Big Boys Don't Cry

Boys idolize the adult men in their life and conform to meet the attachment expectations. Being told not to cry will take root in their belief system.

Published: September 28, 2022
Reviewed: February 19, 2025

It was early spring 2014

It was early spring 2014. After two decades serving in the Armed Forces, I was standing on a short stage in front of a group of family, friends, and colleagues for my retirement ceremony. This is a solemn event for every service member. It is a time to reflect on one’s career and the family’s support. Military service is a family affair.

After the pomp and accolades, it was my turn to give a brief speech before the ceremony concluded. This was my time to thank those who supported my career, and I saved the best for last. She had been my devoted companion since I met her in my second year of service.

No grateful expression of mine could justify the full capacity of her compassion and dedication. But one, more than any other, came to mind. Our mutual promise before marriage was that she would follow me anywhere so long as we would one day return home and let our future children experience a life with their maternal grandparents. That day had finally arrived 23 years later but her parents were no longer alive.

They passed away, 11 months apart, a few years earlier while I was deployed half-way around the world. I failed to deliver on my pledge after her long-awaited hope. I made my sorrowful apology standing before all the people closest to me.

It brought me to tears.
It brought everyone to tears.

Sitting in the front row next to her mother, my 18-year-old daughter turned to my wife and whispered, “I’ve never seen Dad cry.”

She was only a few feet away

I could hear her words. I froze as my mind raced to contemplate the truth of her claim. Had my own daughter, after all this time with me, never see me cry? It was hard to fathom. I retraced the entirety of my adult life in a split second as if the present moment stood still. She was right. In fact, it was my intention from the beginning to show my children that their dad was a strong man. Standing there in uniform, I was a fortress who could withstand any threat. Cold if necessary. Often angry. That’s the dad they knew. I regarded sadness as a display of weakness. I lived the well-planted lesson I was taught as a child by my extended family… big boys don’t cry.

I quickly rationalized a response in a setting that did not allow serious contemplation. I did what any self-preserving man with addiction would do. What I always did.

I lied.

I first denied myself, then I lied to her with my reply, “I never had a reason to.”

It was a statement of self-protection. In that instance I unknowingly and dutifully perpetrated the same indoctrination that I received as a child. Yet in my mind, my manhood—which had been in question—was safe again. In mere seconds, I locked down the emotional runaway train of tears and returned to the vacant, safe fortress of solitude.

Like verbal DNA

The generational handed-down phrase of “big boys don’t cry” is, in my opinion, a terrible conditioning our culture and families impress upon young boys. Boys idolize the adults in their life, especially the men. They conform to meet the attachment expectations. So, an instruction not to cry becomes entrenched in their belief system.

It is most often delivered in a boy’s time of distress. It’s the adult’s way of shaming an undesirable behavior when, in fact, it is the adult’s inability to hold space with strong emotions. It’s the adult’s fear that tells a child to “bottle up” their feelings and not expose them. As if sorrow and anguish are to be extinguished and tears are only a feminine trait. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is how adults in our family of origin went wrong. As a result, we are now adults who turn to substances and behaviors to cope with years of negative emotions we’ve repressed, yet still reside in our psyche. Emotional repression is like holding a beach ball under water. Holding a few emotions just below the surface is manageable but tiring. Holding many emotions down deep will eventually deliver an explosion. One that impacts those closest to us.

Instead of telling us the “don’t cry” mantra, they should have taught us by example how men can hold space with the despair of other people, empathize with them, and be a source of emotional comfort. The display of grief—crying and tears—is the by-product of the way our brain processes strong emotions of loss and fear. To deny this function is to prevent your body from healing itself and processing the full spectrum of human emotion.

Emotional tears . . . flush stress hormones and other toxins out of our system.

Leo Newhouse

Harvard Health Publishing

Harvard Medical School

It’s okay to cry; it’s what we’re supposed to do. It’s far better than the alternative.
Big boys do cry and they should teach their kids the same.

Be authentic

Cry well. Cry often. Let your brain heal so you can live a joyful life. You will certainly garner more respect from your wife and kids than by going through life with a wall around your heart. As for your life’s purpose, break the chain of negative conditioning. Be the example to your children that you weren’t given. Do it for your children’s and grandchildren’s sake.

About the author

Tony is co-founder of Oak Mountain Coaching, an online practice that helps men regain their sexual integrity from the throes of active addiction and helps their partners heal from betrayal trauma.