Usually I try to write about what’s going on in my real (read: non-blog) life at least once a week. Since we’re all settled into our fall routine and last week was full of work things, I don’t have anything to write this week. (I also went to an amazing Women’s Day event at my church. The theme was “The Missing Peace”. I prefer speaking with people one on one about my faith rather than blogging about it though. I took good notes, so if you want them, you can drop me an email…)
In the absence of having any real life stuff to talk about (since I don’t really do the day to day minutiae thing), I decided to give my opinion on a topic that caught my interest yesterday. Momlogic.com tweeted an old post called Should a Toddler Cover Up Her Ta-Tas?. Basically the reader was asking if she should let her 3 year old daughter take her shirt off in public. I’m going to go with the unpopular side and say “no”.
My husband and I have dealt with the issue of kids dressing (both our kids and other people’s kids) in our home. First of all, I don’t care whether or not it’s a boy or girl. (It’s not an issue of “ta-tas” to me.) At home, when it’s just our core family, I don’t care what our kids wear or don’t wear. However, when company is over, they have to wear tops and bottoms. It’s an issue of protection. I’m not under the delusion that I can protect my kids completely. However, it’s my job to do what I can. I don’t know everyone’s backgrounds that my kids are around. If issues with lusting after kids is in their past, I don’t want to cause them to struggle unnecessarily. And most of all, I don’t want them to act on those temptations – especially not with my kids!
We have had issues in the past where kids who felt comfortable around us, would undress in our home. If it was a group setting though, we would make them put back on their clothes. Once again…I would feel HORRIBLE if anything happened to a child under my care if there was anything (no matter how small of a thing) that I could have done to prevent it.
That’s also why you’ll never see pictures of my kids not wearing tops and bottoms on this blog. For instance when we went to Coco Keys, my son had his top off while he was swimming, but I would not share those photos in a public forum. We have plenty of those types of photos at home (what’s cuter than a baby in a diaper?!). It’s simply a matter of protection.
I’ll even go so far as to say that I don’t even like those little videos of the babies in diapers (and nothing else) dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”. Admittedly, they are very cute. However, in the back of my mind, I wonder how many of those million+ hits are from perverts. Cute home video: yes. National video: no. Of course that’s just my opinion. (Granted, I’m probably overcautious because I have worked with children for over 15 years in various capacities; have done many background checks and have been really surprised with various findings.) I don’t know. Ultimately, my mind-set is more “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
What do you think? Do you let your kids undress in public or group settings? (I’m not talking about situations like swimming and such where everyone is at various states of undress…)
