Crying and “Shame”

The whole thing about shame and how it is mentioned to young children is one of my pet topics.

Five years ago, I wrote about this when I encountered a Mother who said, “shame shame” to her kid who just wanted to try a potty chair.

Today, as I have my morning tea at one of my favourite hangouts, I am reminded of this topic again.

A kid who looks to be two or three years old was sitting at a table nearby. There was an adult with him, but as he was crying for his mother, that adult didn’t respond to him. A while later, the mother came back and the kid looked at her with teary eyes,continuing in his cry for attention.

At this point, a third lady appeared, looked at the crying and showed him the infamous gesture of “shame shame”, swiping the side of her own face with one finger.

It bugged me.

Why does crying have to be met with “shame shame”?

Seeing this happen to the kid reminded me of what happened two weeks ago.

HusBenKoh and I were dropping the small kid off at Sunday school at church, but the kid was crying. He had had a rough week, having to adjust to a new schedule in school. I knew he was going through separation anxiety and just needed more assurance.

While we were queuing for the health check with my crying son, a little girl, probably my son’s age, was nearby with her grandmother. The grandmother, seeing that my son was crying, tried to get the little girl to help calm my son down.

“Go, tell the boy, no shame,” she told her granddaughter softly. I knew what she meant was that my son should stop crying so that there was no shame on him, but i was annoyed.

The little girl did exactly as her grandmother said, came up to my son, and said, “No shame”, or in other more direct words, don’t cry.

I was annoyed by the association of crying and shame, but I wanted to focus on comforting my crying son, so I ignored what the lady told her granddaughter to say.

This really perplexed me. While my son eventually calmed down and even enjoyed himself at Sunday school (I got some feedback from his teachers), I didn’t like crying was associated with shame.

While I do not condone and do not like to entertain my children’s tantrums, I acknowledge that crying is a way they express their emotions. It is okay to cry! And there is nothing shameful about crying!

I don’t deny that I grew up in an era and environment where adults would use “shame shame” on whatever they didn’t want the young kids to do. It was just a way of “correction”. If young kids lifted up their shirts, “shame shame”. If young kids cried non stop, “shame shame”. If boys (especially) cried longer, “shame shame”.

But why?!

If young kids lift up their shirts, just explain to them why they should not do it.

If young kids cry, surely there is something they are upset about and need comfort for. Even if it is a tantrum, deal with the issue as it is.

If boys cry, it is because they are every bit as human as everyone else, and they have emotions too. And they are allowed and entitled to these emotions. Deal with the issue as it is.

Don’t say things like, “You are a boy, you cannot cry.” Why can’t boys cry?

If it isn’t obvious by now, this topic is really a peeve for me.

Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT associate shame and cry together. Do not be tempted to say it your own kids or someone else’s kids. There is no shame in crying!

But there are, of course, ways to deal with the crying by handling the issue the kid is crying about. Just, do not make the kid (actually, adults too) feel that crying is shameful.