Last night at bedtime my son wanted to give me a kiss on the lips. He grabbed my face and dove in, lips pursed, a maniacal expression on his face.

“No way!” I screeched in alarm, turning my face away and pinning down his octopus hands.

“Why not, mommy?” He gave me his best Cute Puppy Dog Look. “People kiss on the lips. They do.”

“Because for one thing I have a cold and I don’t want you to get it and for another thing, we are not kiss-on-the-mouth people,” I say, feeling pretty darn good about this explanation. “Now lie down and go to sleep.”

He put his head down on the pillow but popped right back up and exclaimed, “But I really want to kiss you on the lips. I just want to. I do.” This accompanied by a little tilt and nod of the head with an earnest expression on his face, always a sure-fire combo that typically gets him whatever he wants.

This night, though, I wasn’t budging. Normally I would let him give me a little peck on the mouth to satisfy his stubborn nature, but there was no way I was going to infect him and then spend the next 5 days suffering with Sick Kid. Sick Mommy taking care of Well Kid is bad enough but Sick Mommy taking care of Sick Kid is unbearable. Any mom will tell you that.

We went through this kissing phase last year, where for several weeks he would insist on kissing both me and my husband on the lips. We indulged him because there was really no reason not to and because he was insistent and because it was easier to accept a quick smooch than to try to reason with a preschooler.

“Kissing on the mouth is for adults,” I told him repeatedly, trying to reason with a preschooler.

“But Rohan at school kisses his mommy on the lips,” my son argued.

“Well,” I backtrack quickly. “Some people kiss on the lips but we don’t do that.”

I suppose I should be grateful that my son still loves me enough to want to give me hugs and kisses. I’m sure when he gets to be 10 or so, he won’t want to have anything to do with me. Still, I just can’t bring myself to kiss him on the lips. First off, kids are mini germ factories. They put strange things in their mouths, they don’t wash very well, they gather up bacteria like nobody’s business. Secondly, it just reminds me of having to kiss my grandmother on the lips. Yes, she was a Lip Kisser. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved my grandmother, but that just didn’t extend to kissing on the lips. I don’t think I even liked kissing her on the cheek.

Thankfully, my son does not pursue the line of questioning about why we are Cheek Kissers and not Lip Kissers. That would lead to an entirely uncomfortable discussion about bodily boundaries and appropriate touching that I am just not ready to get into.

What about your family? Are you Lip Kissers or Cheek Kissers? How have you handled your young child’s questions about kissing?

Last 5 posts by OrganizerMom

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