Man Up, Son!
Gosh I wish this was discussed more especially with moms who have sons. I’ve been looking at my own parenting with a deeper lens lately. Trying to find approaches that feel good to me in my mom journey, trying to be a better mom. I think we’ve all been there, right?
I work with many women in my coaching business and I can’t help but see how our childhood’s impact who we become in a BIG WAY! It’s made me think about how I’ve handled situations, discipline, and communication, and how this will impact their adulthood. I’ve begun reading a new parenting book called, “The Danish Way of Parenting,” and it really enlightening. It goes into detail about how the happiest people in the World know about raising confident, capable kids. I appreciate their parenting approaches and have started integrating them into our family.
As a boy mom, I hear the expression, “man up” way too much as a response to my sons’ behavior and showing their emotions. And quite honestly, I feel there is a better way of communicating.
It’s OK to feel emotions, to release emotion, to ride our emotional wave. It’s not ok to hold in what we feel. This is a very healthy process for our children to learn, especially our boy. By allowing our sons and daughters to cry, have meltdowns, and us parents being there with them for when they are ready to open up and talk or perhaps just need a hug, we are teaching our children how to self-regulate their emotions. There is a conditioned, society norm of “Man Up”… meaning to toughen up, stop showing emotion, stop feeling the emotion, push it aside and forget about it… carry on! And I HATE IT! It needs to end.
When we hold in our emotions instead of feel then, these big emotions stay in our bodies, manifest into illness, ailments, anxiety, depression and other health issues. We literally become sick. All because we don’t want to look “weak” or not cool, calm and collected.
Well, this boy mom will be redefining the term “man up” with her 3 sons! Man up will mean to have courage to express and communicate how you feel, release the emotion, let it out… this is where the healing takes place.