I have a big question and this may sound dumb to a lot of you. But here goes.' I am a woman in my middle 50's. I was raised in a strict religious household. Religious father and submissive Mom. I am the oldest and only daughter the rest of my siblings are brothers. Even as I write this, I feel sick. My mom had a handicap, so so here goes. My Dad always wanted to kiss us. I remember having to stand there and allow him to hold my face in his hands and kiss me. As I grew older this continued, I tried protesting, but my Mom could not stand for me, He also liked to kiss on the boys, not just a peck on the cheek mind you, but he would just suck their jaws in and linger and linger. He also would say when they got a certain age he would stop, he was particular about my baby brother, he ever say when he got off work at night he would go in the bedroom to just kiss on him. He thought this was showing love. Was this child abuse or love?

Uh, what do you mean "suck their jaws?"

He kissed on the mouth? Open or closed, it doesn't matter. If the "kiss" lingered and lingered, it wasn't an innocent display of love for a child.

Sounds as though he was getting some type of kick out of it. And that is inappropriate. As for the label of abuse, I will leave that to the child abuse editor to say.

You know I thought about that.

I think it depends on your father's motivation. I had an Uncle who would chase his daughters and we the girl cousins thru the house saying he "wanted some sugar" and then would rub his beard on our cheeks and kiss our whole face as we squirmed and protested. But it was a teasing play. He meant it in an innocent way and it became his trademark of sorts. Back in the day affection was shown differently, even to boys. I am not saying that it was not abuse, I am just saying that it depends on what your father was doing it for.

Once I protested and he got really angry. I Mom told me to let him kiss me'

that was abuse angie i agree with lori, if my dad had done that to any of us my mam would of punched him. its definitely not normal put it that way , no one goes to that extreme, you dont have to kiss anyone to show you love them, i think he needed a psychiatrist if you ask me, it sounds horrid. well done to get this off your chest i bet its been worrying you for years.

Angie, I'm so sorry you had to deal with this. It's awful when parents put their kids in the position of believing a faulty belief.

If he'd really just been loving, he wouldn't have gotten mad at you when you didn't want him to do it.

You are so right, it has been bothering me for years. Thanks guys and be blessed