When we visited cousins in Massachusetts, at the end of an evening, the two young daughters made the rounds of perhaps a dozen family and a few friends. Gave each of us a hug and kiss goodnight, which struck D as odd, although he took it kindly. Hit me as both familiar and bizarre at the same moment.
As a small child, I too, had to hug and kiss everyone present when I headed off to bed. With my mother's family, I actually enjoyed the ritual. With my father's family, it varied. With people new to me, I felt very coerced. Had to do the same thing at home just with brothers and parents, each one got a good-night hug and kiss, never given as optional. Eventually, stopping it, as a teenager, took some stubbornness, and willingness to endure the recriminations.
Is this something that happens in other families? None of our friends' kids do this. Is it a French thing? I seem to recall this hinted at in some French movies. Is it Canadian? Irish? Typical of just my kin?
Reminds me of the ends of sports games, when teams line up and slap each other's hands. I loved doing that at the ends of roller derby, as both teams rolled past the spectators, hands out for a mass high five.
How weird is this?
7 comments:
I was always obliged to kiss my parents before I went to bed, but never anyone else. In France, it is expected that you kiss someone you know at the first and last meetings of the day. The number of kisses depends on your tradition and what is fashionable. My neighbours [the female ones of course :) ] expect four, which can take a long time when 15 to 20 people [or more] get together. Our pizza owner gives us two. [The little girl who used to live next door just wanted to keep on kissing!!] People you do not know too well you simply shake hands with.
That's how it is in our part of France.
Tom
French culture, filtered through Canada. And my cousin's wife is very French as well. That probably is the source, thanks.
At least they didn't have to sing good-night, like those poor von Trapp children in the "Sound of Music"!
In my father's Sicilian family, everyone kissed, which I experienced as nice and loving (not that the family members were always nice and loving to one another!)---except for my uncle who gave the most disgusting sloppy kisses.
A friend of mine whose grandparents came from Germany said her relatives never touched at all when they visited. She decided in high school to initiate hand shaking! After a bit of a shock, it was adopted by all.
Anyway, the important thing, it seems to me, is that the kids feel they have some *choice*, some out, if they don't feel safe, or if they just feel someone's icky.
It always comes down (for me) to self-determination.
Fresca,
Amen to the opt-out. Kids, though, often are not given sufficient encouragement to protect themselves, and cultural expectations trump a child's instincts and preferences and dignity. Mostly, I really loved the extra hugs and kisses.
Yes, in my mother's side of the family, who come from French Canadians, what you describe is common. On my father's side of the family (English Canadian) they have been/are too few in number to know.
Yes, it is normal for French kids, even quite big ones and even boys to men, which has always made Tom a bit uncomfortable, to hold out their faces for a kiss, even to strangers who are with the adults in their families. With any who are reluctant I've always been very clear it's not compulsory as far as I'm concerned, but generally it doesn't seem to be objected to. But it's a peck kiss, not a hug, and I think that is an important difference.
Formalised greetings like this do seem to me to ease interactions and resolve awkwardness between generations, even if they don't solve all social problems, and even though the whole greeting ritual sometimes gets a bit laborious. The British uncertainty and nonchalance greeting people seems odd now, though sometimes the routine kiss on both cheeks I'm accustomed to delivering is received as either affected ('ooh, very French!') and/or formal with Anglos who either aren't used to anything or expect a warmer and more thorough embrace.
Thank you all, I figured I'd get some good information from all you who here-read. Definitely the French Canadian thing. I forget this applies on my mother's side as well, since they tended to identify as Irish. But Granny grew up in a French speaking family, or at least bi-lingual.
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