On Children Not Wearing Pants

It being summer, I'm taking a moment away from the things that are creating all the heat in Washington right now – the Senate Judiciary's Sonia Sotomayor hearings, health care, and a new bill to fund some of Barack Obama's prize education initiatives – to reflect on one of the things children do best this time of year: go naked.

A recent piece in The New York Times headlined "When Do They Need a Fig Leaf?" on whether it's OK for kids to wear only their birthday suit sheds light on a major point of disagreement among parents.

The fact that the question arises at all makes it clear that 389 years after the Pilgrims first stepped onto Plymouth Rock, American society can still be characterized by our puritanical ways. Can you imagine a newspaper in Europe raising a question about children's nudity?

But beyond saying something about our national character, the 4-year-old boy mentioned in the Times who prefers to watch "SpongeBob SquarePants" and snack on crackers while going pantless becomes, in essence, a Rorschach test for one's worldview.

For some, including me, a naked child represents a moment away from buttons, zippers, elastic and other constraints of adulthood – like eating ice cream without a napkin and letting it drip down your chin – a sign of the utter lack of self-consciousness that only the very young get to enjoy. Soon enough, they will put their pants back on, wipe their face, grow up, and that will be that.

Others see it as the first step to licentious behavior, either on the part of the child or by the pedophile who lurks next door – in much the same way that some good people believe holding hands and dancing lead directly to sex.

Certainly, our job as parents is to protect our children from danger, either real or perceived. The question is, do you see the world as being a fundamentally safe or a fundamentally dangerous place?

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