Hugs sometimes just a little too long

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By William Shore | Monday, October 15, 2007 12:05 AM CDT | () comments

Thanks you for selecting Leonard Pitts’ column (“School hugging bans push humans further into robotization” Oct. 6) for your op-ed page. I agree with him often as not. However, we should ask him if he has recently haunted the halls of our high schools. On a recent visit to Davenport Central High School the boy-girl hugging frankly embarrassed and rather offended me. These weren’t brief embraces or tokens of simple friendship.

In my high school days in the early 1940s such public displays of affection were never the norm. We had something called puppy love back then and that still happens, but one can see how long embraces in crowded hallways can frustrate administrators. If parents can’t explain things to teens in a way that will bring an understanding of how to control personal relationships, principals have a right or even a duty impose controls. There’s nothing puritanical about such proscriptions.

William Shore

Davenport