{"id":16063,"date":"2013-07-24T05:29:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T09:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=16063"},"modified":"2013-07-25T08:26:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T12:26:20","slug":"sallys-first-kiss-and-the-princess-and-the-kiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/07\/sallys-first-kiss-and-the-princess-and-the-kiss.html","title":{"rendered":"Sally’s First Kiss and The Princess and the Kiss<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When I was a teen, I did a lot of babysitting for other homeschool families. One day I babysat two families worth of children while their moms went out for lunch\u2014I think there were about ten kids total that I was watching. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch and the kids were in the living room putting on a play wedding as kids sometimes do. The nine year old was presiding over the wedding of the two five year olds, a girl from the one family and a boy from the other. All of a sudden I heard the older child say \u201cnow you\u2019re supposed to kiss each other\u201d and I freaked out and ran into the living room to break it up. I wasn\u2019t about to let those two five year olds kiss, thus forever depriving each of the chance to save that first kiss for the altar.<\/p>\n

In the conservative Christian homeschooling community in which I grew up, a person\u2019s first kiss was incredibly important. Even today, the products of this culture debate this question<\/a> with great energy<\/a>, arguing about whether forbidding the first kiss until the altar is a form of legalism<\/a> or the preservation of a precious gift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, I was taught that part of the reason that the first kiss should be saved for the alter was that it was a gateway into other things. First comes kissing, and then, who knows? Making out, humping, sex\u2014once you open the door, it\u2019s hard to close it. It would seem, then, that five year olds kissing at a play wedding wouldn\u2019t fit this category, given that we\u2019re not talking about a kiss that comes as a result of sexual tension and mutual attraction.<\/p>\n

And yet.<\/p>\n

The literature I read didn\u2019t make a distinction between preschoolers kissing and teens kissing. Instead, it simply talked about the importance of saving \u201cyour first kiss\u201d for your wedding day. And of course, we were regaled with stories of virtuous couples who had done just that\u2014didn\u2019t we want to be like them?<\/em> And then there is The Princess and the Kiss,<\/em> a book marketed to children as young as four<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The book is about a king and queen who help their daughter save her most precious gift, her first kiss, for the prince she will marry. The princess\u2019s first kiss lives in a glass orb, something like the rose in the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast<\/em> (you can see it on the cover). This book has become very popular in Christian homeschooling circles and beyond, and there are hundreds of thousands in print. This is the sort of thing I was raised on (though this particular book wasn\u2019t around when I was little, lots of kids are growing up on it now<\/a>).<\/p>\n

All of this came rushing back to mind recently when Sally kissed a little boy at her preschool\u2014or, as I would have seen it in the past, when Sally \u201cgave away her first kiss.\u201d We had gotten together with the family for a play date, and Sally and her little friend did the whole pretend wedding ceremony thing that little kids spontaneously do (I presided over a few in my day myself). At the end Sally grabbed the little boy and planted a kiss on his face. Surprised and bemused, I couldn\u2019t help but recall my reaction to the pretend wedding staged by the five year olds I was babysitting so many years ago. This time, of course, my perception and reaction was different.<\/p>\n

Sally didn\u2019t lose anything when she kissed her little friend. Instead, she simply gained a common life experience\u2014something she will look back at and laugh about when she\u2019s grown. It\u2019s the people who impute a cute childish action with so much meaning who are creating the problem, not my preschooler.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a teen, I did a lot of babysitting for other homeschool families. One day I babysat two families worth of children while their moms went out for lunch. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch and the kids were in the living room putting on a play wedding as kids sometimes do when I heard one of them say “now you’re supposed to kiss each other” and I freaked out and ran into the living room to break it up. I wasn’t about to deprive any of those children of the chance to save that first kiss for the alter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-16063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purity","tag-children"],"yoast_head":"\nSally's First Kiss and The Princess and the Kiss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I was a teen, I did a lot of babysitting for other homeschool families. One day I babysat two families worth of children while their moms went out for lunch. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch and the kids were in the living room putting on a play wedding as kids sometimes do when I heard one of them say "now you're supposed to kiss each other" and I freaked out and ran into the living room to break it up. 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