The Huggy Generation

I don't know on that, cjane and others. I see it as a fad that will fade. I'd like to see real hugs freely given over time, but not a routine mode.

This topic reminds me of Chubby Hugs from Get Fuzzy (he's on the right, hugging the Mac Mank McManx character):

Okay. It's not about Aunt Deborah and Pamper's Points, right?

I've always loved hugs. My family hugged and kissed every day, which was one of the very few things I actually liked about them.

I hug and kiss my husband at practically every greeting and parting; I think I'm afraid he'll die before the next time I see him, and I want him to remember how much I love him. (I've had many deaths in my immediate family.) He seems to like this hugging/kissing bit as much as I do.

Still I know there are many people who are not comfortable with hugs, at all. I hold out my arms if I want to hug people. If they back off or don't respond, I don't hug them.

Hugs should be a personal choice, not an obligation.

Unless, of course, you're hugging your pet. Then they're required to hug back (and they usually do!)

in the 70's we had this guy

Wow, lotsa discussion.

Yeah, I get the non-hugginess too. I kind of default to non-hugginess and have to jar myself out of it. Deaf culture is all hugs all the time, and has been forever (not a faddish thing). I've joked before that a typical greeting goes something like: "You look familiar [much discussion of how we might know each other ending up with] oh that's right, Gillian introduced us at the Deaf Expo in 2003 [and we talked for three minutes at the time], great to see you again!!! [big hug]."

I hug Deaf people I actually know when I meet them and again when I say goodbye.

I sometimes put out "hearing" vibes and people don't hug, and then I remember and go ahead and hug them and then hugginess resumes. Deaf people know that hearing culture isn't nearly as huggy and wait for the signals, especially from people like me that are bi-cultural. If I'm not paying attention, I evidently give "don't hug" signals, though I like hugs in general. Not always. There's this one guy who is hard-of-hearing and doesn't sign but knows some aspects of Deaf culture and knows that hugging is one and so hugs me every time he sees me even though I'm giving out "don't hug" signals galore. (He just doesn't do it right. Hard to explain.)

Most of the time it's nice though, with anyone, male or female.

When I was very little I think my family was huggy but as I got to teenage years, really not. I was a TERRIBLE hugger at first (like, early college when people were huggy, and then when I got involved in the deaf community and started that huggapalooza). Then I got used to it.

I definitely pay attention to signals and don't hug people who don't want to be hugged.

One thing I really like about this current phenomenon and don't remember seeing in my early-college days, for example, is boys/ men hugging each other. That's a nice development I think, doesn't have to be universal, as long as it's seen as normal.

Hey, Roger, do you remember that incident? I know I introduced you, but I already felt clunky/stupid..

Yeah; weird stuff, all that hugging. But, whatever.

My guess is that the hugs get real interesting around the age of 14 and by the age of 17 or so, become the highlight of many of the guys' days.

Cycloptichorn

But, what is the message of the hug? Glad to see you? I am a demonstrative person? My body odor does not stink? Let me show you how much heat I generate? I will treat you like my best friend? I am not a cold fish?

Too many potential mixed signals for a hug to be confusing to both hugger and huggee, I believe.

I suspect that the hugs of school also is sending the message that the culture of the school is inclusiveness, not exclusiveness; however, there seems to be some concern in some schools that the hug might be misused by a few to be obnoxious.

I would prefer hugs to be defined as a feeble attempt to appear popular amongst one's peers. I suspect it is all about the hugger, not the huggee.

Sure, I remember. Even better, I remember the later trip when I had the large pasta pot unpacked and delivered. As I drove off you sang out "Thanks for bringing the Pot!" That was D&D's neighborhood, so the neighbors were pretty accepting.

or, when thinking about the days events, their nights.

exactly

Wow, hugging must be fraught with danger to generate so much con-TRAW-vur-see.

having my first cuppa and thinking...

A measure of how rapidly the ritual is spreading is that some students complain of peer pressure to hug to fit in. And schools from Hillsdale, N.J., to Bend, Ore., wary in a litigious era about sexual harassment or improper touching " or citing hallway clogging and late arrivals to class " have banned hugging or imposed a three-second rule.

