We kiss our boys (age 6, 9) on the lips. My family came to the U.S. 100 years ago (undocumented) from Ireland and settled in Pittsburgh. My wife's family is German-English-whatever and they settled in Cleveland.

We've both lived here about 20 years and, so far, there has been no problem with the kissing. In fact, last night my younger son called me back to bed for "four extra kisses." It's nice.

From CA here. My 2.5 yo dd starting doing a big noisy smotch on the lips (a mmmmmaaah! sound) in the last couple of months. It is cute, and she does the same to the cats and her stuffed animals, so I go with it.

Raised by Italian/Polish Brooklynites who kissed us on the lips (these days I don't do that with my parents). I do kiss my kids on the lips if they let me. My daughter more often will kiss on the cheek so I let her take the lip while my son loves to plant a big wet one on my mouth.

Anonymous wrote:I kiss my 9 month old son on the lips all the time and will continue as long as he will let me.

I'm puerto rican BTW

I kiss my 9 month old son on the lips all the time and will continue as long as he will let me.

This is so interesting. I didn't know so many families did this. Grew up on East Coast with very affectionate family but all kisses on the cheek. Never occurred to me to kiss family members on the lips.

In my experience, in Australia, you kiss family members on the cheek, not the mouth. Men used to only shake hands, but now hugs have become more common.

Anonymous wrote:Arabs/middle eastern. Also Eastern European gypsies.

I am Iranian and no one in my family does this. The only Iranian I know of that does this is my MIL, and she only does it with my daughter (not her other grandkids), and she is a strange person generally.

My D H is 32 yo and his aunt kisses him on the lips whenever she visits. The first time I saw that I just about died laughing, my parents where there too!!! It really embarasses him but he doesn't have the heart to hurt her feelings by telling her to stop. LOL

It's not like you're slobbering down the kid, a quick peck on the lips is not strange.

Raised in the midwest, my family and none of my friends back there are much of kissers, maybe occasionally on the cheek but never on the lips. Hugs definitely, but that's usually it.

However, found as an adult living in Chicago and DC...there are definitely people that have no qualms about lip kissing in greeting, male/female, young/old.

Born white and raised in DC. We kiss our mom on the lips still and I kiss my boys on the lips.