A Letter to Men

We need to talk.

You guys are getting a bad rap. You are being condensed to the lowest common denominator, suffering the tolerability of low expectancies.

“Boys will be boys.”

It is a small war every day to unearth the parts of you that you have been told to bury since birth; to tend to the wounds left wide open by other people in places you are afraid to look. If only someone had taught our fathers and their fathers that being soft is not a sin. If only someone had stopped our mothers and their mothers from praying for gentlemen for their daughters, while also teaching their sons how to be hurricanes.

To be honest, the world isn’t a safe place for men to express their emotions. Society creates this image of man that young boys try to fit into. Masculinity takes the form of a cage intended to keep men from exploring their whole humanity and all that comes with it, branding emotions as weakness and all forms of weakness as unmanly. Be it from how you’re expected not to show vulnerability to the crushing expectations on you as breadwinners, we have continually failed to humanize men. We have failed to humanize you.

Emotional hurt is just as valid as physical hurt and you shouldn’t be embarrassed by it. Why are tears not meant for men? Admitting and communicating your emotions as a man is like walking on cracked ice, constantly prepared to break into the frigid waters of emasculation.

Why do we tell men to be indifferent and then get angry when they listen? Let’s break the habit of saying “boys will be boys” and acknowledge that boys will be what we presume them to be. And you deserve more.

When we tell little boys to toughen up or scold them for crying, what we are really doing is teaching boys at a young age that it’s not acceptable to express emotion. Then, as they grow up, men start to shut out, numb out, and push away their feelings. But these methods don’t ever make the feelings disappear.

Perhaps helping men heal would lower the number of men who buy women for sex; who express their anger by hitting their wives because that’s what was mirrored for them as an adolescence. Perhaps commending men for going to therapy would have a much greater impact in our society than we realize. Perhaps normalizing little boys crying when they are hurt instead of telling them to “toughen up” would help them grow into more emotionally stable adults. I can’t say, but I can dream.

Broken little boys grow up to be broken men. Society demanding that masculinity is void of tenderness and emotional intelligence is toxically damaging to a man’s ability to be vulnerable and open to the healing process. When you, as a boy, are raised with the notion that “real men don’t cry,” it is exactly when we teach you to suppress your emotions and feel nothing. Maybe if crying little boys were consoled and reassured instead of disgraced there wouldn’t be so many irate men struggling to communicate and understand emotions.

So many of you are wrapped up in a culture that says you should “just stop” feeling what you’re feeling, that your tears are laughable instead of precious, that what makes you valuable is a tall frame and deep pockets and an unwavering sense of strength. Some of you have been brought up that men don’t cry.

But sometimes men do cry. And that’s okay.

You’re still a man.

I’m sorry your pain isn’t acknowledged as much as it should be. It takes strength to feel what you were taught to hide. I’m so sorry you were told not to cry. I’m sorry if your emotions were met with anything but love. I’m sorry that society has asked you to disown the emotional, vulnerable parts of yourself and then placed blame on you for this as you got older. I’m sorry you weren’t welcomed just as you are, and now as a man, you may hurt.

I hope you find the healing you need. I hope you reclaim the parts of you that make you who you are. I hope you befriend your emotions, and that stigma doesn’t prevent you from finding relief from suffering.

Struggle is the quintessence of life, and sometimes we fall apart. It might be really tough for you to not cry, to let your souls exhale the suffocation that kills inside. Stop falling for the trap that men can’t be emotional. Let your tears pour. Let your heart shout. Crying doesn’t make you any less of a man.

Everyone deserves to be human – so don’t man up. Don’t tough it out. I encourage you to find true strength instead. Show your vulnerability. The repetitions of previous generations are dispersing with each individual’s journey to restoration.

It starts with you.