I'm hardly an exhibitionist. You won't find me sunbathing topless on a beach on the French Riviera. I don't wander around a swimming pool changing room in the nude. And I imagine I'd be more like Sex and The City's Charlotte York than Samantha Jones, should I ever find myself in a naked sauna situation.

But I'm not ashamed of my body either, and that's why I let my children see me naked.

Initially, it wasn't a conscious decision. From day one, both my babies loved skin-to-skin contact. Both were breastfed (my son for six months, and my daughter for just over a year). Perhaps nursing relaxed my attitude toward nudity. Isn't it a positive thing for kids of all ages to see their mothers use their breasts for their intended purpose? I definitely don't want my adult children to be the ones staring if they see a woman breastfeeding her baby in public.

Over four years, I grew accustomed to two tiny, demanding landlords claiming ownership of my body. There were also practical considerations, more so when I became a single mother. It's pretty hard to argue against an open-door policy when you're home alone with two young children. If I wanted to use the toilet or take a shower, I had to forgo any right to privacy. In fact, until my kids became too tall for it to be comfortable, communal baths were a regular occurrence. Easier, quicker, and, let's face it, more fun.

It's not part of my culture to be naked in front of my kids. I never saw my parents naked. Nor did we talk about our bodies, unless something was wrong with them. I didn't know anything about breasts or body hair or how genitalia worked until I figured it out for myself. I'm sure I wasn't the only kid in my class who did that. But I want my children to talk to me about bodies. All bodies. I want them to ask about my unshaven legs and the stretch marks on my thighs and the hard ridge above my C-section scar. I want them to know that it's OK for women to have hair in places other than their heads, and that social media filters don't exist in real life. And more than any of that, I want them to come to me for all the advice, education, and reassurance they need as their own bodies develop. I don't want them to learn to feel ashamed of their bodies, and later their sexuality, because they grew up with a parent who always hid her own body.

But I want my children to talk to me about bodies. All bodies.

I'm not interested in other parents theorizing that kids who see their parents naked beyond a certain age are more likely to have permissive attitudes about sex later on. Besides, a study on this topic specifically (as well as children viewing "primal scenes") yielded mixed results, at best. The outcomes suggested that girls exposed to "primal" scenes before age six had a higher risk of contracting STIs or getting pregnant as teenagers; but boys had a lower risk. But no matter the research, I know my children better than anyone. If I sense that either of them is embarrassed to see me naked, I'll cover up. If they come right out and tell me they don't want to see me naked, it will never happen again. My 9-year-old son has definitely become more modest about his own body over the past six months, but he'll still voluntarily perch on the toilet while I'm in the bath and chat away about whatever's on his mind. My daughter, 6, still loves her post-bath routine of dancing around the house, as bare as the day she was born. It's not as if we eat dinner or watch TV naked. But in the context of bathing or dressing, family nudity is comfortable for us — and that, for me, is key.

I have a framed print of the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's Nuda Veritas ("naked truth") on our bathroom wall. The first time my daughter commented on the picture, it wasn't the full-frontal woman's bare breasts or thatch of red pubic hair she had questions about. After staring at the image for several seconds, she asked, "Why does the lady have a lollipop in her hand?" She wasn't shocked by the nudity. She didn't think it was strange to have a picture of a naked woman (who is, incidentally, holding a mirror and not a lollipop) on our wall, and she doesn't think it's strange to see my bare breasts or pubic hair either.

The inscription at the top of Nuda Veritas reads "'If you cannot please everyone with your actions and your art, you should satisfy a few. To please many is dangerous." I'm not sure Klimt had parenting decisions in mind when he wrote this. But I accept his invitation to examine myself, as a woman and as a mother. For as long as my actions satisfy my children, I couldn't care less about pleasing anybody else.

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