Posted on 06/12/2009 6:27:49 AM PDT by FreeManWhoCan
In their endless campaign and their inherited duty to confound their elders, this latest generation of teenagers has adopted a new weapon:
Hugging.
As detailed by a recent front-page story in The New York Times, teenage hugging has become an epidemic stretching from one coast to the other. Girls are hugging girls. Boys are hugging boys. Boys are hugging girls and vice-versa, which is not really a new development, except that now the inter-gender embraces do not necessarily have ulterior motives.
“For Teenagers, Hello Means ‘How About a Hug?” according to the story’s headline.
“We’re not afraid, we just get in and hug,” a male high school junior is quoted as saying. “The guy friends, we don’t care. You just get right in there and jump in.”
“We like to get cozy,” an eighth-grade girl in San Francisco explains. “The high-five is, like, boring,”
One might think that the practice of kids exchanging hugs, not drugs — or slugs — would be welcomed without reservation and even with open arms by parents and educators. One might be wrong.
• A parenting columnist for the Associated Press admits that she is baffled.
“It’s a wordless custom, from what I’ve observed,” she writes in her book, “13 is the new 18.” “And there doesn’t seem to be any other overt way in which they acknowledge each other. No hi, no smile, no wave, no high-five — just the hug.”
• Experts have been consulted to delve into what this threat of teenage hugging is all about.
“Without question, the boundaries of touch have changed in American culture,” declares a Virginia sociologist. “We display bodies more readily, there are fewer rules governing body touch and a lot more permissible access to other people’s bodies....
(Excerpt) Read more at daytondailynews.com ...
It means there's waaay too many hormones in the processed foods that we eat! ; )
I shouldn't wink, it's true.
Not my kid, we are Italian, we would hug a mugger.
If it is not between close friends or family? If it isn’t, what do you call it? Too bad people forgot how to show respect for one another and greet someone using handshakes and words to express themselves. What do you call it. When I was younger, it was called copping a feel.
Traditions like shaking hands had reasons - like showing the other person you were unarmed and meant no immediate harm, or keeping someone with an unknow ailment “at arms length”, but still showing respect to another human being.
In todays age, when kids shoot each other over “invading my space” I don’t think informal hugging is the right thing. It shows too much touchy feely BS.
Good for you.
I have to wonder if alot of kids are making up for the lack of attention, two parents, love etc they should be receiving at home. My daughter can count on one hand, with fingers to spare, the friends she has that don't have divorced/single parents! One parent, after graduation, congratulated me because "our work is over!"... I said "I think it's just begun!". lol
Whatever it means, Letterman was listening when he wrote his smutty child molestation jokes about the Palin girls.
For kids I call it a friendly, normal, healthy greeting.
Hug a friend and get Morgellons ...
- Scythian knows
The topic of handshakes came up with a class where I was substitute teaching. I realized that many of the kids, young men included, had never been taught anything about HOW to shake hands, or handshake etiquette. IMHO, just more fall out from the breakdown of the American family.
I remember when I studied in Spain, all the locals hugged and did the cheek-air kiss. I found it odd and felt fairly uncomfortable doing it, esp with complete strangers—it went against my New England upbringing. One of those cultural differences I guess.
A firm handshake or even an Asian bow seems more appropriate to me. Hugs and kisses are for family and funerals.
The more I think about this, the more I see the whole 'hugging controversy' as kids seeking a sense of belonging... 'family', if you will.
My daughters hear it so much and repeat it to us, how much their friends love coming over here and 'seeing how a family really works'. Very sad... cause we're far from perfect!
I believe you’re on to something. If we want normal well-rounded kids, I think it’s a bad precedent to set, by telling them at a young age, that to be friendly and actually touch someone, is bad. It leads up to more and more kids just sitting in their rooms with their computers...not good. If we can’t teach our kids to be able to differentiate between friendly hugging and sexual moves, it’s very sad.
My mom’s side of the family is fairly ‘huggy’ so that doesn’t really bother me much since they are family (Tex-Mex). My dad’s side are quite reserved, with roots in New England, so it is all handshakes there.
Friends and strangers? Heck no, get away from me (lol).
My family was the same way—kids would love to visit and even a few of my friends as adults told me they saw my mom and dad as great examples of how to raise a family. Even some of their friends and co-workers called them ‘the perfect couple’. All of which I took as a great compliment to their love for each other and their deep faith in God. My parents would get somewhat embarrassed by such proclamations.
But if only people could see some of the silly squabbling. LOL, maybe that was their secret: a few minor, daily, silly squabbles rather than holding onto feelings. I can’t recall any major fights at all.
i thought that same thing actually.
I thought the hug and double kiss was bad—it usually ended up being faux kisses, and struck me as not being genuine for some reason. I guess because they did it for everyone, even strangers. No differentiation of affection.
*hug*
*kiss the air near the right cheek*
*kiss the air near the left cheek*
*release hug*
*go back to bashing the US and drinking your tinto de verano*
*alternatively discuss a Real Madrid vs Barcelona match from 1979*
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