Affection-Hating Kid

"Ewww! They're kissing again! Do we have to hear the kissing part?!"

— Unnamed boy, The Princess Bride

We all know Real Men Hate Affection, right? Well, you wanna know who else hates affection? Kids — of all genders, although it is predominantly boys, generally between the ages of about three and twelve.

These are the children who shout, "Ewww!" when they see people hugging or kissing, complain about stories that contain hugging or kissing (especially at the end), and protest if someone (usually a relative) tries to hug or kiss them.

Sometimes they find it embarrassing (especially if it's their parents doing it). In the same vein, they may not actually mind the idea of receiving or showing romantic affection to the opposite sex, but are very afraid of doing so in public, especially in front of kids who will point fingers and taunt the youngster by loudly chanting "Bob likes Alice! Bob likes Alice!" for everyone to hear. Sometimes they find it boring (especially in the case of stories, e.g. "Stop kissing and get back to the plot!"). Maybe they hate the idea of them finding the opposite sex attractive, or even feel outright sick. Other times, they feel they're too old to be hugged/kissed/etc., but other times, they just find it disgusting for no particular reason.

Often used to contribute to emotional scenes by establishing that even they want a hug/don't mind seeing people hug because the moment is just that sweet, or conversely, add comic relief to an emotional scene by having them complain about the mushiness.

Compare and contrast Hates Being Touched — most Affection Hating Kids do hate hugs, but it's not the touching aspect that bugs them so much as the affectionate aspect. Contrast Puppy Love, Fille Fatale, and Dirty Kid. These kids are the most easily sickened by the Sickening Sweethearts and are prone to Parental Sexuality Squick. May be a Bratty Half-Pint or a Mouthy Kid and can also overlap with Hates Being Called Cute. Contrast with the Clingy Child who actually loves clinging to others. Compare and contrast Now Allowed to Hug.

Obviously Truth in Television.

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Examples:

Advertising

• "The Chase" is a classic Canadian PSA which shows a young boy running away from three girls. Unfortunately, he runs out of breath and the girls catch up to him and kiss him, much to his embarrassment. The message is to "Stay fit. 'cause you never know."

Anime And Manga

• Ayakashi Triangle: When Matsuri was a young boy, he was very affectionate with Suzu, but then became more distant and aloof in middle school, going so far as to avoid Suzu's hug with a Ninja Log. This carries over to the start of the series in high school, where he learns to reluctantly enjoy the company of Suzu and his other friends—when it doesn't lead to lecherous groping, that is.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Jotaro Kujo apparently used to be a sweet boy according to his mother, but now he's a delinquent who rejects any affection that anyone tries to give to him, including his mother and adoring classmates.
  Holly: Silly boy! Here is your goodbye kiss! [attempts to kiss him]
  Jotaro: You're such a bitch! [Shrugs her off] Stop clinging to me like I'm still a little kid!
  Holly: [happily] Okay! Have a nice day!

Comic Strips

• The titular character of Dennis the Menace (US) doesn't like his mother, Alice, hugging or kissing him when anyone else can see, especially neighborhood children. At least one daily panel actually has Dennis ducking down so nobody can see Alice holding him. He especially doesn't like it whenever Margaret shows some kind of affection for him.

Fan Works

• In The Loud House fanfiction Substitute Roommate, Lincoln hates being hugged and kissed by his big sister Luna. In the Peeking Through the Fourth Wall episode where they MST the story, he critiques that by saying, "I'm eleven not six!". In another Peeking Through the Fourth Wall episode, this time reading Model Brother, Lucy walks away upon seeing Lincoln hug Leni and Lola hug Lisa because she's not a very "huggy" person as Lincoln put it.
• In All Mixed Up!, Oprah tries to wriggle out of Maggie's hug when she forgives her for all the wrongdoing she caused, looking very uncomfortable with being hugged.

