I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys

Okay, this is not a funny post. There may be funny elements in it, but if you're looking for HA-HAs go over to willowtree, or The Rotten Correspondent, or bellevelma at Running with Books or well...anywhere but here today. This is a rant, pure and simple, and you have been warned. If you really want to stick around, I'll put some goofy pictures at the bottom. So, abandon all hope, ye who enter here....




I was doing a lot thinking yesterday reading some of your comments about the little exchange between my daughter and I the other morning, and I started wondering if I really was a prude because my first instinct was to shut the door on a pair of eyes looking at my naked body.


You know what? No, I'm not. In an age where I can't turn on the TV without seeing some poor girl whoring her body out for attention or money or love, I really don't think I'm a prude.



I have no problem with nudity. Michelangelo's David? A work of art, beautiful in form, execution, everything. Botticelli's The Birth of Venus? Also marvelous. A bunch of women stripping down to win the favour of Flavor Flav on VH1? Well, I find it moderately disgusting, and not because their bodies are ugly (really some of the girls were pretty), it's because what they're doing is ugly in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should legislate morality (we can't!), and I certainly defend their right to do what they want on national TV. After all, that's why I have a remote control. I don't have to watch it. And I choose not to.


But I don't think I'm a prude because I think my daughter should learn a little modesty.


Tuesday morning, my first instinct was to shut the door. Why? Because I like my privacy, that's why. It's not that I think my body or the human body is so hideous or immoral that it needs to be hidden away. I just like keeping my bits to myself (an my husband of course). And it's not like The Four Year Old hasn't seen me without clothes. Goodness knows for the first three years of her life I probably never went to the bathroom alone. But I thought I was alone, and was surprised to find out I wasn't. First reaction? Make my self be alone.

Some days I worry that in our quest to be open and accepting as a society, to let everyone do their thing, we've made it okay for kids to be sexualized without them even understanding what it's about. I don't know why parents think it's okay for their 11-year-olds to wear low slung jeans that show off the fact that their precious snowflake is wearing a black lace thong. Or why they think it's okay for their 9-year-old daughter to wear a pair of tight pink shorts with the word "Juicy" written across the butt. And then they scream and cry when grown men make sexual advances towards their children. If you're an adult and you want to hang your black thong out the back of your pants, go on ahead, it's your right, but stop dressing your kid like a prosti-tot. Most 9-year-olds aren't ready for the sexual attention that comes with looking like an adult. I know this from experience.

As for what I'm going to teach her about her body, she already knows her body is her own. But I am also going to teach her that running around naked in a crowd isn't necessarily a good idea, unless you're at a nude beach. It's a cultural thing. We wear clothes, for modesty, for covering our bodies so they don't get injured or sunburned, so we don't get cold. I'd prefer that she wears clothes. If she decides when she turns 18 that she doesn't want to, I'm not going to stop her. I probably won't spend a lot of time visiting her at the nudist colony, but I wouldn't try to stop her from doing what made her comfortable. My daughter feels no shame for her body, nor should she. She also shouldn't feel that the only way to win love is to tart herself up for the benefit of others.

By all means, teach your kids about sexuality, and let them learn about it in steps at a young age. I'll answer any question my kid puts to me. I may not give the best answer, but I'll give the best answer I can. But I'm not going to walk around naked in front of my kids. That's just not my style. However, I'm also not going to tell you you're a bad parent if you do. Teaching my daughter to cover up once in a while doesn't mean I'm teaching her to hate her body or be ashamed of her body. Teaching my daughter that privacy is okay, and that her body is her own, and hers alone, is not teaching her that her body is wrong.

Okay, so what does this rant prove? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Other than that I think that being comfortable with your body doesn't mean I have to run around naked to prove it, or that shutting the door when someone catches me naked in the bathroom makes me a prude. Feel free to believe I'm wrong. It's your right.


Anyway, rant over. Got it out of my system. Enjoy some LOL Cats and silly pictures until we get to the Friday Five tomorrow which I promise will be suitably ridiculous.