There’s hardly a reason for a man to cry. Yet, I see it several times a week, exclusively on television or social media that is. A man requires stoicism to get through life, a steely resolve to conquer the world before him. A man doesn’t need to sob like a simpering baby because he won an entertainment award or any such nonsense that pervades modern life.
I’ve cried exactly three times in the past ten years. I cried when my grandfather passed, when I unexpectedly became a widower and when my favorite hunting dog died. Those are pretty good reasons to cry it out. Those were my flesh and bone; they were meaningful to me. It makes sense for a man to lose his composure in such times. And, before the world went sideways, those were culturally acceptable moments for a man to let his guard down.
Today, it’s encouraged for a man to cry and “open up” his feelings. That’s all a load of horseshit and the slingers of that malarkey know it well. It’s designed by a feminine society to weaken men – to make men into women. Hell, they have surgical procedures and estrogen treatments to make it as close to the real thing as possible. Naturally, the end result is a Frankenstein’s gender-bender monster on their way to an early grave. Men crying is the least of our worries in that respect.
I remember my grandfather correcting me when I cried as a young man. A pretty young thing had left me high and dry, I thought we had a good thing going. That’s how it goes sometimes, but I was young and inexperienced. I was in my early twenties and, in hindsight, well out of the acceptable age range to weep over something as stupid and foolish as a “Dear John” letter. He pulled me aside and said, “Save them tears for something important, boy.”
That was the point in his old Florida country wisdom, even if it was just a short remark. Priorities are important in life – make the most and give the most to your priorities. Crying over a video game or your football team losing? The absurdity of it is actually offensive to real men. Those really aren’t important to you or your life in the grand scheme of things. But, you can bet your bottom dollar that tons of crocodile tears, and likely the real thing, flowed last weekend over a damn football game.
For a man to cry over piddling matters in life, it demonstrates two things about him: (1) he’s not a “man” (he’s not mature enough for that title) and (2) his life is out of order. For instance, a man crying over a new Star Wars trailer. Yes, it’s happened. If you can stomach clicking on that link and viewing the man-child tearing up over a hack film, it’ll be readily apparent that this individual has the maturity of a young boy. More importantly, it illustrates an incredible misallocation and misuse of his own emotional investments. Crying over an international, faceless conglomerate, fictional characters and strangers? It’s sickening when you sit back and think about it.
Children cry all the time. Usually, they cry because they’re hungry, tired, hurt something or they’re having a temper tantrum. It’s pretty easy to figure out once you become a parent. Grown men crying over sportsball, faux “nerd culture” films and being on television? That’s something a little more complex and, frankly, disturbing. It’s a group of men that haven’t learned a critical lesson from the Good Book. They’re emotionally stunted and can’t move forward in the journey of life.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11
-By Red Webster
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
Good post.
I could literally tell a thousand anecdotes directly related to what you have said here regarding the importance of raising young men to be, well, men.
I coach boys in football and baseball. Several years ago one of the mothers of one of the boys on our team asked me privately my opinion of why her son wasn’t where he needed to be judging by the average of the other boys on his (2nd year tee ball) team. I simply replied, “you want me to be straight up and not pull any punches, right?” She indicated that, yes, that is what she wanted. I then told her, “he is developmentally inhibited because you treat him like a baby instead of like a seven year-old.” She took it in stride and wondered whether I’d be willing to put some extra effort into him and help him overcome some of those developmental problems and bring him more ‘up to speed’ with his peers. I agreed, under the condition that she not undermine me or my efforts, even when she thought my methods a bit “too harsh” or whatever, which, I also informed her, “you invariably will find them a bit too harsh in certain cases.” She agreed to my condition(s), and I spent a lot of time with him working those defects out over the course of two years. Then all of a sudden he decided he didn’t want to play baseball anymore. I didn’t see him or his family for a couple more years except on rare occasions. I spent some time around them over the summer months, however, and virtually all of the gains we had made with him have, by now, been lost, best I can tell. So there ya go.
