The one promise I made to myself when my daughter was born is that I would be a better dad to her than my father was to me. Last year she invited me to have a pleasant lunch with her in downtown Seattle. Over that lunch we discussed a wide range of topics – her life for the previous six months without a regular job; my neuroscience research; her impending move to Portland, Oregon; my teaching; her going off to yoga teacher training school, etc.
At one point in our conversation, she mentioned that she thought I was a great dad … until she turned nine years old. I was surprised and curious and invited her to tell me what happened at age nine that transformed me from Great Dad into not-Great Dad, but she couldn’t really put her finger on it. It was all smushed together, woven all through ages 10, 11, 12 … 20 … 25. But I could certainly identify what the precipitating event was. It was estrogen. And testosterone.
It was at age nine, with puberty unfolding relentlessly, that I no longer felt comfortable making non-sexual physical contact with her in ways that I had freely and openly been able to do for nearly a decade. When a caring, competent, protective, nurturing father abruptly stops freely touching you, that’s an unfortunate, disruptive event to body, brain, spirit and to relational wisdom-mind. For daughter and for dad.
Number 2 on the All-Time Hits List
Of all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, the word touch has the most definitions listed. Clearly, touch is an important experience for human beings. Not only that, but if you go looking through the most cited peer-reviewed neuroscience papers over the last ten years, what you discover is that Number 2 on the list is a study published in 2004 in Nature Neuroscience by Ian Weaver and his colleagues … on rats. The title is: “Epigenetic programming by maternal behavior.” Essentially, what Weaver’s group found is that physical nurturing profoundly impacts nature – mothers’ touching, licking and grooming influences the proteins that move and shake and affect which genes become expressed in rat pups.
That’s the upside. On the downside, there’s plenty of evidence accruing that lack of early nurturing contact adversely impacts human pups. But very little has been researched and written about what happens to body and brain in rats and human children when loving, early nurturing abruptly stops. From either mom or dad.
Roots of Autism Are in the Skin
Here’s a recent interesting study suggesting that the roots of autism may be in the skin and that a lack of early non-sexual physical affection could be a contributing factor. This makes a lot of sense to me, both personally and professionally. The skin is the largest body organ and according to Jon Lieff, MD, its cells are super-intelligent; in part because our skin has a huge number of neurons distributing sense receptors all over it – Pacinian corpuscles sense pressure, nocioceptors sense pain, Meissner’s and Merkel’s mechano-receptors sense touch, thermo-receptors sense heat and cold, etc. As those nerves become stimulated over and over during early development – the connections they make significantly strengthen significant parts of the neural network – neurons that fire together wire together. Physical touch then becomes something that feels good and doesn’t generate a lot of stress hormones both early and later in life. Without that early physical contact, people touching us as adults can often make us feel uncomfortable. Physical touch feels threatening as it triggers an HPA adrenal response (the good news is that as adults – while it’s not easy – we can learn to become increasingly comfortable with physical touch).
Homeostatic Touch
One important function of physical touch is for significant people in our lives to help us learn to regulate homeostasis. I remember I was once out hiking a mountain trail and came across a young girl scout troop trapped with a nest of buzzing yellowjackets blocking their way forward and a steep rock ledge preventing their retreat. As I pulled one girl after another up to safety, they each spontaneously extended a hug. In the moment, hugging a complete stranger was the perfect thing to do, and it worked immediately to down-regulate their runaway glucocorticoids. In a different context, people would have very likely reported me to the police.
A Momentous Transition
I have little doubt that having your mom or dad suddenly stop hugging and touching you as easily and frequently as they used to is a momentous event in a child’s life. I suspect that because of the sexual overtones our culture generally connects with physical touch, I have never seen anything researched or written about how to skillfully and intentionally navigate this developmental transition. It’s not a topic that regularly finds its way into the pages of Highlights or Parenting Magazine, for example. But just because something makes us uncomfortable, doesn’t mean the best way to deal with it is to downplay it or ignore it. Unless you want to be inexplicably turned into Bad Dad and never really know the fundamental, underlying reason why.
