Dear Hilary Swank: Please Put On a Robe

2 years ago

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Woman Up Editor

The following is a guest post by my friend, New York writer and memoirist Julie Klam, author of "Please Excuse My Daughter," who was upset by the following interview in the November issue of fashion magazine Marie Claire:

Interviewer: What do you sleep in?

Hilary Swank: I don't sleep in anything. Do you sleep in a nightgown?

Interviewer: I sleep in PJs. I have two young sons, so I have to be conscious.

Hilary Swank: Well, my boyfriend's son is 6 years old, and you wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude. Every morning he comes into the bedroom, and you're just nude. But he doesn't look twice, he doesn't think about it yet. I just toss and turn too much when I sleep, and if I'm in clothes, I get all twisted up.

I read this interview this morning. Did you hear me screaming? It was pretty loud. I know I was audible through the five boroughs of New York City, perhaps the entire tri-state area. If you "wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude," Hilary, maybe you should find out!

I'm sure Ms. Swank has access to "people" with "information" or even a "computer." Pediatricians say that opposite-sex parents should stop parading around naked in front of their kids when a child is 4- or 5-years-old. Psychologists claim young children form an arousal template as sexual development begins. The fact that the semi-stepchild doesn't look twice is not an indication that he isn't thinking about it; it could be that he is uncomfortable.

Am I blaming the movie star? A little, but the real culprit is the boy's father, CAA agent John Campisi, who also represents her. There is something so insidious about not protecting your child from your Oscar-winning girlfriend. Is he afraid if he objects, the box office attraction will dump him, or worse, find someone at ICM who doesn't mind her naked habit?

(Since I'm finding fault, I also wondered, given that the Marie Claire writer, Joanna Coles, said she has to be conscious because she has two young sons, why there wasn't a follow-up question or editor's note?)

The scenario reminded me of Sue Miller's 1986 novel, "The Good Mother" (made into a 1988 movie with Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson), in which the divorced mother loses custody of her child because of her boyfriend's uninformed negligence. I mentioned my distress to a therapist friend at NYU, who replied, "Don't get me started on what over-stimulation can do to a kid." I think we'd all rather see the actress twisted in her nightgown than have this little boy twisted for the rest of his life.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: hilary swank, HilarySwank

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