Boys DO Cry!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

I know that I’m a bit late to the party in writing this one but I’ve been planning to since last week:

On the third night of the US Democratic Party’s National Convention in Chicago when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took to the stage to accept the nomination to run as the party’s vice-presidential candidate and, during his speech, referred to his family as his “entire world”, his 17-year-old son Gus jumped up, and with tears flowing down his cheeks shouted out, “that’s my dad!”.

This, to me, completely understandable and pure moment seemed too much for many on the internet with the young man being accused of being “weak”, a “beta male”, and “weird”, among other things, rather than a young man who is clearly exceptionally proud of his father, and whose love and adoration took hold of him in what must already be a highly emotionally charged environment. Tim Walz himself was also targeted, being accused of not providing the correct lessons for his son and of clearly being a poor role model, which makes even less sense to me – as a father if my son were to ever burst into tears of pride due to something I had done I would take it as a massive compliment and see it as proof that I might just have done something right as a dad.

Many quickly also jumped to Gus’s defence, pointing out that he is neurodivergent, having a form of nonverbal learning disorder, and some of those who criticized him apologized after finding out, but they too I feel missed the point. It doesn’t matter that Gus has NVLP, even if he were a completely neurotypical (not that I believe neurotypicality actually exists nor, if it does, that it can be defined) his reaction should be seen as completely normal – boys DO, and should be ALLOWED TO cry!

How much harm has been done to men and boys over the decades where they’ve been shamed for showing emotion? How much violence, substance abuse, and even self-harm and suicide could potentially have been avoided if we’d embraced male vulnerability instead of throwing out phrases like “real men don’t cry”, “stop being a baby”, “man up”, etc.?

I am an emotional person, and I cry – hell, I’ve been welling up the entire time I’ve been writing this post! I make a point of not hiding that fact from my son either, hoping that by seeing me vulnerable and emotional he’ll understand that it is alright to do the same himself. Thankfully in that regard we don’t seem to have a problem, he does seem to be his father’s son when it comes to his emotions and when they overwhelm him he is comfortable enough to let them out, safe in the knowledge that rather than judgement he can expect a massive hug, and to be held tight until he is ready to let go.

I would love it if the next time a male of any age cries in public hopefully, rather than judge him negatively, people will instead focus on the positives, like how much Gus loves his father, or how amazing a dad Tim must be to elicit that kind of reaction in his 17-year-old son.