Would you let your little girl go topless on a public beach? Credit: Spigoo, Flickr
By Amy L. Hatch
There is something very disconcerting about seeing a topless 7-year-old girl on a public beach.
While I was on vacation, several days in a row we saw little girls romping on the beach wearing just bikini bottoms or a diaper, and, in one case, completely nude.
Now, I’m no stranger to public beach nudity. I lived in Europe, where frolicking in the sea and sand au naturel is no big whoop — and is, in fact, expected.
But on a large public beach here in the US of A teeming with a wide range of visitors, from families to teenagers to grizzled old surfer dudes, the stark sight of these little girls nearly naked was startling. I consider myself to be a kind of old-fashioned, free-range, give-them-their-juice-undiluted kind of parent, but this one made me waffle on my “free to be you and me” philosophy.
I don’t buy my 7-year-old bikinis, but that has more to do with my laziness. I’d rather cover the kid up (please pass the long-sleeve rash guard!) than spend an extra 10 minutes slathering her in sunscreen. I think little girls in two-piece suits are adorable, and infants kicking at the sand in a diaper are sweet. But a little girl in just an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny yellow polka dot bikini bottom gave me pause.
I didn’t want to look at these girls, the sight of them made me feel … oogey, for lack of a better word. It was very uncomfortable. The girls themselves seemed completely oblivious to the fact of their nudity, swimming and turning cartwheels exuberantly, as would any child on a beautiful beach on a cloudless summer day.
But the question then arises, at what age do we begin to instill the idea of modesty and privacy when it comes to our bodies (for girls and boys)? It’s a pesky idea, one that is about much more than wearing your robe after a bath (or your top on the beach). It’s about respect for your own body, respect for others, confidence and love for your own physical self…it’s a sticky wicket, indeed.
The girls without their tops were less disturbing than the preschooler who ran around completely nude for one entire afternoon. She rode her little boogie board with abandon, inches from my own four-year-old son.
It made me wince. I’m not even sure why.
I’m not making any judgments here, you all know I firmly believe that parenting is an individual sport, and we can’t ever really understand how or why one mom or dad does what they do they way they do it when it comes to their kids.
But the question of public nudity is about so much more than parenting choices. It’s about society, what’s acceptable, what we tell kids about their bodies, about exposure to forces and people we may not even be aware of.
I know I don’t have any of these answers, except to say that I won’t be letting my kids go nude in public.
Would you?
I personally wouldn’t let my kids go naked on the beach but primarily for practical purposes. I don’t like to have to put on much sunscreen (I’d prefer that they wear swim shirts until 18) and I don’t want them getting sand in any crevices.
But you ask where to draw the line? I say at puberty. I once saw a girl on a beach in France with definite breasts doing topless cartwheels in front of her brothers and I was very disturbed, though her family was obviously fine with it.
I think the key here is that the French family were fine with what was going on. The repressed Americans are disturbed – literally!
Once they become self aware I think they are too old. When they begin to potty train and start to understand their bodies they are old enough to understand that clothes are worn when in public.
Great column that raises lots of good questions, Amy. With my daughter nearly 4, I’m starting to deal with these issues more and more. She has asked twice this summer why boys are allowed to go around in public without shirts and girls can’t … I have really struggled to answer her on that one. And then earlier this summer, after a visit to a large splash park, I took her over to an empty area (the bathrooms were cramped and so wet) to quickly change her out of her wet suit and into a dress .. of course just as I was taking down her suit, a family came over to set up their stuff by us, and their boy (maybe 7 or 8) gawked at my preschooler for the half a second before I got her dress on. That really, really upset her .. she asked me so many questions about why the boy was looking at her. I struggled with how to answer her then, too, although I stressed that she did nothing wrong and he was being rude. I had a nice, repressed, Catholic upbringing … I gotta figure out some answers to all these questions coming my way!
Instead of a smiley face on my previous comment, that was meant to be the number 8 followed by a parentheses. Darn keyboard!
I’m always saddened by any loss for childhood innocence but in public your child is subjected to a wide variety of people with values, issues and attitudes that may not be appropriate. Also, in public you have a responsibility to respect the sensitivities of others. When the bikini was purchased it came with a top, just wear it.
why are the author and commenters mostly using the term “your/our child”, when really we are only talking about our daughters? Recently my son made a negative remark about a 5 year old girl who was having a blast on a beach at a Swiss lake while only wearing comfortable pants. I told him that he should reconsider his remark since there was really no difference between her 5 year old chest and his 10 year old chest. So many other girls (young and old) on that beach were messing with their little bikini tops, and their hair, and their nails, and their…Let them be kids. Soon enough societal pressures will come crashing down on these women. Let us not be guided by our own hang-ups. Long live little tom-boys!
my 5-yr old son loves to be naked, still. We just returned from a week at the beach and he stayed clothed the entire time. The one day his girl cousin was gone for the day, he asked if he could be naked in the house. Since my elderly mom and I were the only gals, I said sure. I was quite surprised when my older brother–father of 2 boys and the absent girl– was terribly bothered by the nudity. “he’s got to learn!” he kept saying. Learn, what exactly? Repression? He obviously knows clothes are required in public. We were with just family, inside, and his boy cousins were busy on their computers and didn’t seem to care beyond thinking he was a weird little kid.
I guess I fall on the side that Marianne alludes to—let them be kids, and enjoy the utterly non-sexual confidence in their little bodies that makes nudity a non-issue in their minds. Soon enough it will be time for our culture to make them feel bad about their bodies or athletic abilities. It was true of 90% of the girls on the beach. I maybe saw 4 girls that had tankinis or 1-pieces on. Every other girl had a bikini and very few of them went in the ocean–most likely because the surf would have readjusted their suits. It made me sad.
I’m not sure we want to allow our kids to be naked in public at any age any more. While I really don’t care if the preschooler runs around naked in the back yard, I don’t want to discover that some creep is taking photos of him for child-porn purposes.
On the other hand, I don’t see anything wrong with flat-chested 7-year-olds wearing just bikini bottoms–so long as they are also well-sunscreened!
I, too, think of pervs taking pictures, which always creeps me out of course. Other than that, I say let them do what they want within reason. Let them keep their innocence for as long as they can, until puberty comes around.
Why do Americans have an obsession with sexualising babies and children? Of course 7 year olds should be free to be topless or naked. The idea of covering them up shouldn’t even occur to parents until their kids are in adolescence.