Growing up a Nudist?

[AndyF]

Just curious....

Were you brought up in a 'clothing optional or even clothes free family/home? or did you come to nudism later in life.

If you grew up with nudism, what was it like? How often did you wear clothes? Did your parents give you a choice to wear clothes, or was it just'natural' not to wear any? What did your friends think - did they join in when they came to visit? Did you continue this lifestyle right theough to adulthood or did you 'rebel' in your teens and wear clothes? Would you/do you/did you bring up your own children in the same way?

I'd very much like to hear your expereinces

For those of you who came to nudism later in life (ie were clothed as kids - like me), do you wish you had been brought up 'clothing optional/free' or are you happy having breen brought up a textile and gone nudist later?

Personaly (very much in hindsight) i wish i had had the opportunity to go nude sometimes as a child, but wouldnt have wanted to hae been so all the time (so 'clothing optional' then). I guess i have always had nudist 'leanings' and feel i would have grown up more confident of myself and my body, if i had been allowed (or even encouraged) to go nude in the right situations.

I guess since the garden where we lived when i was growing up was not very private, i suppose opportunities to play nude would have been restricted to indoors or at the beach. So possibly a non starter even given a more positive attitude from my parents and family.

[Rabid_Clam]

My father was brought up in the very northern most part of Maine and had no one to play with as a child, nearest neighbor was 5 miles off.

He never learned social skills and was extremely shy, especially about nudity. He would even hang a towel over the window on the 2nd floor bath room when he took a bath so no one could possibly see in.

But I would go to the cellar where there was a laundry chute from that bathroom and have my brother stand on my shoulders so I could push him backwards up that chute to open the door and say "HI" to my father.

Man! THat would set it off but was well worth it !!!

[Fuzzy Nuts]

Growing up in my family one didnt go naked. If I had as a young lad I would not only have a naked butt but it would have been bright red in color from the spanking I got.

Even to this day my elderly folks do not know that I am a nudist whenever possible.

[usuallylurk]

Originally posted by AndyF:
Just curious....

Were you brought up in a 'clothing optional or even clothes free family/home? or did you come to nudism later in life.

I came to it later in life (age 27, wife was 28), but we raised our daughter as a *social* nudist. This means that we took part in nude recreation, but we didn't live a "nudist lifestyle".

For those of you who came to nudism later in life (ie were clothed as kids - like me), do you wish you had been brought up 'clothing optional/free' or are you happy having breen brought up a textile and gone nudist later?

Yes. Nudism is very limiting for a child. He or she can't bring his friends "to camp" for the weekend. Kids can't practically discuss the activities with others.

When kids reach the teen years, they get dragged to camp with Mom and Dad and the only friends they will have are those that are at the camp -- and they'd rather be off with their friends at home.

We recognized two things - one, that our daughter began to feel uncomfortable nude and around nudism when she reached adolescence, so we got out of it for awhile.

Two, she had a lot more going on in her life as a pre-teen and teen than she would ever get to take part in if we had dragged her to a nudist camp every weekend. Hanging out with friends, taking part in school activities on weekends, church group activities, social things, etc. are important for a child's social development.

Nudism helps, but one reason you don't see a lot of kids 12-21 at nudist parks is that it's too limiting for them.

We wouldn't force our daughter to be with us every weekend day when she got to the age of 13 onward. That wouldn't be fair to her.

And since both my wife's parents and my parents were more controlling, I'm glad that they didn't drag us "to camp" every spring, summer and fall weekend.

It would have been very constraining.

Personaly (very much in hindsight) i wish i had had the opportunity to go nude sometimes as a child, but wouldnt have wanted to hae been so all the time (so 'clothing optional' then). I guess i have always had nudist 'leanings' and feel i would have grown up more confident of myself and my body, if i had been allowed (or even encouraged) to go nude in the right situations.

That's how I feel. But I wouldn't want to have had to spend the summer at a nudist park. I grew up in a metropolitan area (Boston) and spent my summers at a seaside resort (the New Hampshire seacoast) and I had just too much going on.

[P.J.]

I tend to believe that nudism is great for some, but not for everyone, for reasons too numerous to discuss. (This opinion is subject to change.)

However, this morning, I found myself wishing that our friends from up the street were committed to the clothes-free lifestyle.

In a mad dash from my bed (where I was nude) to the telephone in the dining room, I grabbed bathrobe and as I tried to put it on, I found out that our friends' daughter (who is about 8 years old) was in the living room and in full view. At the same time, I found that one sleeve was inside out! I wrapped it around me and wonder how much of a view my unexpected guest got. She had two of her dogs (including a protective dberman pinscher) with her. Her home was being inspected and dogs are supposedly not allowed.

