a mother could use on her child to make it easy….but maybe the most we can do is make it easier.
I’m not even sure if ALL of it is cultural and pathological. For me, I think, there is something even broader I have to teach my kid…like a general acceptance of the vicissitudes of reality, of life. Mortality, flaws, weakness, vulnerability…all these things that make it hard to be human. To me, some of that goes into accepting a body. We can’t control everything…it’s our body but it doesn’t always do exactly what we want.
It’s a big, huge thing, having a particular body…but maybe I’m over analyzing it!
Also, I know you know all this… Great article ::)
I didn’t read the comments (slow internet), but I did read your article and IT IS BEAUTIFUL!
Your criticizers’ (not I word, I don’t think) anger is a sign of something deeper, perhaps fear?
Sincerely,
Another Naked (not at the present, mind you), Booty-Shaking, Not-Ashamed-Of-It Mama
You are a good mother, doing something powerful for your girls. My parents were similar; seeing a clothed or unclothed part here and there was no big thing. Maybe coming partially from the fact they both have/had jobs in medicine; but the message was certainly that the body came in lots of packages and does a whole lot of amazing things. This openness leads to open discussion of topics like modesty, sexuality, pride, etc. as the time is right. Just like your girls are clearly comfortable coming to you to have their questions answered. You are doing the right thing for them-trust in yourself. I hope I am as positive a role model to my son as he grows up.
I love the quote that Daniel Beck, up there, posted. Pure genius.
My favorite comment was this: “unless you have a really hideous body, the unclothed human body equals sex.” Bwah? Huh? The mind reels.
You are lovely and talented, and they are prudish and angry. Their moms probably never helped them feel okay about their bodies, poor things.
What?!
Me thinks that some of those commenter s @ the Globe need to address some “family of origin” issues. Yikes!
Let it go Warrior woman…let em’ go read something else that does not “offend” them.
We will be here, listening, laughing and sending you love.
The rooo
Wow what a can of worms ( I read some of the comments , phew get your flack jacket out). I grew up with sisters, we used to hang out together in our night clothes watching TV and it seemed perfectly comfortable. On occasion I used to hang out with my mum in the bathroom while she bathed (I am sure she would have preferred privacy but… small children like to chat). I remember being very comfortable seeing her naked. Probably I got more uptight as a young teen and used to hide under my towel in the swimming baths changing room, but by the time I was 19 I would be in the middle of the room flinging my clothes off any old how. I think what you are doing will help your daughters in this age of plastic perfection, appreciate the beauty and grace of a woman’s natural body and that we come in all shapes and sizes and yes actually age.
I couldn’t make it past the first page of comments either. I’m here in Boston and I applaud you. The further you extend your writing past this here blog, the more the crazies begin to comment. Apparently.
So kudos.
good lord…we’re always nekid in front of the kids-not in a creepy way, just in a normal, taking a shower, getting dressed, etc kind of way. My oldest is starting to get a little modest, and we respect that, and will continue to do so.
People are idiots. I swear…
Wow… those comments… I had no idea that seeing my mom (and dad! and sister! and two brothers!) naked whenever one would be taking a shower and the other getting ready to go in or towelling off would lead me to ‘flash boys at frat parties and walk around half naked in the streets and have my boyfriends take nude pictures of me’… oh wait. It didn’t.
I think your ‘strategy’ is great to teach your girls what a real woman can look like, and feel comfortable with (naked) bodies in general. Don’t listen to the weirdos, or better yet: laugh at them.
Then hug your kids.
I have learned that people who comment on newspaper articles are never talking about about the actual piece, they are talking about themselves. Even the ones who seem to agree with your words, they’re really just saying “Me me me me me me.” Good on you as a writer to spur their discussion, but the actual content of the comments have nothing to do with your message. I thought your piece was sweet!
Your girls are lucky. You are a wonderful mother. And, as you probably know, newspaper commenters are notoriously harsh. These ones are downright mean. I think it’s because they believe you are encouraging them to do something that makes them uncomfortable.
I wrote about this topic (naked ladies!) a while back:
http://www.theblythespirit.com/2008/07/21/sweating-it-out/
I’m normally shy about my body, but after a visit to a European sauna, I had a lightbulb moment. I realized my body image would be much different if I’d grown up seeing normal women’s bodies on a regular basis. And it had nothing to do with sex.
According to the Globe commenters, I’m probably going to hell. But apparently I will be in good company.
How is it that we in Massachusetts can be both “bleeding heart liberals” and come out with some of those comments! I tried to post a comment on the Globe site, pointing out the fallacy of the nudity=sex paradigm, but it wouldn’t let me use the word “porn” (which I used to say that Miichelangelo’s David is not porn). Good Grief!
My husband and I both shower with our kids (ages 5 and 2) from time to time for the same reasons that you do. I want my kids (both my daughter and my son) to know what real people look like, to be comfortable with their own bodies and with bodies in general, and not to succumb to the perverted way that our society makes us think that the airbrushed, photoshopped and ovresexualized images that we are bombarded with all day every day are what people are supposed to look like.
It’s not perverted to be naked with your kids. It’s perverted to assume that there is something sexual going just because people are nude.
I love your writing, and your parenting inspires me. Chin up, Jenn.
I don’t think the commentors at the Globe understood the context. You’re not prancing around the house. You’re doing the innocent things many people do naked but you’re not locking the door. In a house with one bathroom and three girls, that’s necessary, not exhibitionism.
Jenn, honey, the trolls there? Actually spend their whole days looking for something to troll about. No lie.
When Ed & Gary (the parents of Kiki, and my friends and neighbors–I think I told you about them) had a story published in the SF Chronicle on their family, you should have seen the hateful comments it engendered. Seriously. It was absolutely astonishing.
