Saturday morning dance party in the yoga studio.  C is doing her wild-child, hair-tossing dance to Lady Gaga, sashaying across the floor to the insistent beat of “Poker Face.”  A is arranging her stuffed animals in a corner, constructing a house for Lambie and Penguin out of yoga blocks.  After a few songs, I slip out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Almost immediately, A follows suit.

“Ugh— I had to leave,” she announces.  “There’s a song about… K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”  She carefully spells out the offending word.

I suppress a smile.  “Really? What?”

“It keeps going “I kissed a girl and I liked it”!” says A indignantly.  She makes the icky face she uses when coerced into sampling something green at dinner.

Oh dear.  My new Katy Perry craze may be fun for dancing, but is clearly inappropriate for the First Grade set.  Little ears have grown bigger of late, and now keenly hear every word sung, spoken or spelled aloud in our home.

“Yeah, I guess that’s not really a kid’s song,” I apologize.  “But— why don’t you like kissing?”

“Because it’s GROSS!”

“Even when Daddy or I kiss you?”

“ Well…” A considers this a moment.  “How about hugging?”

Later, at bedtime, I press further into the origins of her sudden disgust.  As I’d suspected, a boy in her class had teasingly sung the old classic: “X and Y, sitting in a tree…” Even though the song in question hadn’t (thankfully) referenced her, A had deduced that kissing was embarrassing, a bad word to be spelled aloud.  As with other recent dislikes that begin at school, she’s latched onto this one with the tenacity of a crab.

“MOMMY!” she warns, when I land a quick peck on her cheek.  After several such rejections, I re-train myself to hug her without making lip-contact.

At least C still relishes kissing with an enthusiasm that more than makes up for her sister’s denial.  My youngest has been known to plant huge, wet, French kisses on me and enjoys sucking on my cheek in a dangerously hickey-like fashion. I assume this behavior is a healthy manifestation of attachment and affection, a snuggly outgrowth of our 3 years spent nursing, rather than some expression of nascent sexuality.  But with C, anything is possible. And since children are sensual creatures, perhaps it’s a bit of both.

At what age does disgust merge with curiosity?  Or is curiosity already implicit in the disgust? I’ve talked (a few times) with the girls about the Birds and the Bees (“Facing The Facts of Life”).  I’m satisfied that A has positive regard for her body and a decent understanding of the mechanics of procreation. Sometime between age 6 and say, 10, I know her repulsion towards kissing will shift into genuine interest.  If I want to be a supportive mother during this transition, I need to remember my own conflicted history…

My first kiss was a brief, unremarkable peck during a game of fifth grade Truth or Dare.  Tucker Wentworth had pouty lips and an adorable mop of curly hair prompting the nickname “Brillo,” but I remained unmoved by the experience.  It didn’t change me.  I wasn’t even sure it had happened.

My second kiss—in sixth grade— was another story.   I’d moved to a new school in a new state, and managed to be invited to a popular-crowd, boy-girl dance party at The Little Red Schoolhouse.  Parent chaperones chatted in the foyer while boys in parachute pants jumped off the miniature desks to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

In the midst of the chaos, Rick Tagliatelli maneuvered me into the bathroom.  There, by the preschool-sized sinks, with his best buddy Jason Shepherd as witness, Rick placed his hands on my hips, drew me close, and kissed me several times with warm lips.  He knew exactly what to do.  Rumor had it Rick was actually 13— not 11 or 12 like the rest of us.

Anticipation had been building for weeks, discussed in notes passed back and forth in Social Studies.  “Will you kiss Rick at the dance party?  Check one:

YES ___ NO____ MAYBE___ “

My answer had always been MAYBE, but after the party I crossed into new territory, the early wonderland of K-I-S-S-I-N-G.  I was a girl who’d said YES.  The once-hazy activity was now concrete— a meeting of flesh, a viable option.

That spring, Nat Grubner slow-danced me behind the boiler in Stephanie Richards’ basement and proceeded to grope my mouth with his tongue while Madonna crooned “Crazy For You.”  I loved that song, and I thought I loved Nat, but it was, to quote my daughter, kind of gross.

“Heard you got some tongue sushi at Stephanie’s party on Friday!” laughed Jay Wilder, the coolest boy in the sixth grade.  He was standing on the four-square court surrounded by his athletic gang of boys, all hooting and hollering as they spiked the red ball.  I hung my head and skulked away, trying to disappear into the blacktop.

Last night, A told me it was the tongue that bothered her most about kissing.  We figured out how to do a dry lip-press that avoided all wetness.  This, she said, would be tolerable.

 

 

 

Tags:   honesty · Katy Perry · kissing · Lady Gaga · Parenting · Sexuality1 Comment