Necessary or just disgusting?

[Senethro]

As far as I'm aware and can remember, it is (and/or was) quite normal across many times and cultures for children, especially in a beach context, to be naked. After all, what exactly are they covering up?

[LeopardSkinQueen]

Why are they on the beach at all? They should be off cleaning chimneys. Why, in my day...

[hr]

[maz]

Our society is incredibly sanitized .Extremely small children love to run around naked, its totally natural. People should stop being so squeamish and get over it.

[hr]

Well, I bet that you look good on the dancefloor

Go see my friend on his band's UK tour. 24 March - 7 April
http://www.thehint.com

[Al]

Lots of things are "totally natural". It doesn't mean they should be encouraged.

[Ellkie]

Oh come on, i'm sure almost everyone has ran about naked at some point in their life. Especially at the beach when you were wee. Kudos to the kid for putting up with the weather. And its not as if its being encouraged, the kid wont think twice about it far less remember being naked on a beach and wish to reinact those moments of freedom when he/she has grown up.

[hr]

It's all GEEK

[Rufus]

Quoting maz from 23:24, 26th Apr 2006
Our society is incredibly sanitized .Extremely small children love to run around naked, its totally natural. People should stop being so squeamish and get over it.

[hr]

Well, I bet that you look good on the dancefloor

Go see my friend on his band's UK tour. 24 March - 7 April
http://www.thehint.com

Absolutely, well said. If you have a problem with children en deshabille then I think it says more about your neurosis than the child's or their parents' lack of propriety or decency.

As for children going to the toilet in public, desperate times call for desperate measures, and isn't potty training (and all that goes with toileting) enough of a psychological minefield as it is without strangers being offended by it?

[Sid]

We don't run around naked as adults, so why let kids run about naked?

[Rufus]

I love your logic.

We don't go to bed in the early evening as adults, so why should children?

We don't drink breast milk as adults, so why should children?

Etc, etc, etc.

There is nothing offensive about a child's nakedness.

[Al]

I don't think neuroses have anything to do with it. I suppose it would be fine on a more open beach like the West Sands or East Sands but not in a more enclosed space like the Castle Sands.

[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Quoting Sid from 00:12, 27th Apr 2006
We don't run around naked as adults, so why let kids run about naked?

Perhaps we should. The world would be much floppier.

[hr]

Mmmm, cake.
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[Sid]

That's dumb.

What you mentioned are part of a childs health and development. Running round naked isn't anything to do with health or development.

And there is no point in saying that perhaps being naked as a child is part of a kids development because it isn't. Being naked isn't anything to be ashamed of at the right place and time, on a beach however??

Plus, the only thing this kid was being taught was sheer insanity. Who the hell gets their kegs off on a beach in the north of Scotland? And for your information I will not be partaking in the may dip (this is me speaking sober, drunk however, I might change my mind, although highly unlikely).

Quoting Rufus from 00:16, 27th Apr 2006
I love your logic.

We don't go to bed in the early evening as adults, so why should children?

We don't drink breast milk as adults, so why should children?

Etc, etc, etc.

There is nothing offensive about a child's nakedness.

[Rufus]

Sigh.

I would argue that being naked and unabashed in a 'public' place is a crucial part of a child's development, more so than being the type of parent who passes their own repression onto their child.

Also, last time I checked, St Andrews was not in the 'north of Scotland'.

[Rufus]

Quoting Sid from 22:31, 25th Apr 2006
If it was my kid it would just have to wet itself!

P.S.
Never have children.

[Sid]

The problem with words is that they are words. There is no body language or tone. Therefore, that was a joke. If I had a kid and it needed to go I would either ask to use the staff toilet in the store or run to the nearest public loo. I would not humiliate myself or my child by holding it up over a drain on a crowded street in broad daylight. There is such a thing as teaching a child pride and self-respect. This has nothing to do with repression.

And yes, my apologies, this isn't the North of Scotland but the weather here is far more like the North of Scotland than say, the Bahamas, which is the point I was making.

P.S Let's not be pernickety, it's boring.

Quoting Rufus from 00:56, 27th Apr 2006

Quoting Sid from 22:31, 25th Apr 2006
If it was my kid it would just have to wet itself!

P.S.
Never have children.

[maz]

The kid was naked on a beach for Christ's sake. I would bet that the majority of people reading this were naked on a beach at some point in their childhood.

Regarding peeing in public. It's not the most hygenic, but would you not rather that it is disposed of in a sanitary way, rather than said child being covered in pee and then traipsing around shops etc. Number 2s are a very different matter, but usually you get a bit more warning. Wait until you have to deal with kids, you learn to read the signs, but trying to juggle several kids at once (not literally) is bloody hard, and if baby is screaming because oldest child is pestering it, you might not notice the toddler doing the pee dance until its almost too late to find somewhere.
I think people can be really judgemental of other people's kids' behaviour until they actually have to deal with it themselves. They aren't little angels 100% of the time you know, and accidents do happen.


[hr]

Well, I bet that you look good on the dancefloor

Go see my friend on his band's UK tour. 24 March - 7 April
http://www.thehint.com

[novium]

urinating in public- bad.
young children being nude on a beach- well, I wouldn't exactly want my kid doing that because of the hassle all the sand would be, later, but come on.
"the human body is a beautiful thing, etc" blah blahblahblah. The issue with adults is that we do have all these issues and we have trouble seeing ADULT nudity outside a sexual context. But this is not a problem for children. Are people going to start objecting to little girls running around topless on the beach or through sprinklers or whatever?

[hr]

sed tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[Midget]

Did anyone see the "Unusual Suspects"? I don't see anything wrong with gratuitous nudity.

Sinead what is wrong with nudity? What actual thing about it is wrong, because I've been racking my brains for ages and my normally high-tuned moral intuitions fail me.

[hr]

IMAGE:img9.imgspot.com/u/04/241/18/160019.jpg "Little!"
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[Sid]

If it's so normal Seth then why don't we all go about naked? Never mind the kids! As I said before this isn't the Bahamas, this is Scotland. You go about naked for a day up here Seth and see if you have any balls left, you'll freeze them off.

That is one good reason for clothes.

[Sid]

edited-double post blaaaaah

[Grandpa]

megalomaniac, your name says it all

[hr]

We are gentlemen that neither in our hearts nor outward eyes envy the great nor shall the low despise.