Smooching in the Kitchen
I recently saw a lecture by Evelyn Resh, a well known lecturer on women’s topics and sexual satisfaction and author of The Secret Lives of Teen Girls. She is a funny, realistic, and refreshing voice in the world of sexual education and therapy. She made one point that was counterintuitive but rang true. Here is the question.
What do you do if you and your spouse get locked lips while in the kitchen and the kids go, “Ewwww! Moo-ooom, Daaa-aaaad! Please?”
You can:
a. Blush and stop immediately, pretending like the smooching never happened. b. Stop immediately and smile at them. c. Tell them to find something else to do, because it’s gonna get a lot hotter in here before it cools down.
Evelyn argues that c is actually an incredibly healthy approach. Interesting, don’t you think? We are obsessed with modeling good behavior for our children, right? And, once you get over the horrifying hump of thinking about your children one day growing up and getting married, you can admit (if you really think logically about it) that you want them to have a healthy marriage and the corresponding healthy and even robust intimate life that goes with it, right? Then you may want to consider showing them how much you love each other and joke about it a little.
Let’s be clear. She’s not telling you to demonstrate anything beyond kissing here. However, is there anything really wrong with having your kids tell you to “get a room?”
Don’t kids feel secure when they know their parents are deeply and madly crazy about each other?
We all want our kids to have healthy sex lives one day, right? So why do we avoid the subject so much? (That is a question worthy of an entire series one day.)
Looking forward to your thoughts…
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This is EXACTLY what is wrong with my and my husband’s love life. I think I saw my parents hug and kiss once in my life and I was in college coming home to visit. Now I have a hard time telling myself that sex is a good thing even though I know full well that it is. We plan on kissing often in front of our children and hugging them all the time too.
i totally agree with Evelyn – my parents (who’ve been married for 40 years now) were always openly affectionate with one another AND with my sister and me. we understood long before we could articulate it that this physical affection is a natural expression of love. but whenever our parents would do “special kissing,” we would roll our eyes, say “SHHHHHH!” in exaggerated voices, and then grin at each other. my parents had a lock on their door — indeed, it is the gift that keeps giving — but we were always encouraged to be open and honest with our questions about sex.
i can say with confidence that this attitude towards physical affection, and especially between married people, is most definitely part of why i think my marriage and sex life is as happy and satisfying as it is — i was never taught to be afraid of sex or think of it as “bad.” thanks Mom & Dad, for making out in front of us.
Love this post Sarah! I absolutely believe one of the best things for kids is to see their parents being affectionate…. and to be able to infer from all that affection that their parents have a vibrant sex life. Certainly they don’t need to see any sexual intimacy taking place, but there’s nothing wrong with them knowing it takes place!
As I write and speak about sexual intimacy, I find that the people who have quite a few struggles with nurturing their intimacy more than often are the same people who grew up in homes where either appropriate affection between parents was never shown — or where parents (particularly mothers) spoke outright negatively about sex. Some Christian women in particular heard their mothers and/or aunts say things like… “It’s just your duty.”
In our house, our 12-year-old does the eye roll thing or “do I really need to see this?” comment when my husband and I kiss or hug passionately or playfully banter about “what may happen later that night.” But deep down I know our actions are giving him and his 6-year-old brother some of the best security… a reminder that their parents are genuinely in love.
Oh yes, indeed, we got/get plenty of disgusted looks, eye-rolling and comments from our kids. We have always tried to freely express our love for each other in front of our kids and that includes lots of kissing and non-sexual touch.
I agree that modeling what good married love looks like for our children is VERY important.
Great post!
Scott,
Love this comment. I can totally see the picture.
Sarah
There’s just one problem with this picture: with 5 kids in the household, the kitchen is entirely too *clean*!
Naomi,
That is an entirely true comment. I should have known. They do look a little too perfect, don’t you think?
Sarah
My parents always had a happily physically affectionate marriage. They also were with us and had various books in our house explaining sex was natural. So glad I grew up with none of the hang ups, and was able to respect myself enough in physical aspects of relationships.
If we want our children to end up in relationships that make kids roll their eyes, we have to make THEM roll their eyes.
I generally take the stance that if it’s a healthy and natural part of your happy relationship that you wouldn’t get in trouble for acting out in public (to a given point), then your kids should be used to seeing you do it (to that point). That goes for physical affection, playfulness, serious conversation, laughing together, crying together, apologizing to each other, etc.
This is one of the greatest encouragements to married couples – Your kids need to be able to see a healthy, intimate marriage in order to model that for themselves when they grow up! Tommy Nelson, my pastor, says that you can almost screw up in every other area of parenting if you demonstrate love and respect and intimacy to your spouse in front of your kids, and I wholeheartedly believe that. Children need to see that it is normal, good, and God’s way for marriage so they can emulate that. Amen to this article!