AIBU to think a 16 y.o. boy should be able to cry openly?

[WhatNowMatey]

My 16 y.o. DS watched a film last night which was quite emotionally upsetting. (It was Everest, during which several people die and others have to make harrowing decisions about whose lives to try to save, and then live with the consequences.) He felt he had to prevent himself from crying because "boys shouldn't cry." I think it's totally okay for him to cry openly and I was surprised he felt like he did because I'd have said we are very much a sharing-emotions-openly family.

He was watching it alone but in our open-plan kitchen diner with me pottering in the kitchen. He's autistic if that makes any difference.

YABU it's not socially acceptable for a 16 y.o. boy to cry openly.

YANBU it's totally fine for a 16 y.o. boy to cry openly.

Yes, of course it should be ok for anyone to have a cry if they feel the need - regardless of age or gender. Might be a little worrying if a teenager can't stop crying and is set off by absolutely anything, but that's nothing to do with gender, and more to do with learning to control emotions. But a little cry at an upsetting film, that's absolutely fine.

For what it's worth, I took my fully grown adult son to watch Spiderman No Way Home a few years ago, and we both had a cry! Felt a bit ridiculous at first, until we realised half the cinema were sniffing into their hankies! Nothing wrong with a little tear here and there.

Of course a few tears at something sad, is normal, even for males. My DS is 24 , he’s a lager swilling, football loving blokes bloke. He’s fine with crying too, doesn’t think it is weak at all, he’s pretty sensitive in front of the family, although I don’t think he is so much in the outside world. I remember watching War Horse with him when he was roughly the same age as your ds, he cried. He blamed me of course, he cried because I was upset, we all had a laugh at that excuse!

16 is a funny age though, they have weird ideas about what being an adult looks like, I think as they age they realise adults are human too, lol

Where did he hear the "big boys don't cry?" Then find them and give them a reality check!

We've always told ds that crying is an expression of a feeling, and expressing your feelings is fine.However peer pressure and gender streotyping (still alive and well in 2026) tells them they can't cry or show any sadness or vunerability. I always remember when he was 15 him telling me
" mum at school if a girl is upset her friends gather around her whilst she cries, and they all hug her, boys don't do that, we have to cope on our own".
It broke my heart! But you see it on threads on mumsnet all the time - the gender stereotyping I mean, it starts from birth - see the Gender disappointment threads!

There’s a lot more wrong if a child can’t cry about people dying. I think society would be immeasurably better if men were allowed to cry more and get angry less.

I would be wondering what media or social media he was consuming, or what friends or family have said to him/in front of him, for him to come to that conclusion. Do you have any ideas where he got it from?

It won't have come from one place. It's everywhere.

I'm a 40-odd year old bloke. I know that men cry, I do it on occasion myself (most recently was yesterday at an episode of Young Sheldon). I will happily tell people I cry. I am not ashamed of crying, whether its at something in real life like my Mums death, or something as stupid as a child being bullied on a sitcom.

And yet I still always try to hide it when it happens, because I don't like to people to see me doing it. It makes me feel weak, and shameful in the moment, even though I don't feel that way afterwards.

And it's because boys don't cry. Everyone knows that. It used to be that you'd get picked on for it, Dad would call you a wuss, friends would laugh at you. That has mostly flipped. You now get cartoons with the message that it's OK to cry, parents tell their boys that it's OK to cry, you get threads like this.

That's great, but it also reinforces the message that boys crying isn't something that should happen, but it's OK when it does. It's not normal behaviour.

A 16 year old kid seeing this thread (not sure how many of them are on Mumsnet admittedly) isn't getting the message that it's OK for boys to cry, they're seeing that a boy crying is an event that's worth making a thread about.

It's like going on holiday to Wales and seeing a sign on a cafe door saying "English People Welcome". You've not experienced any anti-english sentiment, everyones been lovely! Looks like the people in this cafe will be too. But there must be a reason for that sign to be there in the first place. It didn't appear in a vacuum.

The message at the moment is that boys crying is OK. The subtext of that message is still that it's abnormal. Once no-one comments on it at all, that'll be the point where boys really feel OK to cry.

Thanks for all the replies. I have no idea where he got the idea, but I agree that it's probably from all over the place.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

He should be able to cry openly in front of you, but if he does it in front of a typical group of his peers, he will be ridiculed.

Like all of us, he needs to judge his "audience".

ASD DS 20 gets tears in his eyes when angry or frustrated but processes emotions differently I guess xx

I think 'boys shouldn't cry' is ridiculous. However, I do find excessive shows of emotion to be tiresome in general. For instance, I find anyone (male or female) openly weeping over something fictional/fictionalised to be a little much. Tearing up, sure, but breaking into floods of tears? It's discomfiting, and over the top for something that isn't even real. (I'm autistic, if that's relevant).

Couldn't agree more!

@MissyB1 Totally. I'd not state this view on gender disappointment threads - no point in further winding up people who are already feeling wobbly - but there's a fairly large part of me that thinks that if a person would be traumatically disappointed to have a baby of a particular sex, they should very strongly consider taking every possible step to avoid becoming a parent via the intercourse lottery.

Well said 👏 👏 👏

Of course he should be able to. My DS is 22 and he got a bit upset last night (prob partially my fault as we were talking about something that happened in the past - he said he was ok to talk about it, then he wasn’t!).

We hugged then I made him a drink and he sat in the garden w the cat to feel better.

Boys are def conditioned not to cry - it’s all about banter and piss-taking. it was the same when I was young & I’ve v rarely seen DH cry.