Parenting Teens

This goes straight to the “WTF?” file. The Dayton Daily News recently published an article about “needless hugging” and asked what teens would think of next - stating that this hugging was another faction on the endless campaign to confound their elders. By doing the unthinkable - and hugging their friends. I dug up the NY Times article they referenced, to find that yes, indeed, this hugging thing is becoming an epidemic.

Hugging.
Epidemic.

Now, I was raised in a family of easy contact - from hugging to the occasional slap on the behind, or punch on the arm, to the knock down drag out wrestling matches with my sister. (Don’t let her fool you - she was PERFECTLY WILLING!) We, predominantly Irish and HillBilly, were as easy with our affection as we were with our ire. I hug my children, a lot. My husband did too before he passed. We will stop anything to give a brief hug to our kids, whether it’s a long involved snuggle, or a quick squeeze in passing. And of course, we often add a poke in the side, a tickle, or an eyeball lick.

(…what?)

So this whole uproar about HUGGING seems absolutely ridiculous to me. My kids hug their friends, too. I mean, EVEN THE BOYS ARE DOING IT! At home, at school, there’s a whole lotta hugging going on, and while people like Noreen Hajinlian are banning “needless hugging” in their schools, I’m sitting here wondering what the heck the big deal is. Many schools have various bans on PDAs (Public Displays of Affection) but even the teens themselves admit this is not something sexual at all, it’s just a way of greeting between friends. Good Ole Noreen there says that’s not the case, because greeting happens before school, not between classes.

(…did ya hear my eyes roll? Did ya?)

So maybe the kids like to hug, because most of the rest of the time they’re only connected by the thumbs and texting - or maybe they’re just overly friendly. Some school officials and parents though, are worried:

• 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.”

• Attorneys are standing by to fight for the constitutional rights of students who might feel pressured by their peers into hugging. The day after the Times story was published, a legal Web site in Michigan warned that parents “should be alert to the potential downsides” of hugging.

• And school officials, naturally, are having trouble getting their arms around this latest form of teenage rebellion. Some have instituted a “three-second rule” to limit the length of a hug. A few years ago, in Bend, Ore, a middle school girl received detention for illegal hugging.

“Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory,” notes the principal of a high school in New Jersey, where student — and, presumably, faculty — hugging was banned two years ago. “It was needless hugging — they are in the hallways before they go to class. It wasn’t a greeting. It was happening all day.”

So here’s my question to you - where do YOU stand on the whole hugging debate? Is it really a gateway to bigger and harder and more dangerous drugs? (…I mean sex, ya’ll. *L*) Or is it as harmless as it seems? Do you think kids will actually feel left out if they choose NOT to hug, any more than they have before? Are you a hugger or non-hugger yourself? Is this REALLY something we need to be obsessing over when there are so many OTHER things that can go wrong? Sound off in the comments below!