Films — Animated

• In Frozen II, Elsa is seen as a child being disgusted by her sister Anna's story that has everybody get married.
• We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story: Louie, a young boy in New York, attempts to run away from home and join the circus, later revealing his motivation for doing so being that his mother was overly affectionate in public, and he was running due to embarrassment.
  "You should have my mother, slobbering kisses all over me. In public!"
• The Emperor's New Groove: Pacha and Chicha's kids want to stay up past their bedtime. Pacha agrees, but warns them that they'll just be telling each other how much they love one another. The kids are grossed out and go to bed.
• The Lion King (1994): Both Simba and Nala are disgusted when they find out that they are betrothed to marry each other some day, finding the idea of marrying their best friend too weird.
• Phoebus and Esmeralda's young son Zephyr in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II has a clear and vocal dislike of romance. Whenever he sees displays of affection, his response is a quiet, but audible, "yuck."
• Ralph Breaks the Internet: When Snow White asks Vanellope if she's ever had True Love's Kiss, Vanellope reacts with disgust.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Princess Bride, the boy initially complains whenever Wesley and Buttercup kiss in the book, but eventually gets used to it.

Literature

• Bertie from Dirty Bertie, finds his neighbour girl Angela's kiddie crush on him (she claims she's his girlfriend but she's six and he's seven) disgusting and he's both disgusted and bored by romance movies.
• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Greg finds it absolutely disgusting when his parents kiss or say, "I love you so much!" to one another. He also hates being kissed by his relatives because he's afraid they'll spread germs.
• Subverted in I Don't Like Kisses, where the girl Samantha hates being kissed, but it turns out she doesn't mind other forms of affection.
• In Kiss Kiss Yuck Yuck, Andy hates being kissed by his aunt Elsie, but puts up with it after she injures her leg.
• From Life's Little Instruction Book:
  728. Hold your child's hand every chance you get. The time will come all too soon when he or she won't let you.
• In Miles Is The Boss Of His Body, six-year-old Miles hates being hugged, and the moral of the story is that hating being hugged is fine.
• Slug Days Stories: In Penguin Days, Lauren's Auntie Joss kisses her cheek. Lauren wipes it off and says, "Yuck." Later, she gets grossed out when Joss and Charlie kiss during their wedding.
• In Tales from Netheredge, Prince Adar (who is seventeen, by the way) reacts with disgust to his parental figures being Sickeningly Sweethearts in his presence. Immediately afterwards he snuggles up to his lover Piff (who he insists he isn't in love with, so it's fine).

Live Action TV

• Bumble has one episode where Boo is reading to a sick Peek and he says he feels sick. When Boo tells him to throw up in his bucket, he says, "No, not that kind of sick— kissing stories make me sick!"
• Odd Squad:
  • In Season 1, Oprah is depicted this way. She doesn't give much affection to her agents and doesn't even know how to give compliments without Oscar instructing her to do so, let alone give proper hugs.
  • Olive is also known to dislike affection unless she herself is the initiator. "The Briefcase" has her looking rather uncomfortable when a sickeningly-sweet Oprah (who is actually the Shapeshifter in disguise) pinches her cheek, while "Puppet Show" has her and Otto both angrily insisting that they aren't cute after the Puppet Master calls them such. However, she is open and willing to give hugs to both Otto and Oscar on two separate occasions.
  • Otis also isn't too fond of affection, both on the giving and the receiving ends. The end of "Dr. O: Party Time, Excellent" has him settling for giving the departing Dr. O a handshake instead of joining in the Group Hug, and "O is for Opposite" has Opposite Ms. O dragging him into a hug to his chagrin. He averts this in the ending of the Season 2 finale, where he goes to shake the newly-promoted Oprah's hand, only for her to tell him to hug her instead, which he does willingly.
  • In "Xs and Os", the X's, Xavier and Xena, openly despise kissing and hugging, with Xavier also stating that he dislikes handshakes after Olympia makes the titular correlation between them and agents like her.

Music

• In "Hello Mudda Hello Fadda (A letter from camp)" by Allan Sherman, the kid writing the letter says that if he can come home,
  I would even let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss me.

Puppet Shows

• There's a Sesame Street episode focused on Zoe not liking it when her aunt Chloe tickles her and coming up with crazy methods to prevent herself from being tickled.

