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I’ve probably attended two Sunday Masses where in front of me was a mother who in her mid-thirties was constantly being touched, hugged and kissed by her eight year old son. Nothing wrong with that sort of PDA (public display of affection), when it’s done in private moments.
Psychologists will probably tell you that occasional hugging and kissing are a healthy display of emotional interaction between parent and child when done during intimate and private moments between them; what is clinically termed as emotional bonding. Note the word occasional not constant, there is a big difference between the two.
The thing that bothers me the most was that these two were doing their PDA thing all throughout the entire Mass. The son would constantly stroke and play with her mother’s hair and would hug her tightly with wrap around arms on her waist in between kissing and touching her face.
What’s even worse was that the mother was sort of encouraging and allowing her son to do all these sensitive PDA touching and kissing act right in front of the people around them as if we never existed and while the Mass was ongoing. Oddly, she too was responding to him by doing exactly the same things her son was doing, as if to encourage him all the more.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind it if they did that privately in their own home. But to be doing it in Church while attending Mass really distracts a lot of people, me included.
Next time, I see them in front of me, I’ll make it a point to transfer seats so they will be out of my sight not to cause me any distraction. I don’t encourage my children to be that overtly affectionate to the point of being a public show-off of their PDA (Public Distraction Attention).
If ever, I see this unusual behavior as a sign of an attention-deficit child eagerly soliciting the undivided attention of his mother by such an excessive public display of affection. If that is an emotional bonding they’re having, he’ll eventually grow up to be a mama’s boy so over-dependently attached to his mother, definitely not good for his emotional development.
On these two separate occasions I’ve seen them, I haven’t seen the father yet. But if I were the father, I wouldn’t approve of such PODA (Public Over Display of Affection). If I were his father, I’d tell them to quit it or if they won’t, I’d make it a point to distance myself far enough to be seen with them.
Watching all the over-bonding between them taking place, the child who was constantly hugging his mother on the waist with one arm all of the time seemed more like an insecure lover than an eight year old son. And this type of behavior was what made us very uncomfortable seeing them in a distracting sort of way, while we’re attending Mass.
I really wouldn’t mind if they would be like that for every minute of the day they’re together, but please have a little respect for the people around them and lest they forget they’re attending Mass, not Sunday strolling in a lover’s park. How about that, doesn’t it bother you?
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