First off, I wanted to mention that this is my first post, and that I’m still figuring out how to use many of the features here, so this post in itself is a bit of a learning experience.I am currently pregnant with my first child, and my due date is only about two weeks away. I am usually a very decisive person, and have worked with kids for many years, so most parenting topics that have come up for me have either had a very clear answer in my mind, or I easily do some research that helps me figure out what I view as the best decision for my child. (These decisions are often agreed upon or discussed very clearly with my partner as well, and we are almost always on the same page).However, there’s one topic that has been occurring to me recently that I’m not sure how to approach, partly because I’m worried that some odd events from my own childhood may be guiding my feelings on this more than my personal feelings about what would be best for my child.Basically, many family members have mentioned things about being so excited to get to give our little one kisses once they are born, whether that’s forehead kisses, nose kisses, etc. With the craziness of the pandemic, I have no problem expressing that we want to limit this as much as possible for the safety of our child, but it’s brought up some thoughts about my own actions with this. I picture myself giving my baby a kiss on the forehead or nose, but I’ve realized I have very weird feelings about kisses on the lips. I see many parents do this with their children regularly, and while I respect their personal choice in the matter, I’ve noticed that even the idea of seeing other people kiss their children on the lips makes me very uncomfortable in a way that I don’t completely understand. I feel like when children are in those early years and are so connected and attached to their parents, that this endearing action should be just that, endearing. But something about it just doesn’t sit right with me. (To clarify this is no judgement on other families, I am just trying to figure out how to approach this with my own child).I also want to mention that I am not sure how my partner feels about this, or if it is even something he would think about beforehand like this; it may be the kind of thing that just comes up along the way when a situation feels like it warrants that moment between parent and child. I definitely plan on discussing it at some point, even if that is after our child is born or starts growing up a bit, but I don’t want to start that conversation until I understand how I feel about it myself. I also would never want my personal feelings to take that special bond away from him if he felt that it was a normal action for them.I’m sure this is something that my own parents probably did with me when I was very young too, but I don’t have any specific memories of that. I do, however, have a few memories of other adults in my life requesting this when I was maybe a bit too old for it to be appropriate, and/or when the person or situation in general made me very uncomfortable as a child, feeling like I did not want it to happen, yet also feeling like I was the child and didn’t have much choice in the matter. It makes me wonder if those instances may be the only reason that this gesture makes me so uncomfortable. I also feel like it has been so normalized between many parents and their children, and I guess I’m trying to figure out if this is something that I would be depriving my child of if I am not able to get over my weird feelings about it to share that bond with my own child, or if my feelings about this topic are more common among parents than I realize. It has also crossed my mind that children base many of their actions on what they see in the world around them, and that as they grow to toddler age and such, they will not only see other kids around them giving kisses to their parents, but that they will more than likely see me and my partner regularly sharing a kiss as a show of affection and love; it may eventually become hard to explain to my little one why I can show love in that form to my partner, but not in the same way with them.I don’t know what is considered best with this when it comes to a child’s development, and I’m sure there’s many ways to approach it and many differing opinions on it. But the last thing I want is to transfer any bad feelings or emotions that I personally have about kisses, onto my child; obviously I want to teach consent and make sure my child knows as they grow up that what they do with their body is their own choice, I just don’t want the choices they make to be affected by things from my own childhood that they (hopefully) will never go through themselves. If this is something that should be a normalized childhood experience, then I want to do whatever it takes to normalize it for my child.If anyone has any opinions or advice to share on this, or any guidance on how I should approach my feelings, or how/when to approach a conversation with my partner about this, it would be greatly appreciated. This is one of the biggest pre-parenting thoughts that I’ve had that I truly do not know how to approach, and I want to do what’s best for my child in this situation, not just what seems best for myself when I know my feelings about it could be tainted from things that shouldn’t necessarily affect how I raise my child. Either way, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/3347d9r
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