{"id":1100,"date":"2018-04-03T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1100"},"modified":"2018-04-21T21:42:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T01:42:13","slug":"oh-its-crying-time-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1100","title":{"rendered":"C – Oh It’s Crying Time Again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh, It\u2019s Crying Time Again…<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cGet over it! It\u2019s just an animal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This got me thinking about a conversation that Otto and Herman once had about crying. <\/span><\/p>\n

———————————-<\/span><\/p>\n

Otto\u2019s next door neighbor had just passed away. \u00a0\u201cYou won\u2019t catch me shedding any tears for him. He did it to himself and deserved what he got! Besides, I\u2019m a man, and men don\u2019t cry, only wimps and babies do.\u201d You could hear the self-\"\"<\/a>imposed superiority in his voice. \u201cCrying 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Herman was appalled when he heard that. \u201cYou have no empathy or compassion! <\/span>Crying can be scientifically defined as the shedding of your tears in response to an <\/span>emotional<\/b> state (author\u2019s note: <\/span>according to the <\/span>Science of Tears<\/span><\/a>) <\/span>\u00a0It is a natural \"\"<\/a>response to emotions. When someone dies who is close to you, you\u2019re sad and crying is a\u00a0normal 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otto didn\u2019t seem to care. \u201cWhat about when you watch a movie and you get all emotional and cry? That makes no sense. You\u2019re crying over something that isn\u2019t even real. They\u2019re actors!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEmotions don\u2019t 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\u2019s sad reaction to an event.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the way I was brought up!\u201d Otto said, \u201cMen don\u2019t cry. It\u2019s dangerous to show your emotions in public. People will think less of you.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Herman replied, \u201cThen 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.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan you cry too much?\u201d That\u2019s probably not healthy either,\u201d Otto asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat might mean there is something else that you are not dealing with and should seek help,\u201d was Herman\u2019s response. \u00a0\u201cBut whether you are a man, a woman, a boy, a girl or even an animal, it\u2019s okay to be sad and it\u2019s perfectly acceptable to cry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Was that a tear forming in Otto\u2019s 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\u2019t going to admit it. <\/span><\/p>\n

———————————-<\/span><\/p>\n

I was somewhat upset at the substitute teacher\u2019s reaction to my student. There\u2019s no time limit on sadness when a child is dealing with death. You need to support them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And I certainly get teary-eyed when watching sad events unfold. I still can\u2019t understand why I continue to well up on this one Doctor Who episode, that I\u2019ve 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\u2019s a different story.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh, It\u2019s 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, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,9,7],"tags":[70,115,67],"class_list":["post-1100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2018","category-personal-stories","category-story-writing","tag-a-to-z-blog-challenge","tag-crying","tag-harvey-heilbrun"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}