by Ruth Woodhouse

Created on: February 20, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Of course real men cry! Crying is a natural response of any human being, male or female. Why should men feel embarrassed or somehow less masculine because they cry? They have tear ducts, don't they? If men were not meant to cry, why were they given tear ducts - or why do they not shrivel up during puberty?

Babies cry unreservedly - and as they grow into toddlers and on into early school years, they continue to cry frequently. My little boy will burst into tears over the smallest thing - or so it seems to me. To him they are not small things of course.

As we mature, we learn that we have to control our responses of various kinds. This is a necessity - but it can certainly be taken too far. Boys are given the strong message in our society that tears are a sign of being a softie or a sissy! How unhealthy is such a message! I am sure relationships in general would benefit from boys being given the message that, while we need to control our emotions and reactions to some degree in social situations, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a boy or man shedding tears when he has good reason to feel very sad or distressed.

Many grown men do indeed cry - and a lot of them are anything but weak or soft. These men are in touch with their feelings - and that can only be a healthy thing. Tears were created for a purpose. They relieve the pressure on our minds - and that is beneficial to the whole person. Crying releases endorphins into the body. Endorphins are hormones that make us feel better. So ironically having a good cry can make you feel better and enable you to cope better with whatever has caused you to cry. Why should men be denied this natural process of responding to and handling the stresses and heartaches of life? Maybe less men would become so desperate that they take their own lives if they had been given permission to cry down the years.

I certainly do not think badly of a man who cries about something that touches their humanity deeply. I would only think more highly of them. Last year I saw an Oprah Winfrey tribute to a young boy called Mattie Stepanek who had passed away after years of fighting a terminal condition. Firefighters and Harley riders paid honour to the 13-year-old at his funeral and it was obvious these courageous heroes and macho-men of our society were deeply moved by emotion. One thing that really stands out in my mind from that show is when they had finished playing footage of the funeral service and the camera focused on Oprah and John Travolta - both with tears brimming in their eyes. In that moment my respect for John Travolta soared. Here was a man whose fame and fortune had in no way robbed him of his humanity and ability to feel so strongly for a young boy's stoic battle that he wept unashamedly in front of thousands of viewers.

Certainly women are, generally speaking, likely to cry more readily than men - and will cry over things like sad movies - which a man generally wouldn't cry about (though there's no shame in them doing that occasionally either). But society should cut them a bit of slack over this issue. To cry is simply to be human!

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