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Affection can be expressed in many ways, in a shared joke, a word, a glance, a touch.  Small babies need to be cuddled and petted; if they are totally deprived of this, they become neurotic.  We never fully outgrow this need for touchingness, although it is probably the first bond to disappear when things are going badly between people.  A juvenile judge told a friend of mine that he had presided over hundreds of cases involving juvenile delinquents and their parents, but that never once, as father and son stood before the bench, had he seen the father put his hard on his son’s shoulder, or touch or attempt to reassure him in any way.  This is a sad thing.

Sin, Sex and Self-control, Norman Vincent Peale, page 134