Undressed like that, in front of her children, she was SO asking for it!

Begging for trouble, she was!

My parents were extremely conventional, especially when they worried about what the neighbors thought. Our lawn was always mowed, the weeds were always hoed, and as children, we were not even allowed to run around with runny noses. We always had red noses from Mom wiping our noses.

As we got older two rules were really clear. What happened at home stayed at home, and we must look good for the neighbors. When I started dating, one thing my Dad absolutely hated was me parking in front of the house with a boyfriend and kissing or even just talking. What would the neighbors think! Naturally I tried to ignore him.

Once, I started out the evening with a girlfriend but ended the evening with my boyfriend. Then we parked in front of the house.

My Dad, a light sleeper was furious. He kicked my Mom out of bed and told her to go get me in the house. My Mom is a rather heavy sleeper and a slow waker-upper. Imagine my astonishment when my mother stumbled out of the house in the light of a full moon wearing an extremely sheer nightie. She walked over to the car and mumbled: "Your Dad said that you should come in right now!" Then her eyes got quite wide when she realized that I was with my boyfriend and not the girl I left off with. She quickly went back into the house.

I could have died. Nobody wants her boyfriend to see her mother's titties.

My Mom told me later that she was so still asleep that she didn't even realize what she was wearing.

Kids may get pretty wild and unconventional themselves, but they mostly want their parents to be conforming and ordinary. In fact, there is a time when they are about 14 that parents are such an embarrassment that they act as if they wish you didn't exist at all.

Ok, I'll admit that I am somewhat damaged by my own singular experience with parental nudity...

I was 11. My parents slept in on Saturday mornings. My little sister and I would take advantage of this fact by waking up early,preparing a sugar-laden breakfast and watching cartoons -all things that we were not permitted to do. One fine day we decided to make pancakes. We caused a small inferno in the pan. At our screams of "FIRE! FIRE!" my staunch disciplinarian of a father flew into the room starkers, put out the fire and then turned to punish us. Instantly realizing that he was nude he rapidly clutched both hands to his naughty bits,and flew back up the stairs. We never heard another word about it. We were sooooo shocked. We had experienced my father feeling vulnerable for the first time in our lives. Besides, who knew that there was so much hair down there.

Granted, my parents were totally backwards.If it wasn't for sex ed I would have been in big trouble. The human body is what it is- be it hot, lumpy, or rickety. Still, Being a child or especially a young adult experiencing puberty can be traumatic. Everything associated with the body and especially your parents old, wrinkly hairy ones (relatively of course) is uncomfortable.

I'd tell your kids what you told Cary - it is the truth. Tell them that incidental nudity is fine and natural but you won't be checking homework in the buff.

You really do sound like a great mom and I bet that your kids feel the same way.

Jayne

Truly, I am saddened by all the people who seem to think that LW could be "damaging" her children by letting them see her naked getting in and out of the shower and other such normal activities. I'm a 22 year old college student, so I guess you could argue that I'm too young and/or inexerienced to know, but I certainly don't feel that I've been "damaged" by the fact that my parents (my father as well as my mother) were occaisonally nude. I had never even thought of this as being a potential issue until reading today's letter (somehow, I managed to avoid this particular piece of Britney trivia). I am sad that it could be an issue for other people.

When I reached adolesence and wanted more privacy I simply shut my bedroom door. My parents got the hint and started knocking. This was a non-issue for all of us. If I didn't want to see my parents naked I didn't walk into their bedroom/bathroom when I thought they were changing. I probably would have asked them to put on a robe if we had had to share a bathroom, I doubt that it would have been an issue.

It's not like we're talking about coming home from school and seeing your parent(s) masterbating on the living room couch - it's just acknowledging that there are times when it's OK to be nude. For instance, my family lives in a VERY secluded area (read: no neighbors can see into our back yard) and the summers get very hot, and once, when we were both in high school, my sister and I came home to find our mother mowing the back lawn in her birthday suit. We were not disgusted, nor did we think there was anything sexual about it, we both knew that our mom was just trying to be as comfortable as possible. Now, this is something that we tease her about from time to time if we want to make her blush, but we certainly aren't "damaged."

For the record, I'd just like to make it known that my parents are hardly hippies (they vote Republican - and this is much more disturbing to me than any nudity could possibly be) they are just aware that naked is normal and comfortable (but not on the living room couch).

What? You are focusing on Britney Spears and her Motherhood issues? What's next, Michael Jackson's thoughts on sleepover camps? Cary is right, who knows what these people are like. We are hearing and seeing only a single facet. In some cases, that is all there is... the 2D, but that is another discussion.

Naked is fantastic, and more importantly, it's natural. What is appropriate for you in this situation is that you are a normal healthy person and that you continue to behave in that manner. Your kids are v. young and soon, since you are such an attentive and sensitive mom, you'll notice when they give you the "TMI" look. Or maybe they won't, who knows.

The point is not to let the tabloids and the "experts" (oooh, an expert in pietism!) dictate what you do in your home. How about focusing on the violence your children will definitely see (and probably experience) in their young lives? Some Mom-skin flashing around the house, well, that's just gonna happen everyday unless your home is 12,000 sq ft and you never get undressed.