Teenage Hugging
Making the daily trip to pick up my son from middle school, I’ve often felt like a cultural anthropologist, observing various strange rituals among the tribal teens. (Of course, back in the day, I belonged to a tribe that was equally enigmatic to the older generation. It’s just that I could understand the behaviors as a participant.)
Today The New York Times corroborated one of my observations in an article about teenage hugging. For the past few weeks, while waiting in the circle drive, I’ve thought, is it just me? Am I seeing things? They hug like they haven’t seen each other for months.
Parents, who grew up in a generation more likely to use the handshake, the low-five or the high-five, are often baffled by the close physical contact. “It’s a wordless custom, from what I’ve observed,” wrote Beth J. Harpaz, the mother of two boys, 11 and 16, and a parenting columnist for The Associated Press, in a new book, “13 Is the New 18.”
“And there doesn’t seem to be any other overt way in which they acknowledge knowing each other,” she continued, describing the scene at her older son’s school in Manhattan. “No hi, no smile, no wave, no high-five — just the hug. Witnessing this interaction always makes me feel like I am a tourist in a country where I do not know the customs and cannot speak the language.