A few years prior to that one of my sons was on the peewee football team; he was one of the star players on the team, in point of fact. The team was very good inasmuch as being competitive with all the teams in their league, and ultimately won the championship that year. However, they had a bit of a “hickup” game mid-season and were beaten (13-12) by a team not even close to as good as they were that they took lightly. After the game was over all the boys, except my son, were crying over the loss. One of the more “outspoken” boys on the team approached my son and chided him saying, “you’re the only player who isn’t crying,” tears streaming down the boy’s face as he angrily said these words. I turned away in disgust, but my son simply said to him, “losing a football game isn’t a thing a young man should ever cry about.” He was of course perfectly right and justified to bark back in that manner, and I of course derived a great deal of pride from his doing so.
Mr. Webster defined Education as “ALL that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, form the manners and habits of youth, and to fit them for usefulness in their future stations.” While many paragraphs could be written in defense of each element of that definition, and I in fact have written many many paragraphs in their favor in the past, my focus here is on that final goal – to fit them for usefulness in their future stations. Young men who cry over a loss at a football game or a baseball game as it were, or as with the boy in my first example above who are developmentally disabled in the way of their boyhood, will most likely never reach the maturity level necessary to be “fit for usefulness” in their most important future stations. Namely as husbands, fathers, leaders in church and/or civic leaders, business owners or employees, and so on. “Sportsball” as you call it can be a very effective tool for real men to teach young men how to be men. All too often it is not utilized to that purpose, which is just one more symptom of a much greater disease.
I once listened to a sermon by a Pastor on the radio in which he (I think maybe Chuck Baldwin, but I could be wrong) explained that he had sat in for his Son and DiL at their son’s school’s “Parent-Teacher” meeting. He said he noted right away that the teacher of his grandson’s class seemed to be very knowledgeable about all the newest fangled ways of teaching children his age, but didn’t seem to know what the goal was in all of this “teaching methodology.” At some point he got her to the side and initiated a private conversation with her on the matter. He ultimately asked her point blank “what is the goal here?” He said she stammered around for a few seconds and finally admitted she couldn’t answer the question. Which he said, in the sermon, “horrified me!” As well it should have.
I hear you loud and clear. I would add, a man ought not to cry in front of other people. In any case where its acceptable to cry, there is generally somebody else hurting just as bad, and keeping a stiff upper lip is the best comfort to loved ones in cases of severe loss, like the examples you gave.
Still, it is necessary to grieve. It took years for me to get over losing my dad because I dealt with it poorly and never accepted sympathy or support from people I should have. People that also were hurt by his death. It was selfish, and I can’t ever undo that failure. Grieve, but do it privately.
Emotional stoicism is a much more broad topic than just regarding grief, and how we deal with it. Pride, anger and contempt are also aspects of your average white guys normal range of emotions on a daily basis in this clown world. Those things too, need to be burried and only expressed privately. Becoming a man is all about realizing that you dont matter. In healthy society, men are expendable and replaceable. Only the tribe, the family and the nation matter. History bears this out. Wars have never been fought by women. Countless millions of men through history have died badly, but bravely, for their tribes and nations. Women have never been treated this way. Even the ones who were conquered after wars were lost, were valued more alive than dead.
Our biggest help to young men, our most enduring wisdom, is to convey the virtue of keeping their mouths shut.
Do whats right, and don’t talk about it, and you will be a good man, loved by your people.
Speaking your mind gets you fired, divorced and suppressed as a dissident and disruptive influence.
The only people who will ever care what you think, are your sons, and theirs.
Keep your head down, and be quiet.
There are many good reasons to cry. There are many bad reasons to cry.
I seem to recall the shortest verse in the Bible saying that someone wept. I’m quite confident it was for a good reason and entirely appropriate.
Tears can heal. Manly tears of joy or pain in the proper setting can be a good thing. It doesn’t make one a pussy, but it does make one human.
Awesome. And you made an important biblical point. Such attachment to frivolous things is ungodly.