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Memories of Kind Parental Touch Lead to A Lifetime of Pleasure
As parents, each of us wants to leave our child with a legacy--important
knowledge, good values, something powerful and positive, something
of ourselves which will last in the child, which will be our
gift to them, when we are gone from this earth. This is a
worthy undertaking. But it can be risky and make us
feel like failures, because kids, it turns out, actually are impossible
to control.
We struggle, as our kids mature, with this notion of legacy.
Some of us get caught up in the materialism of the world and are
convinced that we won't be able to leave our children enough goodies,
as we work to pay our own bills and worry about retirement.
Many times, we sacrifice time, money, and peace of mind for them:
we want them to do better than we did in the world.
We worry about them, at every turn, and invest in important things
like private tutoring for difficult subjects, or getting up early
to drive them to a better school than the one they could get to
easily and without our help. We sit in an old car drinking
coffee, at 5AM every weekday morning, so they can go to hockey practice.
We worry about their friends. We work hard to talk to
them about what we think are important values, and have to face
their wrath and scorn. Jeez, Mom, Don't tell me that.
Do you think I'm stupid? I'm not stupid, Mom.
At times, we despair, because our kids grow up and seem to have
such different values than the ones we treasure. The kid whose parents
took her to the symphony becomes mad for rap music. The father who
got up at 5AM to drive his kid to the best school in the city sees
his child crash and burn academically in his freshman year.
Parents who home-schooled their daughter awake one day to see her
become a multiply-pierced, atheistic, grungy, college dropout.
Having invested so much in our vision of how their future will turn
out, it is so hard not to be scared or disappointed as we watch
them navigate through the waters of life.
As a sex therapist and a psychologist, and as a parent, as I watch
and experience these struggles with my patients (and in my life
too), what always strikes me is that one of the most critical legacies
we can leave our kids is the most simple: a childhood full
of appropriately loving touch. The benefits of receiving good touch
are lifelong and profound.
Children who are appropriately and lovingly touched will feel profoundly
loved; they will feel they deserve only good things; they will grow
up to experience their body as attractive; they will feel lovable;
they will grow up to be able to self soothe; their self esteem will
be higher; they will feel safe in the world; and they will feel
comfortable expressing their own loving feelings to others through
touching. Memories of good parental touch last every minute
of a child's life, and these visceral, tactile memories of being
so cared for can be called up during times of loneliness, stress,
or illness.
The link our children will make between love and safe, appropriate,
caring touch teaches the most important lesson about sex. They learn
that touch is important. That touching is meant to be between people
who are emotionally attached to each other. Our tender touches will
make them less likely to have mindless, soulless sex (if that's
what you can call back-of-the-bus oral sex) with people who are
only out to use them. And conversely, the fact that our children
link love, touch, kindness, and safety will provide a foundation
which will allow them later to experience deep sexual pleasure in
an emotionally intimate relationship.
Good touch does not get any respect in America, and I don't really
know why. It doesn't get talked about in the newspaper, it
doesn't get Googled much, and it doesn't get discussed in school
(except all the emphasis on not letting strangers touch you, and
keeping your hands to yourself in class).
While you can take courses in massage, (even in erotic massage.),
there aren't any courses to teach you how to touch your children
as they go through different developmental phases and ages. Yet
what could be a better legacy to leave your kids? The simple pleasure
of routinely being gently bathed, splashing and having
water play, then being tucked into bed, hugged and kissed by a mother
or a father is more powerful than a million dollar inheritance.
If you were lucky enough to have had parents who touched you a
lot when you were growing up, then caressing your own children will
seem easy and natural.
My own memories of good times with my parents are heavily weighted
to times of verbal and physical affection, and they are vivid.
My mother generously linked verbal praise and touch.
I recall standing in my house in Pittsburgh, Pa., as a teenager,
wearing a new pale blue flocked dress which set off my green eyes.
I was preparing to go out on a date. My mom came up, faced me, took
me in her arms, hugged me, and said, "Oh, my angel child."+
My mom is dead, yet that 40+ year old memory still vibrates with
feeling. And I always feel beautiful in that color. My father
expressed love more by touch than by words. He and I had a
ritual of back scratching which lasted throughout our lives. He
woke me up for school by scratching my back for years and years.
One of my last memories of him, when he was dying of cancer, is
lying next to him in bed and scratching his back. The association
of back-scratching with love and pleasure and connection permeates
my life, and is now a part of my relationship with spouse, friends,
and my kids.
If you weren't lucky enough to have had good touch from your parents
when you were growing up, then learning to touch your own children
is going to be more of a struggle, but it can be done. If
you came from a neglectful or abusive home, it can be painful to
get in touch with what you didn't have. But it can be a growth
point, a way of opening yourself up to feeling more. For starters,
consider getting a regular massage yourself, so that you begin to
link non-sexual touch and pleasure. Another great way to become
comfortable being more affectionate is to watch other parents with
their children at playgrounds, on the street, or on vacation.
Make mental and written notes of how the parents expressed their
affection, and begin to imagine what this would look like in your
own family.
Then, begin to touch in your own family. Think about ways
to reach out physically, and pick one which doesn't intimidate you.
Handholding, for instance. Then just try it. It might feel
awkward, but once you give the message that it's ok to touch, your
kids will reach out to touch you. And even if it feels awkward
at first, feel good about yourself for persevering, because giving
your kids the gift of loving touch is the best legacy there is.
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