41: Kissing Our Children On The Lips

Rosie: [00:00:00] I 

Roula: can see how beautiful your eyes are since you shaved your head 

Rosie: and 

Roula: you're tanned. Am I? 

Rosie: Yeah, interesting. I've been out in the sunshine. All right, 

Roula: Rosie, it's your 

Rosie: turn. Okay, I got a controversial one. This is actually controversial and I think it's good because I think you and I can have a very open, honest conversation.

Knowing that we're at a safe space, but I think this would cause heated arguments between people in society. So I'm not a parent. So I'm coming at this as an outsider. Huh. Welcome to the 

Roula: Rosie And Rula Show. Marhaba. G'day. Should you 

Rosie: kiss your children on the lips?[00:01:00]

Is that okay? That's right. 

Roula: No.

The short answer? Mm. This is how you give your kids a herpes. A herpes? It's so unhealthy. You kiss, you kiss. And if I kiss my kids on the lips,

then is it normal to kiss on the lips? It's so not good in hygienic way. But also why? 

Rosie: Okay, 

Roula: let's unpack that. 

Rosie: Okay, help me. First you're talking about herpes and hygiene. It's so unhealthy. But isn't the risk the same when you're kissing your husband? You kiss your husband, right? 

Roula: Oh. But because I kiss my husband, I'm taking the risk.

I should not kiss my kids on their lips and take the risk. 

Rosie: Why? 

Roula: Because it's unnecessary. [00:02:00] I mean, kissing in general is not a very healthy thing to do, you know? So what was the 

Rosie: other thing you were saying? Because you, you were going to start talking about something else. 

Roula: Yes, because I mean, when we kiss someone on the lips, we're having, uh, intimate and sexual feelings.

You know, I don't see my, my girlfriend, my best friend, I hug her, kiss her on the lips. I don't, because I do this in my intimate relationship and my children are not my intimate relationship. Well, I mean, it's intimate in a different 

Rosie: way, right? It's not. Yeah. It. I, I have issue with it. Okay. I, there's family friends who kiss their kids on the lips.

I don't know if they still do it, but when their kids were even still 8, still, still doing it. And I just thought, I feel very uncomfortable right now. [00:03:00] Are you teaching, are you teaching your child? That it is safe and okay to kiss an adult on the lips. That's essentially what you're doing. 

Roula: Because what does it mean kissing an adult on the lips?

Rosie: Well, again, I think kissing is, it's sexualized, whether or not that's right. It is. It is a very intimate thing to do. It's very sensual. And doing it on the lips is very, very intimate. I don't, I can't even explain it because we kiss each other of the cheek, right? And that's okay. That's not sexual. We do that with our kids and there's, there's no issue.

But when I think about you're teaching a child it's okay to kiss an adult on the lips. What if there's a sexual predator and that child doesn't come to you because, hey, mom and dad do it. It's, it's normal. It's safe. Mommy and daddy do it. 

Roula: That's a very good point. [00:04:00] Teach them the boundaries of their contact, the physical contact.

As you know, it's like kissing on the lips is romantic. 

Rosie: Yes, that's the word. It's 

Roula: always been. And it's not like we don't have a romantic relationship. We must not have a romantic relationship with our children. So the boundaries between us parents and our children is also the physical contact. I've seen my ex when I first met his family here in the Netherlands.

The very first thing that's, that's, I was like, what? When we went to meet them, I went to meet them for the very first time because they live far, they haven't seen him for quite some time. And then they, he kissed his mom on her lips. That was the very first time for me in my entire life [00:05:00] that I saw a child kissing a parent on the lips.

Rosie: Wow. 

Roula: And it, it, I mean, it didn't, it looked very normal. This is something they did all their lives. It has nothing, nothing wrong with it and, and how their family is put together. 

Rosie: So it wasn't sexual in that context, right? 

Roula: At all, at all. And yet, he never kissed our kids on the lips, 

Rosie: and I never kissed our kids on the lips.

It's an interesting social construct, because we're always sort of pushing back, you and I, on these societal expectations and rules and etiquette. So were we right in saying that kissing on the lips is romantic, or have we just been conditioned to think that? Like, where do you draw the line?

