Today, everyone
hugs in America.
But was it
always like that?
India has jhappi
and aalingan. In
America, norms
for hugging have
changed through
recent decades.
For those of us in Holy Trinity Elementary School,
Valentine’s Day was the one and only time we were
allowed to formally show our interest in a member of
the opposite sex. In our otherwise segregated world—
boys on this side of the room and girls on the other—
the simple exchange of a white enveloped card to that
cute girl across the room was a big deal. During my public
high school days, there were no such rigid rules, but
bound by the social norms of the day, few of us hugged
members of the opposite sex. Even into my early adult
years, hugging remained a private luxury.
Today, high schoolers hug, and constantly. So do
adults. Like it, or not, hugging is epidemic. Never mind
baseball, the sport of holding another person close is
our new national pastime. In the 1956 World Series,
Yogi Berra, the New York Yankee catcher, jumped off
the ground and into the startled arms of Don Larson
after the last out had been registered in Larson’s
brilliantly pitched World Series game. It is one of the
most iconic photographs in American history. Today,
players hug, touch, and hold after the simplest of
plays. From sports to politics, from workplaces to college
campuses, hugs are as much a part of American
life as a beer and hot dog is at a baseball game.
Before we consider a few of
the seminal events that caused
this cultural shift from hands
in pockets to arms around
the shoulder, it is worth considering
the biology of it all:
Hugs, in fact, are healthy, perhaps
even essential.
Research from Carnegie Mellon
indicates that feeling connected
to others, especially through physical
touch, protects us from stressinduced
sickness. According to
Psychology Today, physical affection
alleviates stress
reactions in adults who
report less existential
anxiety when touched
only briefly; we are
simply wired to find
touch reassuring.
Reach out and hug,
they conclude, and your
life might not only feel
better, but last longer. The
“Mother of Family Therapy”
Virginia Satir notes, “We
need four hugs a day for
survival. We need eight hugs
a day for maintenance. We need
twelve hugs a day for growth.”
Until the last century or two, Christian dogma and
social norms combined to limit public interactions between
men and women. Sure, men could spend time
with men and hug each other as they wish—and many
photographs from the late 1800s show male couples
holding hands, touching each other, and sitting on each
others laps—but men did not share such intimacies
with women, at least in public.
The icy grip that religion held on our country’s
male-female relationships melted in the heat of the Industrial
Revolution when women, long relegated to the
home, flocked to the factories. In the anonymity of the
city the forbidden became possible, the private public.
But such gaiety was not available to everyone, as my
96-year-old Mom remembers.
“My parents had very strict rules for me. If a boy
asked me to go out dancing, I could, but only if I limited
our dance selection to the conservative Fox Trot.”
Those other dances of my Mom’s era, known as the
“Animal Dance,” included the Grizzly Bear, Bunny Hug,
Kangaroo Dip, the Sloth Squeeze, and the naughty Turkey
Trot, a dance so suggestive that Catholic bishops in
Nashville and Cincinnati once told their flocks if they
danced the dance they would not be forgiven for their
sins. The clergy railed, but the people danced.
On a related note, if the bishops are right, I’m
doomed. Like millions of other college-aged kids, I
bumped butts with any willing female in a 1970s era
disco dance known as, well, this is clever, The Bump.
There were plenty of willing females and the dance
was a hoot.
Some point to the sexual revolution of
the 1960s-1970s as the reason for the shift
in attitudes toward male-female hugging,
and that certainly makes sense,
but there is another reason. The
1970s was a seminal decade in the
“Equal Rights for Women” movement.
No longer were men to be
“the king of the castle,” a line from
a memorable skit performed by
Jackie Gleason in the 1950s comedy
show, The Honeymooners. Consider
my Dad’s world, for a moment.
When he returned home after
work, he’d pour himself a drink, sit
in his big green lounge chair, and
then ask Mom when dinner would
be ready. He never changed a diaper
and rarely cleaned a dish.
In today’s America, that man would
be called “single.”
Helping in the kitchen or with other
“women’s work” was the easier challenge
for many men of my generation.
After all, upon graduating from college we
did not immediately marry, so we had to cook, clean,
wash dishes, and iron our own clothes. The greater
challenge was developing our “feminine nature.”
We were expected to be more expressive, yet a few
of us never saw our own parents hug or kiss or talk
about their “feelings.” When I was in college, I stepped
outside and onto our porch only to hear my Dad say
something very intimate to Mom. Oh, no! Ahem!
Ahem! Hey, you’re too old for such talk! But that was
the only time I overheard such whispers. I do not
remember them physically hugging, and they were
married for over sixty years.
Thankfully, for those who wished to develop these
brand new skills, we had a role model. His name was
Phil Donahue.
Donahue was a national talk show host who first
appeared in the 1970s. Like Oprah, he’d often introduce
a people-oriented social topic. No, I cannot remember
any specific one because I did not care for his often
over-the-top performances. All I really remember
is that he cried, a lot. Then he’d hug. Then he’d cry.
And just when we thought the water works had ended
he’d gush some more. There were times when he
cried the whole show, or so it seemed. And women
loved him. And men, wishing for women to love them,
were forced to show that they were “vulnerable,” that
they, too, were in touch with their feminine side. Gone
were the emotionally distant, know-it-all dads of the
1950s. “New age men” were now expected to show
emotions, to express feelings, to offer the supportive
hug. And it is good.
Knowing when a hug is acceptable, or not, does
require a certain amount of intuition. In my
business dealings, a few women executives
I’ve known for years drop all formal
pretenses to offer a warming embrace.
Other women I’ve known for similar
lengths of time simply offer a handshake.
My advance to men is simple:
Let the woman take the lead in all such
circumstances.
During the course of writing this
narrative, I thought about the memorable
hugs I have either given or received
in my lifetime.
“Do not touch the children for
they will get spoiled,” I was told at
a home for orphaned kids. When
I went to play with a snot-nosed
two-year-old boy who, despite my
warning, kept calling me names,
I left the sandbox and walked
back toward the house. “Mister,
mister, I am so sorry, please play
with me,” he cried. I picked him up
and held him tight. “Put him down or
you’ll spoil him,” the biddies shouted from the house.
I didn’t. He needed a hug.
It had been one rough year. Along with the rest
of the congregation, I bowed my head as the minister
led us in prayer. When the prayer started, I was sitting
alone in the back seat of the church. When the prayer
ended, a woman I barely knew had slipped into the
seat next to me. “I feel like you need a hug,” she said.
Two decades later, I still remember her kindness.
There was the time I was in my daughter’s college
dorm room. Molly’s roommates were a crazy and
inspiring lot. One, who was quite the bookworm,
always tried to give me the same graceful hug that
her four roomies did, but she always failed, one time
knocking me into the kitchen table. Her awkward
hugs had become an annual tradition. “Kristen, let’s
practice,” I offered, and we did.
Teaching someone how to hug is a beautiful thing.
Americana is a monthly column highlighting the
cultural and historical nuances of this land through
the rich story-telling of columnist Bill Fitzpatrick,
author of the books, Bottoms Up, America and
Destination: India, Destiny: Unknown.