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Re: Why Don't Mennonite Men Hug?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:08 pm
by Heirbyadoption
Understood. I wouldn't have considered my comment miscontexted, simply clarifying/addressing another aspect. My apologies for any confusion.

Re: Why Don't Mennonite Men Hug?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:41 pm
by Bootstrap
Heirbyadoption wrote:Understood. I wouldn't have considered my comment miscontexted, simply clarifying/addressing another aspect. My apologies for any confusion.
Maybe I was just being oversensitive.

At any rate, three cheers for being warm and affectionate without being inappropriate or ritualistically formal. That's great!

Re: Why Don't Mennonite Men Hug?

Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:12 pm
by Szdfan
I'm a bit late to this conversation, but I wonder if this might not be also generational. Neither set of my conservative Mennonite grandparents were physically affectionate in public or to their children. I remember I once impulsively told my grandparents that I loved them. There was this moment of uncomfortable silence and my grandfather replied, "Well, we appreciate that..."

I always knew my grandparents loved me, even if they never directly said that. I also knew that my grandparents were less strict and more accepting with the grandchildren than they were with their own kids.

In contrast, many of my uncles and cousins are much more physically affectionate and the one side of my extended family hugs a lot. My father frequently told me he loved me while I was growing up, in part because he didn't hear that from his own father.

Every family is different, of course, but to me it seems that in some families (at least mine), there's been a loosening of the formality and seriousness that characterized us in the past.