Nobody says "I love you"

My mother decided over Christmas that she had permanently ruined her children.

This idea is my sister's fault, and not just because this sister (E3) is intermittently insane. No, my sister informed my mother that we weren't affectionate enough as a family.

She has a point, especially if you're into attachment parenting or some other newfangled, New Age, non-Midwestern family reltionship fad. The six of us are not a very touchy group. I get a hug when I come home (sometimes; my sisters are hit-or-miss), a hug when I leave (again, sometimes my sisters can't be buggered to even GET OUT OF BED), and that satisfies the hug quotient for the year, really. And I'm fine with that. We've never been very openly affectionate, and to this day I don't really like to be touched. As I explained to my sister when we talked about it (we being the women of the family), it makes me feel squirmy inside.*

In fact, when I was younger, I used to think that some families were a little too much with the affection. On the rare occasions that I spent the night at my cousin's, I used to dread bedtime because I knew I was going to have to give my aunt a kiss, and it creeped me out. I mean, my aunt was a little off in other ways—who puts mayonnaise on a cheese sandwich, honestly?—but this was what bugged me the most. I didn't kiss my mother or my grandmother, and I actually liked them. I certainly didn't want give my aunt a kiss just because I was going to bed.

I watched other parents coddle and caress their children into rebellious hellions, and I just didn't get it. I preferred my parents' time-honored method of showing affection: buying me a book, making me dinner, and breaking a wooden spoon on my butt when I needed it. (All right, I admit I didn't appreciate this latter thing until a few years ago. And that it was my brother on whose butt the wooden spoon was originally broken. Aaaaand that it was probably because of a weak spot in the wood, and not because my mother was strong like bull. But still. It was a good system.) When my best friend's mother took every opportunity to kiss and hug her children, I was like, dude, lady, at least one of those kids is going to grow up to be a politician or a stoner. So far this hasn't come true, but there's time.

I've never doubted that my parents love and adore all four of us, even that time when I wasn't speaking to my mother and so my dad threw a glassful of water at me during dinner, but I don't really need them to tell me all the time. Like, I get it. Lay off. Fortunately, they also get it, and they lay off, except when my mother occasionally tells me on the phone. My father hasn't told me he loves me in recent memory. Instead he straightens out my insurance and builds me bookshelves, and really, which is more valuable? I can't get cavities filled with an "I love you," is all I'm saying.

My sisters and I have basically come to the realization that we aren't warped, although I don't know that my mother is convinced. Probably because my sisters are cruel and have run with the fact that I told them being hugged and saying "I love you" makes me squirmy, and they use it to torture me. I called home yesterday to tell my mother that the insurance company was still under the delusion that my first name is Lester (or that my father lives in Houston), and my sister (E4) walked in the door while she was talking to me. This is what I heard:

E4: Who is that?
Mom: It's your sister.
E4: [Unintelligible]
Mom: No, Erin.
E4: Oh! Make her say it.
Mom: (to me) Your sister wants you to say it.
Me: Say what?
E4: Make her say it!
Me: I don't know what she's talking about. [Because I didn't, at that point.]
Mom: (to E4) Do you want to talk to her?
At that point, my sister grabbed the phone.
E4: You have to say it.
Me: Say what? What are you talking about?
E4: (cloyingly) Oh, I think you know.
Me: Oh. No, I'm not going to say that.
E4: You have to say it.
Me: You know, I talked to E3 on IM the other day, and she didn't make me say it.
E4: You didn't say it? You don't mean it?
Me: I didn't say it. [At this point I start laughing because my sister is being faux pitiful and ridiculous. And stubborn.]
E4: You have to say it.
Me: Fine. I love you. Get off the phone.
E4: I love you tooooooo! Bye.

All right, we are warped. But none of us are politicians.

^{*I'm fine with some physical contact; I don't live in a bubble. I've had boyfriends and I occasionally hug my close friends. I just don't think it needs to be out of control. Personal space, people. I'm a Midwesterner.}