[Matt King]

When I was growing up my dad and brother would all be nude around the house. We had a pool with a privacy fence. When people came over we were clothed. My sister and mom didnt go nude. I was always told it was a guy thing? I never understood and still don't.

[JohnE44]

I think it started when I was little my mother would let me run around nude after my bath ,when I got a little older I found out how good it was to sleep nude than I would go nude when I could but I never meet anyone who shaired my interest .

[Fuzzy Nuts]

I think it was in about grade 6 or 7 when the boys of the class started devouring the National Geographic magazine photos of the naked tribes of Africa and South America. Boy did I think those well-hung tribesmen with the war-paint were cool. And the women of the tribe were absolutely to dream about.

[closit2000]

I came into nudism later in life, late twenties. I had only heard the term 'nudist' a vey few times in growing up. It will be interesting to hear from someone who grew up in the nudist lifestyle. I attempted create, unsucessfully, a nude family envirement when i married. i didn't push the issue, just was often nude arround the house. i have wanted to try social nudism, but have met firm resistace from my wife. We have both slept nude the entire time we have been married.

Thanks AndyF for starting a very interesting thread.

[Lilwilly]

I didn't grow up in a nudist family, but in retrospect I realize my father did have some nudist tendencies, but they were mostly well surpressed. The earliest experiences I can recall are at about the age of 10 or 11. Could that have been as a result of hormonal influences lol? The desire to be nude has however continued unabated over the decades.

[Nudony]

Good thread indeed...

In spite of the fact that nudism was all around me while growing up in Europe, my own negative self-image and my mother's "nudophobia" prevented me from joining in. I did not experience nudism until my mid-twenties; but had secretly been going nude at home since 14.

My daughter, on the other hand, was born into a clothing optional household, where little or no clothes were worn at any time. During her first 6 years, and before we relocated, we were also active social nudists. The biggest problem was the lack of peers for my daughter to play and socialize with; so it was no big surprise when she started getting bored with those long out-of-state trips. Around age 7, she started showing a need for privacy by closing the door to change, even though she would still walk around the house nude. Now at age 10, she prefers to close the bathroom door to bathe, and shows little inclination to being nude for extended periods of time. She does not have any embarrassment about being seen nude or strinking up a conversation with my nude wife or myself; but she definitely is no longer into the social aspect of it.

I sometimes myself wish I had grown up in a nudist home; but then I realize that the reason I am so much into nudism is because of the long process of self-discovery associated with it. Children born into nudism do not have to go through this process, because they are thrusted into nudism. So they may not necessarily have the same "drive" to be nude that we older nudists have; which is why there is such a high dropout rate around puberty..

So for myself, I'm pretty cool with the fact that I became a nudist at a later age.

[justnude]

I did not grow up in a nudist family per se but being nude with my dad was very common along with my brothers. Since my twin sons have been almost 5, they have been raised in a nudist home setting where clothes are rarely worn at home. They are well adjusted young men now of 19, have introduced several of their friends to the nudist lifestyle.

[BroNudist]

I certainly didn't grow up in a nudist family. But, I'm sure when its time for me to settle down with 'Mrs. Right'...my home would be a a nudist home, if not at the very least a clothing optional one.

[CHICK]

Boy, have I got a bit of a different story. In the summer of 1969 (I was 14 yrs old) I was out for a walk with my dog in the back woods. About two miles in was a man made pond put in by a neighbor years before. We came up to the area only to find an incredible sight...a group of around 300 bona-fide hippies had set up a bona-fide commune complete with tepees, shacks, a huge veg. garden and the prerequisite fire ring in the middle of the whole shebang to facilitate the singing of folk songs and the banging of drums...man, i thought I'd found shang-ri-la!!!!There where naked people everywhere!!It turns out that they had set up camp about a year before and were making a pretty good go of it so I just marched right in and made myself home. They had no problem with me visiting as often as I liked as long as I pitched in with some of the chores every now and then. Up 'till then the only experience I had with nudity was sleeping nude and going up to rabbit hill in the woods to run around naked in the summer (always by myself). It was the first time I had been in presence of naked girls, and as you can imagine, I had to sit down quite often at first (for the most obvious reason) but after a few visits I found being nude was no big deal and things calmed down (parden the pun) and I fell in love with the lifestyle. I discovered a lot about the communist lifestye and liked it alot but found out it doesn't work when more than three or four hundred people are involved because you just can't police that many folks and make them pull their fair share of the workload but this little experiment was working just fine and I visited often. It lasted only four years because most of these folks missed the creature comforts that civilisation provides and they disbanded, but for those four years where pure bliss and I was baptised into a lifestyle that i've embraced for the rest of my life.

[missouriboy]

Originally posted by BorneoNudist:
I'm sure when its time for me to settle down with 'Mrs. Right'...

Just be careful to avoid choosing the "Mrs. Right" whose first name is "Always." LOL!