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I recently asked a few friends for topic ideas, and my friends don’t throw me any softballs. This was the first idea to hit my desk.

As a little boy, I cried frequently and with relatively little provocation. I had a thin skin. I was sensitive. Over the years, the other boys beat a lesson deep into my psyche: crying was not OK for boys, and continuing to do so would result in immediate revocation of my man license. I learned to suck it up. I kept the tears in, and it is a lesson that still influences me today.

When I watch my youngest son playing, I see how crybabies are made. He’s 22 months old and growing like crazy, so he bumps into something, falls down, hits his head, skins his knee, or otherwise injures himself almost every 10 minutes. If I’m standing right there when it happens, the tears start flowing immediately. Naturally, Mom or I will pick him up, soothe him, and then set him to playing again. But, if I’m discretely observing him while pretending to read a magazine, he’ll look at me after such an event, and if I’m not paying attention, he keeps playing. This also happens when he’s having so much fun playing that crying wouldn’t be as fun as continuing.

As much as I can, I try to let him handle it on his own. He’s a tough little kid, and I think that if I continue to let him roll with things, not soothing every little “owie” he gets, he’ll be less likely to cry inappropriately and more likely to avoid the lessons mis-taught by his peers.

Do I cry, now? Not much, and never publicly. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to unlearn the lessons of the past, and I have felt times when I wanted to cry and couldn’t. The lessons are deeply ingrained, and I may spend my entire life trying to unlearn them.

Can real men cry? This question presents a false dichotomy. There is a spectrum of crying, from “My wife won’t let me buy a Harley so I’m going to cry” to “My best friend just died in my arms”. I think that every individual has different criteria for when it is OK to cry, and those criteria change based on who is doing the crying. I’d even go out on a limb and say that these criteria change frequently, depending on recent experiences.

Should real men cry? Yes and no. Crying is a physiological response to stressful situations which provides a catharsis, a release of the stress. When the stress is too great, it leaks out in bad ways. In all things, the extremes are to be avoided. Cry too often, and a man is labeled a wimp, not to be trusted as a protector, mentor, or provider. Cry too little, and a man becomes hardened, quick to anger, and not to be trusted as a protector, mentor, or provider.