Mark, in some cultures such as the one I grew up in, there was no observed touch between mother and father nor father and me or my siblings. We were brought up with a strict cultural code of father as the male authority in the household and he wielded his power by fear and control. However, we knew that we were loved, conditioned and free flowing with everything being done for our safety and protection as females growing up in a world where male power sanctions violence against women and children. Sexuality and sexual power was something I learned to be ashamed of and as I grew up, I have faced these challenges head on as much as possible. Recent examples of what has been going on in India as “honour killings” is a testament of this kind of thinking which is v dangerous and a tool for social control in my view.
I think your daughter has a priceless gift in you as her fabulous dad and keep the love flowing and the gems of wisdom that you share here! You rock in my world!
One of the most promising things about social neuroscience is that we’re obtaining clear evidence demonstrating how we interact with one another impacts the brain. One day everyone in the world will have access to brain scans that show how children’s brains develop as a result of kindness and loving touch, versus how they develop when fear and social control inhabits the home. At least then, parents will have fewer excuses for how they treat their children.
Keep facing those challenges, Jaya. Blessings, Mark
Hi Mark,
I think it was the Dove Corporation (the people who make soap) who did a study a number of years ago and found this issue – – of men who stop all physical contact with their daughters when they enter puberty – – to be a primary reason that girls lose their self-confidence at puberty. In my own not-yet-published book on developmental trauma I express my opinion that if we could teach Dad’s why it’s so important to maintain a physical relationship with their daughters and taught them how to do so appropriately, that we would greatly reduce unwanted teenage pregnancies. I think a lot of girls have sex too young when what they really want is a hug (and lots of them) from good old dad; a dad who is really good at maintaining boundaries.
I wonder if you might follow this blog post with some tips for men on how they can best prepare to have healthy physical contact with their daughters as they enter puberty? To be honest my request is a self-serving one. I’d love to be able to refer readers of my book to your blog post on this issue-:)) Although I have a suggestion, which I’ll make in a minute, I think we need a man’s point of view on this in order to develop a full spectrum approach.
My suggestion is something I learned from one of my mentors. I can best describe it by giving an example. While attending a workshop we participants were sitting on the floor in a circle. A guy named Doug was sitting to my right. At one point I reached across Doug’s lap to hand a piece of paper to someone. As I did I realized I was a little too close to his genitals and I could feel the tension in the air that my reaching across his lap had created. The guideline this workshop facilitator had stated was that when an incident like this occurred, name it. I followed the guideline and said, “Oops, I got a little too close there.” As I named what had happened, the tension drained out of the air.
I offer that as one suggestion to all of the Dad’s out there who want to do what’s best for their daughters and stay in touch. If you ever accidentally cross that line between “good” touch and “inappropriate touch” or if you ever start to feel aroused or as though your actions were inappropriate or misleading, to name it, out loud and to your daughter. You might say something like “Oops, I crossed the line. You know I love you and you are so amazing and so beautiful, but I love your Mom most of all. She’s the only one I cross that line with.” Doing so, I think, would not only help men maintain good boundaries but would also set such a good example that not all sexual arousal should be acted on. I wonder what you think of that? Of course I have in mind here those accidental, unthought out type actions, like my reaching across someone, too close to his genitals. A pre-step is to create and maintain strong enough boundaries so that these accidental, unthought out actions are few and far between.
Another thought that comes to mind as I’m writing this is for men to have an age appropriate conversation with their daughters as their daughters enter puberty, discussing the issue of touch and sexuality openly and honestly. That way if and when those “oops moments” occur you’ve laid the groundwork for discussing the topic.
Also, although I’ve thought about this issue in relationship to girls, your blog post made me wonder about boys and the physical relationships they have with their moms and dads as they enter puberty. If I remember correctly you have one child, so not a son, but I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on this?
Fabulous blog post. Thank you for stimulating my thinking.
Kind regards,
Kathy