Growing up in a Lie

When you are little you are taught certain norms and are expected to follow them. Many times you are told that what you are doing is wrong and that only the opposite sex is allowed to do it. As a young child you do not have power over what you decide to do and are in a way forced to follow what that tell you because you are to young and naïve to know right from wrong. Little do the parents know that by shaping their children into what society wants them to be can affect them in their future. Just the other day I was spending the day with my little cousin and my mother when all of a sudden my little cousin scrapes his knee. I right away knew that he would cry but for some odd reason it seemed as though he hesitated to start crying. My mother right away went to him and asked him why he was crying and he didn't want to answer when my mother quickly responded, "well stop crying because boys don't cry". I commented on what she had said because it wasn't the first time I had heard it but for the first time I realized that my little cousin at age 6 was starting to control his emotion. For quite sometime I have heard many parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents tell young boys, "boys don't cry". This stereotype has been around for quite sometime and it doesn't seem that we will be getting rid of it anytime soon because parents don't understand the meaning of letting kids show their emotion. Boys who cry are often seen as weak and are often picked on by peers and at times even own family members. This stereotype is not only enforced through family, but through the media as well. This is a worldwide problem that affects not just the men but also everyone who they are involved with.

As you grow you start to shape yourself as what you see in your surroundings. You start learning things and seeing what is right from wrong. It is an adaptation that is bound to happen many times. With young boys the most common adaptation is to bottle up your emotions and show know sign of weakness because that is only for girls. Not only is this brought own by family but the media has a lot to do with it. If you watch TV shows for example iCarly the character Nevel is a boy who tends to be more open about what he feels and shows more emotion than any of the other male characters in the show. His character is often seen as weak, weird, and compared to being a "little girl". Most boys who watch the show would not want to be compared to Nevel due to how people pick on him. It is an image that is portrayed and stands out clearly to show that boys aren't meant to be weak like that. This is then where the change begins to happen. In "Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space," Brent Staples states, "I began to take precautions to make myself less threatening" (200). While Staples is making changes in his life to fit in with the society and seem less threatening young kids start to change and lose that sense of having to show emotion because they want to seem strong and powerful.

Kids learn how to put up this wall that wont allow them to cry or show emotion because don't want to be referred to as little girls or in worse term sissies. Kids that grow up with this fear can often urn into bullies. In order to seem strong among peers they choose to bully someone weaker to show that he is not weak physically and emotionally. It is a fear that not only grows with in the child but within the family too. It is as though it is morally wrong for boys to show that they have feelings and in general to cry. In "Role Reversal," Dan Savage reveals,