The Irish Government Wants To Protect Kids From Grandma’s Hugs

The Irish government just pulled its latest public service advertisement surrounding consent, a PSA endeavoring to protect children against an inescapable and terrifying danger: being hugged by their grandparents. You almost have to feel bad for SNL U.K. and other satirical comedy outlets when reality is far more absurd and hilariously horrific than anything they could feasibly write.

The ad was among the latest offerings from We-Consent, an ongoing national campaign run by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) in partnership with the Irish government intended to educate the population about consent in every circumstance. Their tagline reads “all people, all situations, all relationships.”

It sat for weeks before social media noticed the footage and a swift backlash followed. Irish Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan denounced the video as “inappropriate and demeaning to grandparents,” and it was removed from circulation. While it is no longer running, this 25-second ad demonstrates everything wrong with current conceptions of consent and the diminishing of family.

The atrocious video in question shows two children enthusiastically rushing to the door to welcome visiting grandparents, who greet the younger with customary hugs and affection. The elder granddaughter hangs back, making a puerile face of disgust and judgment as grandma goes in to kiss her forehead, before cutting to the ad’s text. “Not everyone wants a hug. Even from the people who love them.”

Won’t someone please think of the children? Without these ads, they may be forced to hug their loving family members, maybe even get a kiss on the cheek.

The advert is so ludicrous it almost reads like satire. And knowing taxpayer money funded it adds insult to injury. Removing the PSA from circulation doesn’t unspend the money.

We-Consent is funded by the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration. It’s comforting to know that instead of working to fix issues associated with mass migration, rising inflation, or the ongoing housing crisis, Irish taxpayers’ money is being put to the vital work of sowing distrust between family members and teaching children not to show affection to their grandparents.

The now-removed video was released alongside two additional shorts, both focusing on awkward interactions between parents and children. One follows a father unprepared for his young daughter to ask where babies come from, and the other shows a mother walk in on her teenage sons watching a film just as a sex scene begins.

The point of the two other videos is far more noble, encouraging parents to begin an open dialogue about sex and consent with their children, so that the kids feel they can come to them with questions, protecting them from learning about intimacy and how romantic partners should be treated from their peers or the internet.

The videos are silly and awkward, a hallmark of the genre, which helps the two bridge the gap between parents and children on uncomfortable topics by making it feel silly rather than scary.

But the third ad severs the connections the other two ads intend to foster, pathologizing familial affection and demanding a permission structure for normal behavior.

Watering down consent to such an overwhelming degree does a serious disservice to the actual importance of preventing sexual assault. If the prevalent idea of consent was requiring grandparents to ask before giving a hug to a grandchild, people would conflate this nonsense with actually concerning nonconsensual touching, and therefore take neither seriously.

Expanding these definitions to the point of meaninglessness would put children at risk who are being groomed but lack the exact vocabulary for the situation. While this video was intended to teach children that their boundaries matter, whether major or minor, it instead turned the concept of inexplicably uncomfortable touch from an adult into a joke and gave an easy comparison to laugh off or explain away a child’s confusing concerns. Even after its removal, enough people saw the risible clip to do potential damage.

Children need to be taken seriously when a trusted adult’s behavior causes unease, so reducing nonconsensual touch to a hug from grandma risks the opposite of the video’s intended impact.

But sharing normal physical affection with your family and loved ones is both good and important, even when occasionally undesired.

Sometimes kids go through phases where hugging is unappealing. Maybe they’re embarrassed by the outward sentimentality, or scared to show anything as earnest as care for their family. Maybe they’re pushing for independence, mistaking hugs and kisses for childishness instead of a wonderful, lifelong way to show affection and warmth.

Someday, everyone will hug their grandparent for the last time, and many don’t yet know which hug will be the final one. You don’t think about your family members wishing they had asked for more permission before showing affection; you wish you had one more chance to receive even one hug.

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Paulina Enck is a media specialist in Washington, D.C.