Don’t Cry!
By Veronika Sophia Robinson
In an amazing moment of
synchronicity, we were having a family discussion on the way to town about men
and crying, when Paul stopped for a newspaper. The headline on The Guardian was
Don’t Cry Andy ~ in relation to Andy Murray being the first English
person to reach the Wimbledon
finals for more than seventy years.
I caught a glimpse of Andy
crying yesterday when he came runner-up, and was expressing his immense
gratitude for all the support he’s had. I was overjoyed that he showed this
side of himself. Overjoyed that he was ‘being real’. I cried with him and for
him.
As a child, my dad would say
to me when I was crying “Have a good cry, get it out of your system.”
My husband cries easily, and
I wouldn’t have him any other way. To me, it doesn’t make him weak but quite
the opposite. A man who cries is strong because he trusts himself, and those
he’s with enough to reveal his true self.
A man who can cry ~ a man
who is in touch with his emotional life ~ is one who will understand your
emotions. And a man who understands your emotions will understand his
children’s emotions. And if truth be told, don’t we all want to have an empathetic
father? A father can’t understand his children if he doesn’t have emotional
access to his inner realms.
One of my pet parenting
peeves is hearing men (and women!) say to their sons “Don’t cry. Be a man!” Why
on Earth should half the human species be exempt from this expression of
emotion? Why should a three-year-old boy who scrapes his knee not be able to
have a natural bodily reaction to the physical pain he’s experienced? Why
should a teenage boy who has just lost his first love to his best friend not be
able to share how much it hurts?
The reason many people
perpetuate the ‘don’t cry’ lesson is because we live in a culture that hides
behind ‘stiff upper lips’, ‘grief with dignity’ (what the hell does that
mean?) or even a ‘false modesty’.
Many women in the natural
parenting field are with life partners who, for whatever reasons, don’t
necessarily sing off the same hymn sheet and discussions on parenting can
become quite fraught, but generally the discussions end up with one or both parents
closing down and not communicating clearly or effectively, or at all.
Unfortunately, people in these situations rarely recognise the root cause of
this dysfunction: a childhood of emotional suppression.
If men were raised with the
safety and freedom to cry as and when was needed, they’d be able to express
themselves without fear and the fear of being judged.
Intimacy comes when we can
open up to another. Another way to look at intimacy is this: in-to-me-see.
Yes, it’s about looking at who we truly are, and when we can make friends with
our fears and our emotions, then we’re more able to step up in relationships
and conduct them openly and honestly.
Tears are shed in sadness
and in joy. These rivers of life are meant to flow. I urge you, let your sons
(and daughters) cry when they fall over, have a fight with a friend, feel
disappointed, sad, bereft or happy with joy, excitement and pleasure. Let them
cry when they’re moved by a beautiful piece of music, artwork or display in
Nature. Let them cry when they're empathising with someone else's pain.
If you find yourself
uncomfortable with your child’s displays of emotion, it is worth doing a
journey into your inner world and asking if the very things that make you
uncomfortable are ones that you weren’t allowed to express as a child.
This is your chance to help
heal a family pattern.
