The controversy about kissing the mouth of one's children
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousFirst of all it is not a kiss on the mouth, as I have often read, but On the mouth. "Kiss in the mouth" gives that awkward and oversized sense that with a child, our son, just doesn't fit. Starting from this, it is okay to kiss the our babies on the lips?
According to my experience, yes and a thousand times yes, until age and them modesty they allow it. Yes, modesty. Because if our six-year-old just doesn't like it for a very personal matter, I don't see the reason why we have to "force" him a kiss on the mouth, nor why - we Italian mothers - we should resent his "refusal". Having said that, yesand mom and dad find nothing wrong with it and the little son feels gratified, kisses on that beautiful little mouth are welcome.
There are many debates online about whether or not it was appropriate to kiss your children on the mouth, on pain of their future "confusionAbout sexual orientations, who kisses who, who I am and where I come from. They seem a bit excessive to me.
Obviously, if they come from expert sources and if they have their own logical foundation, all the advice is welcome. And then it's up to us parents, immersed body and soul in our family background, in the context in which we live and, let's not forget, in the personality of our child, decide what is right and what is not. Kisses on the mouth included.
My mother always gave me kisses on the lips, from here I grew up with the idea that it is an innocent and natural gesture, light years away from any form of perversity. Those kisses with age have simply faded away. And I still see nothing wrong with it and for this reason I do it, if it happens, even with my children.
But, in short, is it right or not? Beyond any single experience, I don't believe there is an absolute truth. Overcoming those horrifying theories that see kisses on the mouth as a good opportunity for some virus to sneak into the little body without the fault of the child (not even we had the plague), I consider the kiss on the mouth like a hug or a caress. If they offer me their mouths instead of cheeks, I give them a kiss more than willingly (inside and outside the house). And it is equally true that this thing now comes more spontaneous with the 2-year-old than with that of (almost) 6.
And here is the second key word after modesty: spontaneity. With both I had this "custom" in the most natural way possible and, if with the first it has (already) gone a bit into oblivion with the same naturalness, the second is still in the phase of "mom is all for me". And it is absolutely not true that they went looking for this "form" of greeting with anyone, not even with grandparents.
NO TO THE KISS ON THE MOUTH - But it is true that there are considerable opinions on the matter which would define a clear age line beyond which it would be good to stop with this story. If in the very first years the kiss on the mouth is a healthy gesture of affection and is experienced as such by the child, from 4/5 years one enters the phase called "Oedipal development“, In which relationships reach an erotic sphere, in particular in the relationship between son and mother and between daughter and father. Many therefore argue that the gesture of kissing on the mouth could at that point embarrass or create sexual fantasies. Furthermore, precisely because the child sees kissing on the mouth as a natural gesture, he may tend to replicate it with others.
Against kisses on the mouth of one's children thunders Charlotte Reznick, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Los Angeles, according to whom it is malignant gestures which, when they cease, will create confusion on fantasies due to the interruption of a gesture that was taken for granted and, above all, as healthy and pure.
In short, what is true is that there are myriad ways of showing affection to our children. If it makes you uncomfortable or you don't do it naturally, there is no reason why you should kiss them on the mouth. Remember that they experience any form of difficulty you experience and any kind of feeling or emotion they experience exactly as you are able to convey it. But a kiss, that of pure affection, must never be missing.
Germana Carillo
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