I think, rather than feeling hurt by these morons, you should feel a little proud and titillated that you managed to rile them so very much.
And YES, I am nothing but sympathetic, and yes, OF COURSE, I am naked around my two daughters all the time. As is their dad. And we always have been.
People are prudish freaks, no?
Oh mah holy effin’ hell. Some of those commenters were LOONEY TUNES and not in a polar-bearish kinda of way. More like in a “Let’s return to the stocks and scarlet letters and witch hunts kind of way”.
Jenn. You’re beautiful. You’re raising your girls to be beautiful women. Screw all the rest of ‘em.
I loved your article the first time you wrote it, and it is one of my favorites.
I’m so glad you gave us warning about the comments. If I wasn’t already bracing myself when I started reading them I would have lost it. As it is, I had to “step away from the keyboard” before I told some of those “holyier than thou” assholes to go f*ck themselves. My temper gets the best of me when innocent and natural actions are misconstrued and represented in such awful judgemental ways.
Those comments make me laugh! I thought Boston was fairly liberal. Shheeesh. I’m certain that this country’s puritanical society all but breeds perverts.
Jenn, you just keep doing what you are doing with your girls; they will grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted women.
I can’t believe some people are so uptight! In this house they’re known as ‘sphincter-squeakers’. If I had to cover up every time there’s a child around, I’d be a blob of jelly! Oh, wait, I had four children in six years – I AM a blob of jelly….
I was just picking up my 7yr old from a camp, where some older girls were making fun of what another 7yr old was wearing. “That looks cheap! She must be poor!” The 7yr old was a friend and a few Mothers tried to explain why someone would say something like that. My every impulse was to punch those girls for hurting my daughter’s friend. I heard the other mothers say how it wasn’t about the outfit, it was about them, they might have money issues, or need to make others feel small in order to feel better about themselves. Then I read a handful of those Boston comments and I think it isn’t about you, it is about what issues they have around nudity, how people like to be mean because it can make you feel better momentarily. I also want to punch them in the face..
What I love is the photo shoot in the panel next to your article with 20 year old Celtic Cheerleaders doing splits and jumps in nothing but bra tops and boy shorts. There are no comments about that. But, oh right… they are hot young girls who are paid to show off their taught sculpted bodies to the masses, not a mom corrupting her children with her “mature” body.
Laugh Jen. It’s all so ridiculous.
I loved your article and CONGRATULATIONS!!! on its publication! I am NOT going to look at ANY of those comments because I know I will BURN WITH RAGE, and then get depressed because of how awful humankind can be.
Oh, man, I knew there was a reason I hated every minute of living in Boston and fled. You’re a great mom and have great hair, the end.
Yet again, your life sounds like my life. I would dearly love to have more privacy from my children, but we share a bathroom because we live in a house we can afford rather than in one that is being foreclosed. We call it “too many mammals in the bathroom” as even the dog ends up in there with us. Don’t let ‘em get you down, Jenn!
I’ve JUST gotten to the point where I’m not comfortable being naked in front of my oldest who will turn 5 in the end of August. Why? Because we were taking a shower together and he told me he likes my boobs. Um….awkward. So, we’re done now. I don’t want him to get a complex about naked bodies, though, so I’m trying not to make a big deal out of it.
I used to live part of the time with my aunt and uncle when I was growing up. My aunt was naked in front of me all the time. It wasn’t creepy or weird or sick. Some of my favorite times with her took place when she would call me in to sit and chat about our days while she took a bath. I never even thought about her being naked. It was completely a non-issue.
I couldn’t read past the first page of comments. Beautiful piece, stupid and ignorant comments.
I just scanned a few comments on The Other Side, because it’s late and I’m tired. I was unsurprised to see the haters shouting out, but heartened to see how many of the lovers shouted back. You are awesome and they are silly and small.
I am nude around my kids all the time–and they’re all BOYS. They are completely unconcerned, and despite showering with me several times a week, they constantly forget that my girlparts are different from their boyparts. “Ha ha, I hit Mom in the weiner!” “Why do you sit down to pee? That’s weird.”
Interestingly, last week my oldest (7) barged in on me while I was dressing, and because we had guests in the house (and I subconsciously thought they were Peeping Toms?), I flinched and covered my chest. He flinched in return, averting his eyes and moving back toward the door. Once I realized it was just him and nobody else could see my sad old boobs, I relaxed. The whole exchange had lasted about a second. His confusion faded in another second or so, and he began to excitedly tell me the story he’d run in to share. I felt crummy about that first hint of discomfort–it’s not like I think we’ll be a Nudie Family 4Evah, but the comfort we have with each others’ naked flesh really evokes such innocence. Even with the weiner jokes.
p.s.
bot code = HERO
how telling…
Jen, much love & kudos to you & your wonderful, smart girls. Some of the comments are so asinine, it makes me sad for….the world.
And also, don’t forget the inability of much of the population to read even a very short essay correctly, without superimposing so much of their own crazy egos onto the text. (Having taught writing & Lit. to college freshman, I remember that very well.)
I just wanted to SLAP the commenters who walked away w/ the belief the a) you’re somehow chortling over and…lolling about in abandon with your post-birth body and b) that you’re doing all of this while, say, washing the dishes and sweeping the porch.
Oy.
We are open door here (boys and girls, one bathroom) and what you wrote felt like home to me and not at all shocking. My kids see me naked every day. As they get older i see them wanting more privacy and, at the same time being more curious about my body, but i feel i have nothing to hide, rather i am proud of this body that has lived a life and birthed four children.
The older three have all seen me breastfeeding and my youngest remembers it, he was almost three when he stopped.
Whatever, you are doing good.