Girl power: What's in a kiss?

Last updated: 21/07/2016 16:06 by AoifeOCarroll to AoifeOCarroll's Blog
Filed under: MummyBloggers
 
Being a mother has never been easy; parents have always had to worry about things like keeping their children fed, healthy, and educated.
 
What I didn’t think they had to concern themselves with (until now) were the implications of showing affection to their sons and daughters.
 
In fact, thinking back on my own childhood, showing affection was not something parents gave much attention to at all.
 
Hugs and kisses were doled out fairly sparsely when I was young, so it seemed like a huge leap forward when my own children were born; showing affection became a far more relaxed affair.
 
I smothered my children with hugs and kisses at every opportunity, and even today, my 18-year-old thinks nothing of bending down to hug, not just me, but also his grandparents, and even his sister.
 
So it came as something of a shock the other day when I discovered that Instagram was alight with criticism of Victoria Beckham - not because of some fashion misstep but because she posted a photo of herself kissing her daughter on the lips.
 
Apparently, her cute picture captioned 'Kisses from mummy' for Harper’s 5th birthday has sparked a debate about the appropriateness of kissing children on the lips.
 
 
A photo posted by Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) on Jul 10, 2016 at 1:27am PDT
 
Once I had finished gathering my lower jaw up from the tiles, I wondered whether these people had heard about the nasty things happening in Syria, Orlando, Iraq and across the world, that they were so upset about a mother showing affection to her daughter.
 
Should we not be celebrating the fact that parents no longer feel that demonstrating their love for their offspring might be a show of weakness, or might make their children soft? Should we not be delighted that mothers and daughters can share special moments together in public like this? Apparently not.
 
Parenting is not easy, but we’ve been doing it for so long that you might think we would have progressed a little at this stage. It’s been quite a few millennia, after all.
 
Instead, it appears that we are still intent on pouncing on each other’s efforts to be good and loving parents by criticising a mother’s affection for her daughter.
 
I was never a fan of the Spice Girls, but I’m with Posh on this one.
 
Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.
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