MEN DON'T CRY

It's been said severally that "Men Don't Cry". 

The appalling thing about this statement which has been induced and inculcated into most men is that it is mostly done right from when they were boys. 

This is quite saddening. 

Let's be practical here. 

If a boy is happy, is he free to laugh?

Oh, yes he is. 

No one tells him to stop laughing because he is a boy. 

So why is he reprimanded for crying when he feels pain or hurt, just because he is a boy? 

Are humans not allowed to express emotions? Or Is the boy not a human being?

I am tired of parents telling their sons not to cry.  

Some time back, I witnessed a scenerio between a mother and her son. 

The little boy who is about 11 years old felt hurt by a friend. 

He was explaining what happened, and in the process, he started to cry. 

Immediately he started crying, his mother shouted at him and said, "Keep quiet there, and stop crying like a girl. Are you not a boy?!" 

I felt bad for the boy. 

Moreso, I felt unhappy because what that mother told her son, is typical of what most other mothers tell their crying sons. They tell them not to cry like crying is an offense. 

These boys then grow up with the wrong notion of 'boys don't cry' and it graduates into 'men don't cry'. 

They become hardened men because of all the negative emotions they keep inside. 

They become pain givers, because they have too much pain inside. 

Let's stop turning our boys to stone-hearted men who will hide their emotions. Men who see vulnerability as a weakness. 

Men who will keep hurt and pain bottled up inside, only to lash out that pain on innocent people who didn't inflict the pain. 

The truth is that crying can be therapeutic. It can be liberating. 

It has been scientifically proven that crying causes the release of oxytocin, a chemical that makes people feel good and may also ease both physical and emotional pain. In this way, crying can help reduce pain and promote a sense of well-being.

This lack of awareness and understanding of emotional intelligence can lead to long-term mental health challenges in the 'victims'; further leading to unhealthy relationships with themselves and others. 

Telling a child not to cry when hurt because he is a boy is child abuse. 

Take note that an abused boy is likely to perpetuate abuse and/or become an abusive man.

Ghandi once said: “It’s easier to build a boy than to build a man”.

Leave the boys, let them cry when they need to. 

Don't turn them into men who lack emotional intelligence and empathy.

Don't build boys into men who will have horrible relationship with themselves and others. 

Written by

Elizabeth Oduwaiye

--Touching the world POSITIVELY; one person at a time