The Importance of Touch

I don’t remember when I stopped touching him.

Lanky legs, stretching back were signs for me…signs to distance and retreat. Signs of Caleb emerging as a man. And, who was I to touch the skin that clothes a future man?

Perhaps it was mere self-protection, withdrawing before he, inevitably, rejected his coddling mother? Or maybe it was where I came from: cuddling babies was appropriate; embracing boys was not.

Yet on some other level, a deeper one never visited, I must have felt the absence of 12-year-old Caleb’s heart pushed up against mine, this son’s arms wrapped tightly around my neck. For I purposefully filled the emptiness with pink newborns held close, with the cheeky jowls of the irresistible toddler, with tickling and bear hugs and snuggles with preschoolers. But my stretching son? True, he and I rarely longer touched, and that whatever he grew in height, he, tragically, lost in touch. But wasn’t this the normal passage of mothering? Birthing, holding, stroking, touching, nursing…and beginning the long goodbye…letting boys become men. Little did I know that the retreat of my touch left our growing boy adrift, alone in his own skin. That the more he became a man, the more he needed my affirming touch.

Touching the skin of these who live and learn beside us has far-reaching, profound ramifications. Mothers and science know that massaging babe for 15 minutes reduces babe’s irritability, improves her learning and accelerates her development.
The significance of touch continues as babe grows into preschooler: massaged preschoolers showed better performance on tests for design, animal pegs and mazes compared with non-massaged peers. And touch into the upper schooling years? Studies have clearly indicated that massage and deep pressure touch aids children with attention difficulties to not only increase on-task behavior, but also results in greater relaxation, and less acting out. For after touching time, such as a massage, the hypothalamic area of the brain experiences a reduction of action, decreasing the body’s level of stress hormones, and increasing the level of endorphins, which leaves our child with a greater sense of well-being.
Dr. Virginia Satir of Wisconsin goes as far to suggest that human beings need four hugs a day to survive, eight hugs for maintenance and twelve hugs for growth.

Modern science can only concur with Biblical truth and Daniel’s experience with a touch from God: “Then the one who looked like a man touched me again, and I felt my strength returning” (Dan 10:18 NLT).A simple touch on Joshua’s shoulder while reciting Latin paradigms, an arm pressed close around Hope during read alouds, a massage on Cale’s tense shoulder while bent over math questions, these were simple things. But a simple touch that could revive, like strength returning.

Tucking tired ones into bed after the Homeschooling Achievement Program, I stepped into Caleb’s dim room to say goodnight and again offer my congratulations on a fine recitation of Casey at the Bat.

He propped himself up on the pillow.

“You know how Kevin Smith played that piece on the guitar? And then how, afterwards, Kevin sat with his Mom and she just held him for a bit?”

I recalled the moment, and how awkward I felt. “Yeah…”

After a long, expectant moment, Caleb spoke his heart into the dark. “I wish you had held me like that.”

What was knowledge and learning and classics and Latin without love…without the unique, direct expression of love that only touch can articulate? Unintentionally, I was living Leviticus with it’s “do not touch” laws, and not embracing the vibrancy of Christ’s life-giving, healing, resurrecting touch --- a touch to bridge across the gaping chasm of being alone inside one’s skin.

I reached out and pulled Caleb close. It had been too long since I had felt the skin close of my once-baby, future-man. His warmth against mine, Caleb wasn’t alone anymore. And neither was I.
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A related post on touch :

Also, I would like to spend 15 minutes per day with everyone nurturing someone else. Make a row of children and Mommy, rubbing the back of the sister or brother in front. The 10-year-old rubs the 6-year-old who rubs the baby. Mommy rubs the 8-year-old who rubs the 3-year-old. My theory is that the time spent loving will reduce the time spent fighting, because you don’t want to hurt someone who is meeting your affection needs.

She quotes another study:

... research at the University of North Carolina showing that a simple hug can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. The research team is touting it as yet another health benefit of marriage.There is not only reassurance in such moments of touch, but the release of oxytocin, a human hormone associated with maternal love. This is why a simple hug can bring comfort, calm, and for a brief moment, be a shield against the world.

Lord, give me courage today to touch. Who? And remind me: often.

Photo: Shalom touching Kai
A repost from the archives