***

“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.

***

Amy Heaton, a freshman at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Md., said casual social hugging seemed disingenuous to her. “Hugging is more common in my opinion in people who act like friends,” she said. “It’s like air-kissing. It’s really superficial.”


Weird or peculiar...the kiss of death for teens.

Of course this would never apply to the children of anyone on this forum, since since they are being raised to be thoughtful in word and deed But, shocking as it may seem, there are kids in grade school, high school, who just aren't, and never will be, popular among their peers.

I'm betting there is a definate peeking order, hierarchy of getting/giving hugs.
The kids who in any circumstances would be popular I'm sure are saying hugs are a positive thing....but what about those who, as in every generation of student, is left out, or given the humiliating "mercy hug"?

The kids interviewed above all seem articulate, for a teenager. What about the kids who would express they did/didn't particularly care for hugs, but wished they would get a few here and there so they didn't look glaringly like the odd man out?

Adults may look and see all kids hugging, but adults, even though they've been there, have become like Wendy in Peter Pan saying "I can't fly anymore Peter, you see, I've grown up" For the parents who watch these hugathons, I'd be interested in what you would see if you watched carefully every day for a week or 2. Are there the same few kids that are always on the outside of the hug ring, maybe occassionally let in (but carefully so the top of the heap doesn't see) to the hugging with a group mid range in the heirarchy?

When I was in school, I was what I would consider "the lower middle class" as far as popularity. Such a position was fraught with danger.
You never even thought about being the top of the heap. You had your 2 or 3 close friends you could really talk to, and they could talk to you. You were within the range of acceptability where you didn't get a huge amount of unwarranted grief (every teenager gets some I'd imagine). If you looked to the left, you could see the middle-middle class popular kids, and if you leaned past them and looked, you could see the upper middle class popular kids. They were beyond your reach too, but, by being comfortable enough to know your middle middle class people and not catch grief, you could dream.

But being lower middle class popular, when you looked to your right, you'd see the upper lower class popular, who were always a little too close for comfort. You knew that one false move could push you off your small lower middle class ledge, and into the abyss of those who were ignored and/or tormented for being alive.

If I was in that I'm sure still existing catagory today, I'd be looking for every opportunity to get my requisite number of hugs in per day, from people my equal or a little above, but avoiding the right side people, for fear of being associated with them.

I wouldn't want the hugs, would think they were silly, but wouldn't commit social suicide and be doomed to hanging around with Mary Ann Schlump, who had snails on the side on her house.

That's exactly what could have happened to my good friend Helen. She was a fellow lower middle class, bordering on middle middle class. I liked Helen, and there was the extra added attraction of her being a shade higher up.

Mary Ann (who had snails on the side of her house) had given out invitations to a birthday party to maybe a dozen girls, including Helen. You guessed it, Helen was the only one who showed up. Helen told me there was enough food there to feed 20 people, and Mary Ann's mother kept anxiously running in and out to see if Helen needed any more lemonade. Mary Ann and Helen spent a couple of hours watching the snails, then Helen went home. Helen told me about this later, knowing I wouldn't blab the story to anyone else, threatening her position.

If it was today, I'd hug Helen, Helen would hug me. No way would I get caught by others hugging Mary Ann. As wrong as that may seem, no way did I want to spend the next 2 or 3 years watching snails. I just wouldn't have had the skills to climb out of that fall, since I was lower middle class popular.

And yes, I do believe that today the daily struggle to maintain your place is just as hard.

this story would make a great short film, animated in the style of coraline or the corpse bride

With David and Amy Sedaris in the roles of lead snails.

My thoughts too!! I am repeating myself, the article was about kids basically.
I don't see my child hugging the entire school, only her friends.

I think hugging will have become mandatory if it winds up as one of the criteria to diagnosis Asperger's Syndrome (e.g., does not hug).

Don't understand your comment.

Hey ho!

<backs off the thread lalalalala>

one does not to understand a foofie.

one but tolerates a foofie...

(hugs)