Roula: Yeah. Um, this is where society and culture play a good role. Yes, we, you and I, we want to push [00:06:00] boundaries. We want to challenge societal norms, but not the ethical. There, there is some ethic in our behavior, ethical behaviors. We don't push on that. This keep people safe and protect 

Rosie: us. Right. It is a matter of safety because when you're kissing someone, you're invading their personal space.

And if you compared that to touch, I think most people, well, I hope everybody would say no, you don't, you're not touching your kid's genitals. I mean, well, they're little, you're washing them, whatever. Whatever the equivalent is, 

Roula: Rubbing your genitals together. 

Rosie: Like, what the

Roula: fuck? No! You know, even children, Even children at school when they're little, They already know that kissing on the lips means you're in love.

Rosie: Right. Right. I'm going to embarrass myself here. I just, I just, I just remembered [00:07:00]this. You're being authentic. I am being authentic. I'm sharing my experiences. Maybe someone will feel less alone. I would have been, I'm trying to think how old I would have been, maybe seven, maybe younger. You know, you see things on the TV.

You see TV shows and couples are making out and using their tongue and you know, all the things. And I was curious. So one time, you know, I used to kiss mom and dad on the cheek. You're getting hot and flustered. Me too. Used to kiss mom and dad on the cheek. Good night. Well, one night I full on just went to snog my mom because I was curious and she just went, Oh, like, no, you do not do that.

That was a hard boundary. And I went, Oh. Okay, but like, for me as a child, I was very innocent. People on TV are doing it like, Oh, what is that? What is, what does that feel like? So I guess I learnt, Oh, that's not [00:08:00] okay. But just as kids whose parents let them kiss them on the lips, they're learning, Oh, That's okay.

Roula: Yeah. This brings me to a similar, but a little bit different, you know, when my eldest daughter was little, my parental experience was really small. And when I heard in her class that a little boy. showed his weenie to the other girl. Yeah. I was like, what the fuck? What is this boy watching? How was he raised?

You know, all these judgmental things. I had no clue at that time that it's totally natural to Share this information between children, you know, it's just an anatomical information and children. Yes. Oh, I have this. You have that. Right. But my mind went into like very bad situation. Yes. Yeah. And I'm embarrassed by that.

I'm embarrassed that I was so [00:09:00] ignorant back then. And knowing that and knowing boys, because now with my boy, I know much, much more, but knowing about boys. And, yeah, and then, of course, when my son, um, would by mistake kiss a friend at her birthday on her lips, he would blush, he knows it's, this is romance, but I'm not in love with her.

And I don't want her to think Right, 

Rosie: right. Yeah. I don't know what the, what the right answer is here. I think it's just something for people to ponder because when I see it, I have issue, but is it my place? Perhaps if I see it happening in public, to step in and say something. Well, if the child is, I don't know if they're looking sad, like, how do you know whether to stop it?

I don't know. 

Roula: There may be, there must be more signs than this. 

Rosie: You'd think so. 

Roula: There are a [00:10:00] lot of families that are used to kiss their children and the kids they kiss their parents on the lips and they're happy, they're healthy, they're good parents, they're good children. No, it doesn't mean there is abuse.

The signs of abuse would be much more broader than this. And I don't think we know them. This is another thing to educate ourselves, but not on our podcast because this is not the place to do so. We ended up down 

Rosie: a rabbit hole. This is a deep topic, but I'm glad we spoke about it because I'm really asking myself some questions.

Like, where do these beliefs come from? Where do you draw the line? And is me saying you shouldn't kiss kids on the lips, is that just me sexualizing children? 

Roula: Protecting them. Maybe more protecting them. 

Rosie: Mmm. 

Roula: Protecting them. 

Rosie: That's how I see it, yeah. 

Roula: Also from germs and bacteria because we have a lot of germs and bacteria.

It's disgusting. Disgusting! Unless you wash your mouth with soup after dinner. What are your [00:11:00] thoughts? 

Rosie: Be respectful in your opinions. We're here to listen and learn. We're not here to spread fear and hate.

Roula: Amen. Do that.

Rosie: All right. See you in the next one. Bye. Bye. If you got a kick out of our conversation today, can you pretty please hit the follow button and share it with another opinionated person? This is the easiest way for you to support the show. It also gives Rula and I the motivation to keep going. I have to 

Roula: stop you there.

Stop telling people what to do. If they like to follow the show and share it, it's totally up to them. Guys, please, can you help us follow and share the show? Thank you so much. 

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