Video Games

• AI: The Somnium Files: Played for Drama; 12-year-old Mizuki is a Mouthy Kid who rejects her guardian Date's attempts to bond with her, frequently with an insult or snarky quip. However, it's eventually revealed that she's Sour Outside, Sad Inside and isn't used to getting affection from others due to her Abusive Parents and Date's busy work schedule.
• In the Living Books adaptation of The Berenstain Bears in the Dark, clicking on Brother in the library will make him go through various books and react to them. One book, a romance, he reacts to by slamming it shut and going "Ew, yuck!"
• One reward a male Warden can ask of a young woman in Dragon Age: Origins, Kaitlyn of Redcliffe, for finding her kid brother Bevin is a kiss from her^note (which she happily gives, seeing as she thinks they're handsome even before you accept the quest), which not only will engender rivalry from any women in your party who're interested in you, but cause a full-on Double Facepalm from said brother Bevin.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, Orn Khai, a young dragonling, makes a hasty retreat when seeing his father get affectionate with his beloved after centuries of separation. Apparently even dragons can get repulsed by their parents being sappy and cuddly.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: As a kid, Anemone sticks out her tongue and gags when her mother, Auntie Seedent, kisses her on the forehead.

Webcomics

• Briar in Finding Your Roots hates the courting culture of her hometown. It's one of the reasons why she left.
  Briar: Littleroot is SO BORING, and kids are always kissing each other and it's GROSS. I don't wanna kiss people! I wanna punch people in the face!

Western Animation

• In the Adventure Time episode "Go With Me", Finn spends the whole episode looking for a girl to go to a couples-only cinema night with, but when he actually gets there he's so revolted by seeing all the grown-up couples in the audience kissing that he vomits and leaves.
• In an episode of Arthur, Arthur finds Valentine's Day gross because he finds the idea of everyone falling in love too soppy.
• Bluey: Averted by Bluey and Bingo, who like watching their parents get romantic and set them up on a date in their pretend restaurant in one episode.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: At the end of "Operation S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", having saved Lizzie fourth grade president Jimmy, it's revealed that his secretary Anna had secretly helped the KND in doing so, since she had feelings for him. She confesses her love which he's both surprised and touched by. This moment is interrupted by a grossed-out Numbuh 4 who has the two quickly incarcerated and taken away, and then goes on to mock their actions and state that no one will ever catch him acting like that with anyone, much to the fury of Numbah 3, who shoves him to the ground in a violent burst of anger.^note  It's somewhat of a subversion since it was hinted earlier in the series that he had a crush on her, and she already knew this, which is why she reacted that way.
• Dragons: The Nine Realms: After their Relationship Upgrade, whenever Tom and Jun openly show their affection for one another, Jun's older brother Eugene pretends as if he were about to vomit out of disgust.
• The Fairly OddParents!: In the episode "The Big Problem" where Timmy wishes he was an adult, one of the things he was excited to do was getting to see "grownup movies". He is then immediately grossed out when the couple on the screen start making out and it gets even worse for him when he notices his own parents a few rows ahead kissing during the movie. Timmy's dad even quips to his wife: "If Timmy were here, he'd say this is gross."
  Timmy: (covering his eyes) AHHH, IT BURNS!
  • This is subverted in a later episode; "The Boy Who Became Queen" where it is revealed that Timmy has a guilty pleasure for watching romantic soap operas.
• The Loud House: Lincoln and Ronnie Anne (who are both eleven) are often disgusted whenever Lori (Lincoln's big sister) and Bobby (Ronnie Anne's big brother) are being romantic.
• The Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures episode "Scrappy's Playhouse" has Mighty Mouse's ward Scrappy Mouse whinge and moan whenever he sees scenes from the old Mighty Mouse cartoons that involve Mighty Mouse and Pearl Pureheart embracing one another.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" Scootaloo, the most tomboyish of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, is disgusted at a group hug and the "sappy" story that preceded it.
• In Rugrats, Lil claims to hate kissing stories because "nothing ever happens".
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The Way We Was", Homer and Marge tell their children the story of how they fell in love, and after finishing the story, they happily embrace. While Lisa is touched, Bart pretends to puke.
  Marge: An occasional hug is all I ask.
  Bart: Mom! You can hug me when I'm asleep!
  Marge: I do.
  • In the second "Treehouse of Horror", Bart dreams that he has incredible psychic powers and torments anyone who has a negative thought or emotion. At the end of his rope, Homer goes to Dr. Marvin Monroe for advice, who suggests that Bart only acts out like this because he wants Homer's attention. Homer goes and gives Bart the attention that Bart wants, and the two of them go on to have a wonderful day doing fun things together. At the end, Homer tucks Bart in and kisses him good night...which immediately results in Bart waking up screaming bloody murder.
• In What About Mimi?, Mimi is grossed out by seeing her parents be affectionate with each other.

Real Life

• This is one of the symptoms of autism in children, which is when they reject cuddles and prefer to be left alone.

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