How about your child doesn’t owe anyone a hug, whether they’re a boy or a girl? I realize this is from Girl Scouts and so naturally they’re going to focus more on the girls, but even in the article it talks a lot about how it’s damaging specifically to females and their concept of consent and bodily autonomy, but I think that’s just as true of young boys. There are a lot of boys/men who don’t know how to express if they are uncomfortable with being touched or pushed beyond their sexual boundaries because they’re taught that men always “want it”. Children of both genders are regularly made to hug and kiss people they may not feel comfortable with, and that shit should probably stop. Teach your kids to be grateful, but don’t teach them that gratitude always means physical affection they are uncomfortable with.
I remember being a little boy and having 90 year old smells-like-a-brewery-or-a-perfume-factory women hug and kiss me, blech.
I was told to suck it up and deal with it – because they’re old women, and most often lonely.
Disgusted as I was, it never hurt me. I was also told to be polite, to say please and thank you, and to eat food I didn’t like at other people’s houses.
It didn’t teach me to be ‘sexually permissive’ – what it did teach me was to be social, and to be able to have contact with people who might immediately repulse you on the surface, even when I didn’t like it and it cost me something.
It’s actually a pretty good life lesson.
I actually think that part of the reason of our current breakdown in society, our mass anger, inability to compromise, and the number of angry whack jobs running around gunning others down, is precisely because we’ve lost the ability to cope and be kind to people who we don’t initially like, or even find revolting.
To be kind, even affectionate, with the “other” – is one of the most important skills you will ever learn in life. It is every bit as important as teaching people to be less agreeable and to stand up for themselves.
Because, let’s be frank. There is a point in every one’s life where they have to stand up for themselves and be unlikable, just as there is a point in everyone’s life where you have to act a bit the whore and court someone you detest.
LIFE SKILLS.
It is not kind to “help” children by coddling them and always providing them an “out”, thus rendering them weak and incapable of doing difficult things and making difficult and “uncomfortable” choices as adults, especially if those things might be the difference between getting the promotion you’ve worked so hard for, or striking a deal that will make your life better, or you know, having a roof over your head or being homeless.
People in our society, especially people on tumblr, maybe need to take a look at people in third world countries and see how they handle themselves and the skills they acquire, and what people have to do to get by when they have NOTHING, and then maybe they will stop obsessing over piddly shit like this.
OK but I think you’re missing the bigger point that nobody should be forced into physical affection. That’s not the same as saying children shouldn’t be grateful, but there are other ways to express gratitude. Some people legitimately do not want to be touched and should not be made to feel like they absolutely have to be if an adult demands a hug or kiss from them. Especially because those adults will not always be trusted family members. How much harder will it be for a young boy or girl to come out against an adult who may be abusing them if their parents are constantly making them get physically close regardless of their consent (and I’m not exaggerating because this definitely does happen)? We can teach respect for others and bodily autonomy at the same time.
There is a HUGE difference between physical affection and sexual touching. It is is so vast, as to be something that cannot even be adequately explained with words.
I know, because I was molested as a young boy, and was always a very “non hug” “no touch” person the rest of my life because of it, in fact, to my own detriment. I didn’t like to be touched at all, and that led to isolation, anxiety, and physical illness for most of my life. I live with catastrophic degenerative arthritis, and I honestly believe that part of my ailment is due to the abuse I had as a child AND the aversion to physical contact it created in me. I’m already and introvert, so all of this just exacerbated the effect.
In fact, I believe that the only reason I am not more troubled, is because of the abundance of physical affection I had to endure in my life. Certain people, who have a level of empathy, get really huggy with me. Animals also seek me out, they go crazy for me, lick me, jump on me – because they can sense how wounded I have been. Even though I do not like it, and try to push pets and children away, still they gravitate towards me. My neighbors daughter makes a bee line to me every time I get in the swimming pool – she has this overwhelming need to be close to me, probably because she can sense my vulnerability and it makes her feel safe, and she’s empathic and wants to help me. People are more instinctual than we realize, especially kids and animals! They know…
At one point in my life, I started to see this pattern… these people wanting to touch me, not because they wanted to make me miserable, but because they could “feel” my wounds, even if they weren’t conscious of it.
Physical and affectionate contact with other human beings is very healing, even if we don’t like it, maybe especially if we don’t like it! Human touch and contact is so important, which is why it is so instinctive to people, and when you shun it, it is to your own detriment. Even more so when you have been sexually or physically abused, because the best way to heal from the misuse of your body, is to be touched in an affectionate and non sexual way. It’s like when you drink too much alcohol, what you need most the next day? Yes, drinking… water… the best cure for something unhealthy in your life is a similar thing that is healthy.
Over the past few years I have worked on being more physically accessible to other people. There is this dude who lives across the way, and he always comes up and hugs me. It used to drive me nuts, but then I noticed it had an effect on me. How much of an effect? It was profound. When I was around that dude, I didn’t have as much pain in the days after. I noticed it.
I have done serious work in my life on multiple levels, far too much to go into here, but in short, since I stopped revolting over “being touched”, and stopped shunning human contact, I have cut my pain medication to less than a third of what it used to be. I have dealt more with my childhood abuse. I have become more productive, more social. I spend more time with real life people than I do on the internet.
I have lost over two hundred pounds and weigh now what I did at age 18, because I am no longer eating to fill an emotional need. I am more available to my wife, my friends. I no longer lose my temper as easily. I no longer become super agitated by the tiniest thing. I procrastinate less. I feel more comfortable in social situations. I’m less afraid of meeting new people.
The other day I even initiated a hug for the first time in my entire life… it felt completely weird, and yet, also, I feel more normal now. I may not ever be completely normal, but baby steps.
Certainly teach your kids that it’s not OK to be touched a certain way, absolutely, especially when they are alone, but do not teach children to avoid physical contact with others. It will do far more harm to their lives than good, and it’s even more important if something bad happens to them.
There is no greater healing than that which occurs by being touched by another living being, whether human, child, or pet… so, that old lonely person who wants to hug a child? There’s probably a reason for it that neither party understands.
We need more of this in our society, not less. The longest lived and healthiest people tend to be those who seek out physical contact with others. There was a study years ago that showed extroverts lived longer – but it was misleading. The data underpinning it, is that people more likely to have physical contact with others lived longer and had less disease – and just by accident, most of those people were extroverts.
Let me once again restate my point: No one should be forced into physical contact. Point blank period. Never once did I say “teach your children to avoid physical contact”, I said do not force them into it. There may be a reason they don’t want to be touched by certain people and they should not have their desires about what happens to their body, be it sexual or not, completely ignored when it’s not to their detriment. You are an adult. You have the cognizance to understand the importance of physical affection and what level you were comfortable with. A child doesn’t necessarily understand that nuance or know how to articulate it. They may be frightened of a certain adult because of past abuse, but don’t actually know that they were abused. Instincts can work that way too.
Obscure Fandoms 