As someone who's worked with cancer patients and burn patients be naked if you want or not if you don't. As Oscar Wilde said:

The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.

...to see that so many Salon readers are conformists.

How ordinary :-(

I had an aunt who walked around in her underwear a lot. Her son was my age and I would spend the night over there frequently. At first it was, um, titillating because I had never seen breasts before. But here's the thing: She seemed completely natural and at ease, as if there was nothing going on, so that's how it was.

Her kids both grew up and had families and are happy and fine.

Now. If you also go to the bathroom ever five minutes; change clothes constantly; go to nightclubs wearing short skirts with no panties; check into pricey hotels with random skanky dudes; shave your head bald and fly into rages; regularly blow off things a court has ordered you to do, even though you can't see your kids unless you do; etc.? If so, then you could probably stand to check in and out of rehab a few times.

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.

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).

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