My Son Asked Me If I Even Cry

After my daughter moved across the country, my 14-year-old son and I had a moment in the car I was not prepared for. In this episode I talk about what it means to be emotionally present with your kids, what we are silently teaching our sons when we refuse to let them see us grieve, and what a traffic jam on the way home taught me about sitting in pain instead of running from it.

Key Themes:

Dads and Emotional Walls

Custody Battle Backstory

The Last Drop Off

Crying in the Car Together

Impermanence and Acceptance

Traffic Jam Lesson

A Sensitive Son Remembered

Dropping the Tough Guy Act

Vulnerability for Our Boys

Resources

Work With Me 1:1: https://www.threesixfivedad.com/pages/1-1-coaching-service

365 Dad Journal: https://www.threesixfivedad.com/products/365-dad-journal-physical

Subscribe to the Inner Journey Dad Newsletter: https://odeani.substack.com/

Free Shadow Work and Inner Child Guide for Dads: https://threesixfivedad.kit.com/innershadow

Transcript

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As a dad, how many times do you think about the fact that it's hard for you to be emotionally expressive with your children, especially in front of your boys? If you have a son, this is especially for you. Even if you have a daughter, you right, you have girls, it's the same thing. But if you have a son, I think this will resonate a little more just based off of societal expectations of being a man. And the reason why I want to talk about this video is because my son and I recently have, you know, we're going through a rough time emotionally because my daughter, his sister, has moved across the country to Atlanta with her mom and her mom's boyfriend. And obviously, this is something that nobody wanted, right? And I know some of you may be thinking, how could you let that happen? I spent $80,000 to have my son as much as I have him in lawyer fees. And I promised myself I would never go to court ever again. If I ever had another child, I would never do that ever again. And so, you know, me spending $80,000 over the course of three years in a custody battle just left me too financially and emotionally stressed. And so when my daughter came to be, her mom and I decided we will not be going to court if this thing doesn't work. And when she brought this to me, that the plan was to move. Obviously, I've stated my peace and I wasn't happy about it. And I'm proud of my how I stated my peace, right? I stated it very calm, very respectful. But I knew there was nothing I could truly do because my mind was made up that I wasn't going to go to court. And so the next immediate action is to accept it and lean on the foundation that I created with my daughter and try and obviously be as present as possible regard despite the distance. So that's just kind of a little backstory. The real point of this video, though, is to tell you about an incident. Well, you want to call it an incident, but the moment that we dropped her off for the last normal weekend drop off. And so we dropped her off on a Sunday, and everything was fine, right? Hugs, goodbyes. And so my son and I get back in the car, and now we're driving for me to drop him off to his mom. And everything is fine. And then out of nowhere, he just starts bawling, right? He loves his little sister. They have he's 14 and she's four, but the 10-year age gap means nothing. Like they are best friends, and so he is crying. And I tried to do the manly thing, which big part of my coaching, big part of my brand is just that, right? It's no need to do the manly thing, just be okay with being vulnerable in front of your children. And in real time, I wasn't doing that, I was trying to be so put together, and I just could not, right? Like you seeing your kid cry, this is hard to keep it together. And I start crying. And so we both start crying because we knew, you know, we'll see her again, but we just knew it wasn't gonna be the same, right? Which is also a big part of my spiritual growth, right? In Buddhism, we talk about this a lot. Everything isn't everything is impermanent, right? And so don't cling too much to what's happening today because it can look different tomorrow, and you're gonna be better off accepting what's happening tomorrow if you're not so much attached to what's happening today. And so we're in the car, he's crying, I'm crying, and he said something to me. He goes, Do you cry? He's like, I feel like I've never seen you cry before. And now my son has seen me cry multiple times, right? He's seen me cry. Well, actually, I'm lying. He's seen me cry once, but a couple years ago, he wrote me a poem. It was like the sweetest poem in the world, and I started crying because this poem was about me, and it it really painted me in a light that it's exactly how I want to show up for him. And and so I started crying, and so he goes, Do you even cry? And he's like, I've never seen you cry before. We started talking about you know, it's okay to be emotionally expressive, right? It's okay to just him and I to just be in the car, tears about missing his sister. That's perfectly fine. And I don't know if any fathers are watching this that have never experienced that moment of crying with your child about shared sadness, about shared grief. That's powerful. As fate would have it, we're both crying, and we run into like a traffic jam. And I said to myself, this is great, right? Because we can't run away from this now. I can't drive faster. This is the universe telling us we have to sit in this together. And I was very thankful for that happening because it made me realize once again, there's no need to run away from this moment of grief that we're sharing together. And it makes me want to think about future moments where we'll share grief over something else. And how am I gonna show up in that moment? I'm not a wuss because I'm crying, he's not a wuss because he's crying, it's a natural emotion. And I knew my son was like this from way back in the day. I remember we watched a LeBron James documentary together, and the documentary was talking about the time where he had to sit out a game or two games or something because uh this was when he was in high school, and he broke some rule unintentionally. He like received some throwback jerseys or something, and he had to sit out a game or two, and then he came back in the playoffs, and I looked to the the left of me, and my son is crying, and I'm like, Why are you crying? And he goes, Because like I'm so happy that he was able to overcome that and be with his teammates. And from that moment, I knew that I can't be that dad that hides my emotions in front of him. Because I don't want him to think that he's wrong for being that way. I don't want him to think that he's wrong for being in tune with his emotions, especially as a boy, as growing into a man. And you know, I'm 39 years old and I think I'm pretty good as far as handling my emotions and expressing them. But your kids always remind you of where you are potentially falling short. That's what they do, they're just a reflection of that a lot of the times. And so when he said to me, Yo, do you even cry? I've been thinking about that for quite some time because there were many times that I probably could have cried in front of my son and chose not to. And the reason why I chose not to is because I I'm trying to like uphold this aura, right? This like this dignity, and it's stupid, it's really stupid. And so I guess the the the I have really no structure for this video, but I just wanted to share what I'm me and my son are currently going through. But I also wanted to make it about it's okay to be emotionally expressive, it's okay to show emotions and be vulnerable in front of your child, especially if you're raising boys, you're raising men. It's especially important to show that side of you because you don't want them growing up thinking they can't be expressive with their emotions. I'm writing about this in my newsletter, and so subscribe to my newsletter. The link is in the description, and you'll be able to receive more articles and essays about mindful fatherhood and and how to be present as a dad physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. I catch you next week.