Boys Don’t Cry: Reflections on Growing Up Without Permission to Feel

Growing up in a northern town in the 1970s and ’80s, it often felt like there was only one acceptable way to be a man: stoic, resilient and, above all, unemotional. Like many boys of my generation, I spent years trying desperately to blend in and be “one of the lads”. I carried an invisible weight, constantly aware that I wasn’t like the other boys, always afraid my difference would be found out.

Even now, it is sobering to look back and see how soul-destroying that vigilance was. Only over the last two decades have I felt safe enough to lay down that burden and start being more myself.

Learning Not to Cry

In my therapy room today, I often sit online across from men of a similar age and background: working-class men who were taught to “pull their socks up” and “just get on with it”. The scripts are painfully familiar:

“If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.”

It is a phrase I heard countless times, and I never quite understood it. Why was it not okay to cry? Why were sadness, fear and hurt treated as shameful?

I never once saw my father cry, not even when his marriage collapsed under the strain of his drinking. It was not because he was especially tough. He simply never expressed emotion. He grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, with a father who was a sergeant major in the army.

The story goes that my dad used to wet the bed when he was a little boy, and his father whipped him for it. Afterwards, he continued wetting the bed throughout his life. It was never something he spoke about. He rarely talked about his feelings or experiences. It simply was not something he did.

As a boy, I concluded that feelings must be the domain of girls, and that to be a man was to be mute in your pain.

The Soundtrack of Suppression

It reminds me of The Cure’s classic song Boys Don’t Cry, a piece that gently mocks the expectation of male emotional silence. Lead singer Robert Smith once explained:

“That song was partly making fun of the notion that boys should be tough. That you can’t be honest about how you feel.”

(You can read more about the song’s meaning in Far Out Magazine.)

The Hidden Costs of Repression

When a child learns, by word or by example, that emotions are not to be shared, he can only internalise them. That is what I did. I swallowed my sadness, my confusion and my fear. But as many therapists will tell you, feelings buried alive never die.

Instead, they fester, bubble, and eventually force their way to the surface in more destructive forms: addiction, rage, self-harm.

Research has consistently shown links between repressed emotions and mental health crises in men. According to the Mental Health Foundation, men are less likely to ask for help, more likely to use substances to cope, and tragically more likely to die by suicide.

The Boiling Pan

In therapy, I often use this analogy:

Imagine a pan of water with a lid on. As the heat rises, the lid begins to rattle and shake. If you clamp it down tighter, the pressure builds until scalding steam forces itself out through any gap.

That is what happens when you hold your feelings in. Eventually, they come out sideways through aggression, numbness or despair.

Snowflakes and Strength

I sometimes worry that the old scripts of toxic masculinity are creeping back under new names. These days, if you show your feelings, you might be called a “snowflake”.

I find the term curious. A snowflake is natural, beautiful and unique. It forms in the harshest conditions imaginable. If anything, being sensitive in an unkind world shows remarkable resilience.

Finding Permission

Today, I no longer repress or apologise for my feelings. I cry freely, even if it bewilders my wife when I tear up at an episode of Doctor Who.

I am reminded of Scrubs, which I recently rewatched alongside the podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends. The show’s two male leads shared a friendship that was deeper and more emotionally open than many men are taught to expect. Their example reflected something that has been true in my own life.

My best friend, whose companionship has spanned five decades, was the only person I ever trusted enough to share my innermost thoughts with. He was my lifeline through heartbreak, divorce and addiction.

An Invitation to Feel

The truth is that every human being, man or woman, is born with a full spectrum of emotions. They are neither good nor bad. They simply are. Left unacknowledged, they become a storm we cannot control.

But when we offer ourselves permission to feel and to speak, we take back our power. We step closer to who we truly are.

In all my relationships, whether professional or personal, I invite feelings into the room. Even the uncomfortable ones. Especially the uncomfortable ones. Because they are all welcome, all valid, and all part of being gloriously human.

Resources and Further Reading

• Mental Health Foundation: Men’s Mental Health
• Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
• Mind: Mental Health Support for Men
• Far Out Magazine: Boys Don’t Cry Explained
• Movember Foundation: Changing the Face of Men’s Health

Sincerely Yours, Paul

 

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