Oh, It’s Crying Time Again…
I had to leave my classroom for a short meeting. A substitute was hired to cover my class for the few hours I was away. Unfortunately, this was the same day that our class pet, guinea pig, died. Since I was with the class in the morning we arranged to bury the pet in the woods next to my classroom and held a funeral. Some of the kids in my class were very sad and cried as we all left notes talking about our memories of the guinea pig in the hole that we buried him in and filled it up. One of our students’ parents even went so far as to create a marker for the grave.
That being done the students went back to class and I went to my meeting. When I returned to class some time later, there were still some students upset and a little teary-eyed. What I also discovered was that the substitute teacher added to the upsetness by telling the students to “Get over it! It’s just an animal.”
This got me thinking about a conversation that Otto and Herman once had about crying.
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Otto’s next door neighbor had just passed away. “You won’t catch me shedding any tears for him. He did it to himself and deserved what he got! Besides, I’m a man, and men don’t cry, only wimps and babies do.” You could hear the self-
imposed superiority in his voice. “Crying is a waste of time. There is no point to it. There are other ways to clean out your eyes. If you need to get emotional then you should hit or break something. Now that … releases any sadness you might have.”
Herman was appalled when he heard that. “You have no empathy or compassion! Crying can be scientifically defined as the shedding of your tears in response to an emotional state (author’s note: according to the Science of Tears) It is a natural 
response to emotions. When someone dies who is close to you, you’re sad and crying is a normal response, whether you are a man, woman or child. Even pets show emotions when sad. Crying is a way to release emotional stress without the need for violence.”
Otto didn’t seem to care. “What about when you watch a movie and you get all emotional and cry? That makes no sense. You’re crying over something that isn’t even real. They’re actors!”
“Emotions don’t have to only show themselves for real events. Being a person of compassion and empathy means understanding human nature and this means you can be affected by storylines that touch your heart, whether it be a film, a book, or even watching someone else’s sad reaction to an event.”
“That’s not the way I was brought up!” Otto said, “Men don’t cry. It’s dangerous to show your emotions in public. People will think less of you.”
Herman replied, “Then be prepared to have a lot of issues as you grow older. Withholding your true emotions is bad for your health. Crying is a normal outlet for sadness.”
“Can you cry too much?” That’s probably not healthy either,” Otto asked.
“That might mean there is something else that you are not dealing with and should seek help,” was Herman’s response. “But whether you are a man, a woman, a boy, a girl or even an animal, it’s okay to be sad and it’s perfectly acceptable to cry.”
Was that a tear forming in Otto’s eye? You could see by his expression that he was taking all this in and considering it, possibly questioning what he had been taught. But knowing Otto he wasn’t going to admit it.
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I was somewhat upset at the substitute teacher’s reaction to my student. There’s no time limit on sadness when a child is dealing with death. You need to support them.
And I certainly get teary-eyed when watching sad events unfold. I still can’t understand why I continue to well up on this one Doctor Who episode, that I’ve seen numerous times, when it at the end the main character is trying to explain to her children that their father has died in a WWII plane crash, only to find out that she has saved him. But that’s a different story.
