The American doctor told The Sun that because the mouth was an erogenous zone, a kiss on a child’s lips “can be stimulating” and potentially confusing to children.
“If mummy kisses daddy on the mouth and vice versa, what does that mean, when I, a little girl or boy, kiss my parents on the mouth?” she said.
However, another clinical psychologist Heather Irvine-Rundle slammed those claims as “outrageous”, saying lip-kissing children was not an inherently sexual act.
And she said it was the latest in a long list of ways already vulnerable parents were being unnecessarily judged and criticised.
“It’s an outrageous thing to say to parents. It absolutely does not take into account a special relationship that parents have with their children and the non-sexual nature from which that particular behaviour comes,” she told news.com.au.
“It also fails to take into account cultural issues as well. We know we come from a culture in which the idea of cheek-kissing and lip-kissing is something that’s kind of OK, but if you move to northern parts of the UK and particularly in parts of Scotland, that’s a really comfortable thing for people to do even into adulthood.
“It’s not sexual at all and I think the fact that it’s something we’re happy to do in public means that there’s nothing sinister about it.”
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