“When boys are little, they are nice. They pick flowers for their mother. They have a certain softness. Then toxic masculinity comes along and they disconnect from their emotions. So we decided not to raise men the hard way.”. This is the observation made by this mother, named Jen, in a TikTok video that has gone viral. She continues: “I may sound crazy, but when you raise your children to be tough, or you tell them to toughen up, what you teach them is to mask the real emotions they feel to appear strong. “In other words, teaching little boys to be “tough” and to bottle up their emotions forces them to internalize them.
Being too hard on your children leads to anger, says mother
She goes even further by arguing that this internalization turns into a single emotion: anger. “What happens is that these tough little boys grow into men who are only capable of expressing one emotion. And that emotion is anger, because they have repressed their feelings so muchs, that when that boundary finally breaks down, it manifests itself in the form of anger – throwing objects, yelling” she says. She and her husband therefore ask their children not to hesitate to express what they feel. She explains: “ What we teach our boys is to feel deeply andand allow yourself…
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