Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think this is over-sexualising a 7-year old?

227 replies

bigbadal · 18/08/2012 22:49

Really interested to hear people's opinions on this one....

A family member recently told me that his 7-year old daughter is 'already trying it on' with him as when he goes to kiss her goodnight she tries to kiss him on the lips rather than on the cheek. These are 'peck' kisses not anything more adult. He feels that this is her acting in a sexual fashion. Since her mother kisses both her and her younger brother goodnight on the lips I suspect it is just that she's noticed that her parents treat her differently and that she's a bit confused by this or that she is trying to show her parents equal affection.

I'm really not sure what to think. I'm fairly confident that I was kissing my father goodnight on the lips until I left home......and it certainly never EVER crossed my mind that there was anything sexual about it....that's just how it was - I kissed my parents on the lips. I know a lot of parents choose not to kiss their children on the lips for whatever reason (hygiene etc) but for this father to think his daughter is acting in a sexual way with him seems to be a bit far-fetched?

As a mother of a boy (who I kiss on the lips) I am confused. Is this a symptom of over-sexualisation of children within our society - or am I being very naive?

....sits back and waits to be flamed for admitting to kissing son on the lips and being at risk of awakening his sexuality at too young an age!

OP posts:
Inneedofbrandy · 18/08/2012 23:04

BTW children do flirt, they don't mean it to be sexual obviously they don't know, but little girls do flirt.

FutTheShuckUp · 18/08/2012 23:04

What a sad world we live in, reinforced by some of the utterly bonkers comments in here

Pickles77 · 18/08/2012 23:04

I'm 24 and I kiss my dad on the lips. I try to avoid it in public but he would be so upset and offended if it was deemed wrong Sad

Littlegreenbear · 18/08/2012 23:05

Sounds odd to me that the father would even say that ......isn't it perfectly normal to peck on the lips, it is in my family anyway.

missymoomoomee · 18/08/2012 23:05

I kiss all my children on the lips even my oldest who is 10 and it has never even entered my head about it being sexual in any way. In all honesty anyone who uses that type of language about a child or has the thought that a 7 year old is 'trying it on' with him is seriously messed up. If I were in your position I would be putting in a call to social services to make sure there are no underlying issues there, it may be an over reaction but I would rather put in the call and be wrong than not put in the call and be right.

Socknickingpixie · 18/08/2012 23:05

i would have serious concerns about anybody saying that about a 7 year old irrispective of what action prompted it.
its something i used to hear sex offenders say to justify there actions.

brandy are you joking??

Inneedofbrandy · 18/08/2012 23:06

Yes I realise I sound strange about it, its just something that completely grosses me out, whenever people kiss me on the cheek I think eww where has your mouth been let alone kiss my child.

Krumbum · 18/08/2012 23:07

Inneedofabrandy. If they don't mean it to be sexual then it isn't flirting! That's a prerequisite of flirting!

Birdsgottafly · 18/08/2012 23:08

It was also quite common in some places generations back, to label young girls behaviour as sexual, coquettish, precocious etc, it can just be ignorance.

Original poster
bigbadal · 18/08/2012 23:08

My response to the original comment was to ask whether or not the children's mother did 'lip kisses' - the logical brain in me thinking that it was only worth of note if 'lip kisses' were not something that she was accustomed to doing with anyone. I let it go at that point - seemed a silly conclusion to draw to me but it wasn't the time to be confronting the father's attitude.

Father is devoted to his children and has acted as a father-figure to previous partner's children. I do not have concerns about his actions towards his daughter, more about the attitude towards sex that he (and his wife - who concurred with his comment) is likely to be generating in a young girl.

OP posts:
NovackNGood · 18/08/2012 23:08

ineedofbrandy are you a man?

monsterchild · 18/08/2012 23:08

Very creepy statement for a dad to make. Ugh, if other family members do this, why would he think it strange from his daughter? It's a red flag for me that someone needs to discuss this with him.

Margerykemp · 18/08/2012 23:08

That is a very peculiar comment for him to have made.

Leena49 · 18/08/2012 23:09

Sounds like a paedo to me. Let someone know this child may be at risk. My DD started her period at 9 but this did not mean they are sexual. What father in his right mind would think his daughter is trying it on with him. What a sick man!

showtunesgirl · 18/08/2012 23:09

Brandy, are you a bit OCD? Fair enough if you are cause it sounds as though you might be.

AgentZigzag · 18/08/2012 23:10

'BTW children do flirt, they don't mean it to be sexual obviously they don't know, but little girls do flirt.'

Don't be disgusting, flirting is an overtly sexual act and small children don't do it.

Saying anything else is just pedalling the bollocks serious violent offenders use to justify underage sex.

workshy · 18/08/2012 23:11

brandy -your comments are really quite disturbing

little girls do not flirt

they smile and laugh and giggle, and any adult that percieves this as flirting worries me

they are little girls!

AgentZigzag · 18/08/2012 23:12

Please don't make any connections (as a joke or otherwise) that associate the comments Brandy has made with people who have OCD showtune.

Inneedofbrandy · 18/08/2012 23:15

No im a woman

Erm never diagnosed but would say im slightly ocd about certain things, not just kissing btw.

Im sure iv'e read it in Dorethy Rowes successful self psychology book that its perfectly normal for extroverted girls to flirt. Also referances into Freud about it.

Original poster
bigbadal · 18/08/2012 23:17

on the subject of children 'flirting' - children court attention in a way that were they 10 or 15 years older could be considered as flirting. The difference is in the intent of the child - they are courting attention to themselves as a child (and therefore justifiable centre of the universe!), not sexual attention, and the two should be very different. Unfortunately (and I am guilty of this too) we often talk about the behaviour of children as 'flirting' when we mean that they are 'playing to an audience' or 'courting attention'.

OP posts:
Birdsgottafly · 18/08/2012 23:17

BTW children do flirt, they don't mean it to be sexual obviously they don't know, but little girls do flirt.

That's the sort of attitude that i grew up around, which was the norm.

It was a misunderstanding of how girls communicate and develop, in previous generations, it would have been thought of as behaviour that needed clamping down on, it added to the idea men were victims of their sexual urges led on by wanton females (of all ages).

showtunesgirl · 18/08/2012 23:18

Lordy, no, I meant about the germs part not the weirdy little girls flirt stuff which is something else entirely.

Goofymum · 18/08/2012 23:18

Of course little girls do not flirt. Flirting is the word that certain depraved individuals chose to interpret a child's behaviour to justify their own thoughts and actions.

Inneedofbrandy · 18/08/2012 23:18

bigbadal put it more eloquently then me.

lovebunny · 18/08/2012 23:18

you don't have to go any further into 'has he given you other causes for concern'. for him to refer to his daughter's goodnight kiss as 'trying it on' is indication enough that he has some kind of issue - even if it is only being uncomfortable with affection, and not understanding that there are physical displays of affection that are not sexual in nature. have you told the mother? she needs to know.

daughter and i must have kissed on the lips until she was in her late teens; i remember being questioned by someone from work who had seen us together and thought, because of a quick touch of the lips, that we were a couple. it must have been quite a natural thing to do because it didn't register with me at all. i remember kissing my mum on the lips, as a child, too.

Swipe left for the next trending thread