Boys don't cry? Ahm, who says?
While gender inequality is more widely reported on in the context of girls and women, for parents of boys, there are worries too.
Rhetoric like “Be a man!” and “Boys don’t cry” is damaging, both to girls and boys. For boys, it reiterates that boys who show emotion or weakness are failures, also serving to have the instantaneous effect of reinforcing to impressionable young children that in fact girls are the weak ones.
So we were heartened to see that a video of an instructor telling a young boy that it was okay to cry has gone viral.
Jason Wilson is an instructor at the Cave of Adullam, a faith-based group in the US that seeks to spiritually educate boys and men using techniques like martial arts and meditation.
During a martial arts session, a nine-year old boy called Bruce began to cry, but instead of telling him to “Man up” in the context of pushing his feelings away, Jason told him that it was okay to cry.
“I don’t mind you crying,” he said. “I cry too. It’s good to cry.
The emotional footage has now clocked up nearly a million views, with people roundly praising Jason for his actions.
Cave of Adullam says it released the footage “to encourage all of you to not only allow your sons to cry when facing emotional stress, but more importantly, patiently walk them through it”.
We couldn't agree more. So many lives are lost because society tells boys they shouldn't talk about their feelings or show weakness. And it's all backwards, because we know that facing up to our emotions is a strength.
