A few years ago the bumper sticker of choice said, “have you hugged your kid today?”
Apparently we are going to have change the bumper sticker to read, “have you hugged your aging loved one today?”
Our news media are telling us that the amount of physical contact between adults is low, and that fares poorly for the health and happiness of the baby boom generation. Most of us understand and appreciate the need for hugs to help our children and grandchildren.
I am not sure that we have the same insights into the value of physical contact for their grandparents.
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Hugging brings us to the heart of bonding and attachment. We bond with our children when we rush out and cuddle them, protect them and reassure them of the safety of the world in which they find themselves. Attachment is when our children reach out to us, when they are asking for that same reassurance, but on their terms.
The beauty of the hug is that it transcends both bonding and attachment. I reach out and hug my child and reassure her that her world is safe and secure. She hugs me back and says, “wow, this is really a safe place, and I like you too.”
Children who are raised in homes where either bonding or attachment is at risk have trouble relating to their communities when they become adults.
Overprotective parents, who bond but do not let their children attach, deprive their children of the opportunity to learn how to reach out to their communities. Their children at no time feel safe and secure when their parents are not around and, as adults, they are constantly in search of someone to look after them, to protect them, to reduce their anxieties. They do not know how to contribute to the well being of other people.
Children who have not been bonded by their parents never learn the value of their own self worth. They feel that they must always please other people. As adults
they might get depressed, withdraw into themselves and not get the
help they need to re-engage with the community.
Over the past hundred years or so we have done a good job of helping our aging populations keep their senses intact. We have improved eye care with better glasses and cataract surgery. We have made better hearing aids and we have made them more available to those who are getting older.
Our aging parents are better off than were their grandparents who came before them. We only have to improve one more of our personal senses to complete the picture to ensure that everyone is relating to their communities, and that is the sense of touching.
Unfortunately getting people to touch each other, to give each other hugs, is difficult.
I look forward to the day when two older gentlemen give each other a solid hug before they sit down to their early morning rituals on coffee row. All of us will be healthier for it.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor, living and working in west-central Saskatchewan who has taught social work for two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
