If your son decides that your, er, practice during his middle childhood made you a bad mom and resents you for it during his later years, will you regret your choices? He isn't you, and will probably grow up with more conformist attitudes. (You know, that whole yo-yo affect between generations.)

If your practice matters more than whether your son feels that you were a caring mother, let it all hang out in front of him. Otherwise, get yourself a $5 robe, and tell your son that it is immensely important to question authority and challenge social constructs, but to remember the real limitations of living in the U.S. and living with other human beings (related or not).

In case you care what I think, I think you're a tad bonkers. My parents, though, would probably think you're a hoot...

men forcibly groping women on the subway is a pervasive problem.

Guess they aren't so evolved and enlighten about sexuality as some are saying

AND therein lies the critical difference.

LW - let me add to the chorus saying you are not damaging your children. Nudity is not something to be ashamed of and you are demonstrating that to them. However, given that your child of the opposite sex is 10, I would ask him directly if your nudity makes him uncomfortable. He's old enough to know why you would ask the question. He's also old enough that the answer is possibly yes. I would follow the kid's lead.

Sorry for my long letter to those who think Japanese culture is not relevant to the discussion.

I don't think it's irrelevant because it's not ALL that freaking different over here -- it's a first-world society in a lot of communication with the West.

It couldn't be truer that the issue has to be discussed within cultural context. HOWEVER, America is such a mix of cultures. You can and should choose / make your own culture, and learning about the ways in which other cultures have made better choices in certain areas can be of help in doing this.

Also, the LW was asking about all those psychologists who said family nakedness was so bad for those children. Are psychologists supposed to evaluate the health of a situation according to values of individuality and privacy in North America, or on a deeper and more basic human level?

That's my question I guess. I know that, living in a place with totally different ideas about the issue, I too had the this-has-to-be-a-joke reaction about the universal condemnation of Spears being naked around her kids. It's easy to be so absolutist about something like that when you've never been out of your own backyard.

I live in Japan and feel the need to correct the former incorrect correction. Families do bathe together, and it is totally appropriate for any combination of family members to bathe together EXCEPT for a past-puberty child to bathe with a parent of the opposite sex. The child chooses when to stop bathing with the parent of the opposite sex, and this is kind of one of those my-little-girl-is-growing-up moments that makes dads nostalgic, and they talk about it weepily at work. I know about this stuff from the time when I used to live with host families.

There are also the pervasive public baths, which are gender separated but behind the men's and women's curtains everyone walks around naked between the various baths, the washing area, and the mats for resting. Almost no one is seriously uncomfortable using these baths. You have a quite small towel you can put in front of your private-est parts if you feel uncomfortable, but it is just as common to use it for nothing but wiping the sweat off your face. I have no idea where the thing about wearing a robe until you lower into the bath comes from. I particularly enjoy public baths and have used them in all parts of the country, and there is no such thing.

You see everyone in these baths from tiny babies who still have to be held, to very old women, and including below-puberty-aged children of the opposite sex. I have seen a grandmother with her two little grandsons in the public bath, and it's absolutely nothing anyone blinks an eye about.

Also, Japan is generally just a little less worried about modesty. I am not idealizing my adopted culture -- gender roles in here are in general a bit stuck in the 50s, but they lack the concept of a "slut," something really damaging to women in the west.

My blood really boiled, by the way, at the anonymous poster who said "The risk to the daughter is even greater: if she doesn't learn that her nudity and sexuality are something special...she'll probably turn into the town slut, giving it away to anyone..." This poster said he/she was not a prude. OK, you are worse than a prude, you are extremely sexist. WHY is it a greater risk for the daughter to grow up free about her body than the son? Why can only women be sluts? What does womanhood have to do with it?

Regarding the original question, it seems that according to the other letters posted people have vastly different experiences with family nakedness, so it seems very hard to make a rule. I know that my parents were never naked around me, but I wish they had been. Because I never saw an adult's naked body as a child, I had a bizarre fear of what the big hideous bear-like things must look like. I have often envied the little Japanese kids who have seen naked adult bodies since before they can remember and never had to wonder.

I also have little natural inclination toward modesty myself and always felt hurt that my family doesn't like me to be out of my bedroom even in a large towel. I always felt it would be nice if being family, we could not freak out about stuff like that.

That is just my experience though, and it doesn't seem typical.