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  • I remember I rarely cried as a teen. On one of the rare occasions I did (I was stressed about school), my dad told me to suck it up and would periodically tease me about it for months afterward. My mom, meanwhile, told me verbally it was ok to cry, but if I ever actually tried to come to her to vent about anything, she would brush me off immediately.

    Cut to well over a decade later, living on my own, it's really helpful to cry. Unfortunately we live in a culture where if you, as a man, cry in front of others, you're likely to lose respect even if you're literally in mourning. I teared up when the whole thing with Angella happened in She-Ra, I wept for hours when Trump got elected again. I cried on and off for a long time after my best friend of over 15 years ghosted me out of nowhere, but it was always alone (except for once, which I deeply regret. That's a long story but it did reinforce what I'm saying).

    If another man came to me to cry about something, I wouldn't want to discourage him, but I'm not sure I would even know how to react.

    • I read somewhere a long time ago that males are evolutionarily designed to react aggressive at the sound of crying as a defense from predators or something hurting a member of our tribe, whereas females are more likely to rush to apply aid to support injury or feed a hungry child. I'm not sure if that's true or some man-o-sphere bullshit I heard/read, but it might have some scientific grounding. I became a father in Dec. 2019. I still struggle to emotionally support my own 5.5yo child when he's really upset. It tends to make me upset, almost angry, and I find myself wanting to yell at him to stop!

      It's taken years of therapy to get comfortable with these emotions when I feel them, yet alone to get to a point where I can support him when he does. However, developing emotional awareness over the last decade means my son will not have to grow up hearing, I'll give you something to cry about, like I did. Now, I'm able to identify when he is just pissed I won't give him candy for breakfast and when he is emotionally overwhelmed and needs more emotional support.

      Man, from the environment, to social safety nets, to us adult children and our emotional awareness, the boomer and gen-x parents have really fucked us all!

44 comments