Stop Telling My Child To Stop Crying

Motherhood brings unique joys and pains to every mum, and we are better off acknowledging that. In this series called Mum Truths, mums reveal their secret successes, miseries and gripes about parenting in a no-holds-barred first-person recount.

By most measures, I was a pretty easy child to manage save for one thing: I was a crybaby. Whether it was perceived abandonment, being misunderstood or losing at a game, I wore my emotions on my sleeve.

I can still recall the exasperation of my mother whenever the tears started to fall. When I was four, she, probably out of ideas by then, yelled at me to ask why I was crying. That made me wail harder.

I racked my brain for the vocabulary to explain what exactly in that given situation had triggered me, but the words wouldn’t come. 

Over time, these mini events led me to conclude that firstly my sensitivity was a weakness, and secondly, if I had to deal with sadness, anger or fear, home wasn’t the best place to express them. 

The intent of sharing my personal experience isn’t to blame my parents, though I was rather resentful up until my early adulthood. Rather, it is to demonstrate just how uncomfortable adults are with difficult emotions, because we have never been taught how to process them in a healthy way. 

I was forced to dredge up these learnings when my firstborn turned out to be an almost exact replica of me. He has also made me exceedingly protective of his emotional well-being—not by keeping him smiley and giving him everything he asks for, but by allowing him the space and time to ride out his feelings.

Did my husband and I start out being patient? Hardly. Terrible-twos tantrums were met with rebukes. “He’s trying to test us!” we thought. But when I realised I was looking into the mirror though his sensitive nature and social anxiety, I knew our parenting had to become loads more mindful.

Our (or at least my) approach became softer. We stopped trying to immediately shut down his negative feelings. Tears are now met with a hug or handholding if the child allows. Logical reasoning is replaced with quiet sitting. I encourage him to regulate his breathing. If he isn’t ready to talk, I’ll leave it—often, he’d share his reflections hours later or the next day. 

In setting behavioural limits, I try my best to stay calm while explaining right from wrong and allow him to cry as he needs. I’m not always successful at being cool and collected all the time but practice makes it easier. 

Regardless of our best efforts at home, it is still an uphill battle in teaching our children that all emotions are okay and part of the human experience. There’s no need to fear or hide any bit of it. 

The unfortunate fact is that the ability to “suck it up and move on” is normalised in society. Being stoic in the face of suffering is considered “strong”—perhaps it is so for an adult trying to keep it together to raise a family, but it most certainly isn’t for a young child trying to figure out his messy emotions while yearning to maintain emotional attachment with his caregivers. 

I’ve lost count of the number of times the grandparents, with the best intentions, have told my kids, “Stop crying”, “Shame shame, don’t cry” or worse, “boys don’t cry”. 

One time, my middle child’s preschool teacher, without knowing any context of the situation, even said to my sobbing kid in my presence, “Crying doesn’t solve problems.”

Erm, thanks, but no thanks. As an adult, when someone tells me to “chill” when I’m upset, it makes matters worse. So why would it be any different for kids? 

I know naysayers might say that sensitivity puts the children at a “disadvantage” when they are of school-going age and when they head out to the workforce. This just further feeds into the system that puts toxic masculinity on a pedestal. 

We end up raising a generation of apathetic children who wear a hard shell to adapt to the idea that tears are not accepted and are embarrassing. 

But I’m a realist. There’s no way I can change the way the world thinks. The very least I can offer is a safe space for my children to share their honest feelings without being judged. The last thing I’d want is for them to prefer pouring their heart out to strangers on the Internet while concealing their authentic selves from the people who love them the most. 

So I kindly request for all well-meaning adults to pause before telling my (and your) little ones to stop crying. Deal with your own hang-ups first, and you’ll be so much better equipped to comfort your children when they need you. 

Mei Yan is mother to three boisterous children and two furry felines. She maintains her sanity with kopi siew dai, Reiki and Tarot reading, and hopes to pay off her sleep debt in this lifetime.