Why do women/moms pinch kids' cheeks?

[Rhiannon8404]

@dracoi

In my family, it was something we did mostly because only babies and very young kids have the kind of cheeks you can pinch. Once they get old enough to lose that baby fat, there’s nothing to pinch. So it’s sort of affirmation that, yes, the baby is still a baby. Nonsensical, but no more harmful than tousling a boy’s hair. Plus, you can’t exactly shake hands or hug yet… it’s a way of making contact. By the time a kid got old enough to complain, we’d stopped doing it to them.

Yeah, this is the only kind of cheek-pinching I have ever experienced or seen in real life. Barely even a “pinch”. I had no idea people pinched kids’ cheeks in a mean-spirited way.