I had to laugh at this article on the teenage trend du jour: hugging.
There is so much hugging at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale, N.J., that students have broken down the hugs by type:
There is the basic friend hug, probably the most popular, and the bear hug, of course. But now there is also the bear claw, when a boy embraces a girl awkwardly with his elbows poking out.
There is the hug that starts with a high-five, then moves into a fist bump, followed by a slap on the back and an embrace.
There’s the shake and lean; the hug from behind; and, the newest addition, the triple — any combination of three girls and boys hugging at once.
Every generation has its particular greetings and this generation likes to hug. Of course, as the mother of a teenage girl, I'm not too keen for boys to be hugging all over my daughter. Even if girls see it as platonic, virtually every man I've talked to says boys hug cute girls because they're girls.
It's funny watching the adults trying to tamp down the hugging thing, but hugging will die out for them once they enter the work force where they'll discover the term "sexual harassment." Until then, it seems like a funny thing to call a "trend."
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