Quote: (01-02-2017 04:33 PM)Jean Valjean Wrote:
The meme is not saying that hugging or kissing kids is always bad. It's just saying that kids have a right to say no to unwanted hugs or kisses.
I disagree with this. Let's take a deeper look at the meme.
It starts with "My body is
my body." On the surface, this seems logical and true, but, seeing as we know how cultural Marxists operate, let's follow this to it's eventual conclusion. This quote alone states that nobody, including the parents, has the right to tell the child what she can do with her body. A 10 year old wants a tattoo? It's the child's body, the child's choice. The parents have no voice. The child wants to eat ice cream and candy for dinner? Shut up parents, it's that child's body, that child's choice. And, for a real world example: the child wants to take hormones and mutilate his penis because he feels like a girl? His body, his choice. The problem is clear. Children lack the means to provide and care for themselves. By making them autonomous beings capable of making adult decisions, we remove the parents' ability to, well, parent.
The next part says, "Don't force me to kiss or hug." Taken to it's eventual conclusion, will this include suggestions such as, "Grandma's here. Go give her a hug?" Will children be able to take legal action against their parents for "forcing" them to hug grandma every Christmas?
Then the last part: "I am learning about consent and your support on this will keep me safe for the rest of my life." All of us around here know the true intentions of those pushing affirmative consent. They're trying to make a legal contract for every single human interaction. If our society takes hug consent to the same place it took sexual consent, then we are in for a world of hurt. Also, hugging a relative during the holidays is not even in the same galaxy as sexual relations, and teaching a child that the two are the same will damage the child's emotional and psychological development far more than grandma's wet kisses.
Quote:Quote:
E.g., according to this view, if you tell your kid, "Go give uncle Bernie a hug" and he's shy about going over there because he doesn't know Uncle Bernie well, or he just thinks uncle Bernie is gross and doesn't want to get close to him, you shouldn't forcibly grab him and make him hug him, or spank him for refusing. The idea is, that's not the kind of hug that's going to help your kid's emotional development.
I agree that your above example represents terrible parenting, but I've never in my 32 years heard of anyone spanking their child for refusing to hug someone. Maybe it's happened before, but I don't think your example is realistic. Most commonly, parents say something to the effect of, "Go give Uncle Bernie a hug." If the kid runs off or shies away, most parents don't push their kid any further. They might tell the kid he hurt Uncle Bernie's feelings, but outright grounding or spanking the child would be extreme. This meme, at its core, and especially considering its source, is suggesting that saying, "Go give Uncle Bernie a hug" is a step too far.
Quote:Quote:
Now, you might tell your kid, "It's polite to give a hug" or "He might feel hurt if you don't hug him" but personally, I don't get bent out of shape if a young relative refuses to hug me, because they're just kids, and kids say and do all kinds of weird stuff that we'd consider rude if it came from an adult. Just like a kid is going to fall down as he's learning to walk, kids are going to commit social faux pas in the beginning stages of their social development.
I don't either, but grandparents and other people sometimes do, even if they should just let it go. As someone else mentioned, children are more likely to violate an adult's personal space than vice versa. This is why parents are necessary. They teach children boundaries and what behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable. Without those constraints, children are autonomous beings who can (and will) run around and do whatever the hell they want.
Quote:Quote:
The state compromises between the two views by having your back if what you're forcing your kid to do doesn't fall outside of what is culturally considered adequate parental care.
The state does not have your back. Government involvement in family issues almost always leads to net negative results. I know multiple people working in child welfare. They have had to remove children from safe homes then refused to return them because a background check revealed that daddy committed a minor crime 10 years ago. So then the kids are stuck with foster parents who are more concerned with getting paid than caring for the children. But I'm getting off topic and I could go on and on.
Quote:Quote:
Out of an abundance of caution (specifically, a desire to avoid costly litigation), a lot of adults are these days not giving other people's kids any physical affection at all.
For example, my mom is director of a shelter for (allegedly) abused women, and sometimes kids will run up to the employees and try to hug them. The employees are trained to refuse the hugs by moving their own arms outward to break the kid's hold on them. It doesn't matter if the kid misses his dad and is crying and upset about being uprooted from his home, and wants to be comforted; the policy is no hugging, or accepting hugs from, the residents' kids, period.
Libertarians would view that as unnecessary, because the kid has, by initiating the hug, indicated that it's a wanted hug. But the lawyers apparently feel otherwise. We are, after all, dealing with mothers who have already accused one person of abuse and might accuse another. One never knows what kind of frivolous or delusional allegations they might be capable of, and since the shelter employees are in a position of having to impose rules on the residents, that creates the potential for conflicts that might provoke vindictive, litigious behavior.
This is the issue. We have become so litigated that we walk on eggshells to avoid getting sued. This has resulted in the cold, anti-social, emotionless society that we currently live in. Innocent people get harmed, and the assholes who made the false accusations walk free. Continuing to give ground will result in the end of all human affection; that is, unless you sign a legal contract that outlines every physical activity you're about to do.
Quote:Quote:
It wouldn't surprise me if people's reluctance to give young people affection in many cases causes them to be unhappy or even develop psychological disorders. It might even encourage promiscuity, as women find that the only way they can get physical affection is through a sexual relationship, since our society tends to sexualize almost all forms of touching.
I've known a handful of women that were very cold and anti-hug. A friend would try to hug them and they'd push off. Every single one of those women was a slut. Every. Single. One. And they all claimed to be victims of rape (nobody was in prison for the alleged crimes, though...shocking). It was a small sample size, but their psychological problems manifested through a lack of...errrr...
repulsion to physical affection and an inability to form stable relationships. Pushing something like this will only create more delicate, cold, and emotionally unstable youth.