Are You Teaching Your Son Not to Cry?

March 12, 2010

It's one thing to try and distract your child when he falls on the playground to get him up and running again and another to expect him to contain his emotions. Yesterday, I was making a quick run into the grocery store to pick up juice bars for my whimpering son who had a sore throat and fever. As I took him out of the car, quiet tears were falling down his face and a nice man who had parked next to us smiled before kindly telling my three-year-old that "boys don't cry." I disagree, but the situation made me wonder what other parents are teaching their sons. What's your opinion?

Source: Flickr User lovelypetal

5 Comments

NyckieRocks 3 years 10 weeks

We were out one day with our son and we saw a man telling his son that boys don't cry. It was my husband who later said to me, "We're not going to teach him that." I was so proud! My husband and I are both sensitive and emotional people, and I'm sure our son will follow suit.

mstrauss 3 years 10 weeks

I am just letting my son be. I am not encouraging him to cry nor am I telling him not to cry. I am not really a feminist but I don't want to teach my son that "boys don't cry" because I think that might teach him that girls do cry. I think crying is natural and it is okay for him to cry, and it's even okay to see mommy (and daddy) cry once in a while. I think that as he gets older, I want to teach him what is worth crying about, since I don't want him whining about everything, but I do want him to express himself naturally.

3 years 10 weeks

Being a very sensitive person myself, I've encouraged my sons to express themselves. Use your words in a respectful manner. If you wanna cry, Cry! ( Girls & women use tears to manipulate the men in their lives, starting w/ their daddies.)Keeping your feelings bottled up isn't healthy!

3 years 10 weeks

We've been encouraging our son to cry from very young. There's nothing wrong when men cry, and our 3 kids have seen their dad cry. It'n not necessary to cry over every little thing, but when you're hurt or very upset or very sad, you should cry. I'd much rather encourage my kids to cry to deal with their frusterations when they're young that to see them resort to negative behavior like hitting. Of course as they get older, they're learning that crying is not acceptable for everything, but certianly for things like getting hurt, a death, or other traumatic events! My MIL and FIL had a devestating fire yesterday where they lost a lot, but fortunately they and their house will be ok. Another 10 minutes and it could have been everything including the people in the house, and believe me, my husband, myself, our son and our younger girls were all crying! Tears of shock, sadness and relief!

3 years 10 weeks

I try to teach my son not to cry when its not necessary. He is 3 years old and will cry when he wants soemthing, I simply tell him that there is no need to cry just tell me what he wants or needs but I definitly don't say " boys don't cry". But when he is sick or hurt there isn't anything I can do about it and he just cries and its ok.

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