Time in my Brain

Love, Locks, Laughter, Words, & Breath:

karnythia:

luaunomi:

lynwoodd:

caffrine:

I don’t own my child’s body

(CNN) — My daughter occasionally goes on a hugging and kissing strike.

She’s 4. Her parents could get a hug or a kiss, but many people who know her cannot, at least right now. And I won’t make…

Said some of this stuff not too long ago when that gif of the girl pushing the boy off of her was making the tumblr rounds.  If I have kids, I won’t make them do this, which will be all the more harder because in my family (and I think to some degree in southern AfAm culture) it’s so expected that you will hug and kiss and properly greet family.  One of my cousins caught a lot of static from our older relatives because her son wasn’t comfortable going over to just anybody and hugging them. That was when I first began to wonder about this concept of forcing children.  The look on his face as he tried to squirm out of my mother’s grip was just… it was kinda heartbreaking.

We teach kids as much by what we don’t do or say as what we do or say AND the things we force them to do.  You can assume it’s expressing one thing, but we have to be aware of the things that we may not expect these things to teach them.