Boys and Their Feelings

There was some controversy recently involving some high school football coaches and actions they took against players during their practice time. Video was released, and there were a lot of opinions on how appropriate the coaches' behavior was. What became more interesting to me as I saw this all play out was the reaction of people and their comments on social media about the teenage players.

The general thought held by some people was that if the boys couldn't handle what the coaches were doing to them, they were "soft." You can think of any similar derogatory description used, and it could probably be found in the comment section under the articles and videos about this incident. Calling high school football players names, questioning their masculinity, and asserting they wouldn't turn out to be strong men because they couldn't handle some "tough coaching."

My concern is that we are continuing to expect young men to be devoid of emotions. We are teaching them that to really be a man, you must be stoic. We have somehow defined certain emotional expressions as only for boys and others only for girls. It's my belief that emotions aren't an issue of being masculine or feminine, but of just being human. If we expect young men to cut off their emotions, we are not making them stronger men, we are making them less human.

One of the many unique things about humanity compared to other living things is our ability to have and express our emotions. We are born with them, and ideally, we learn to live a life not controlled by them, but also not shutting them off either. To be a healthy and whole person, I think we need to be able to live in this balance of our emotions.

From a Christian perspective, if we believe humans bare the image of God, and our God has and expresses emotions, then we are willfully denying part of our "image-barerness" when we shut down our emotions. We are cutting off a part of ourselves that is actually meant for good. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to someone cutting off another functioning part of their body like a hand.

Instead of teaching young men how to divorce themselves from their emotions, we would all be much better served helping them understand and regulate them. We should be inviting them to express emotion and move through it rather than avoid it entirely. We should be helping them develop tools and understanding of themselves so they can flourish as whole humans rather than denying what is naturally occurring within them. But unfortunately, a lot of men will be met with calls to "suck it up" or "don't be a girl." This type of emotional life has consequences that echo into eternity.

I do also want to note there is plenty of nuance here and a grey area we unfortunately have to deal with. My invitation into more emotional expressing doesn't mean we let them run wild. Our emotions need balance. They need to work within a system that's also guided in part by our logical brain. But it is the ability to be logical and emotional that marks a healthy person. To lean too far over into either one of those categories would be like trying to ride a bike without being balanced, we would simply tip over.

There are also moments in life where we need to cut off emotions so we can survive something. I have stories in my life where I needed to be in my logical mind and hold off my emotions. One of those moments I was in the hospital with my daughter when she stopped breathing and her monitoring machines weren't alerting the nurses. She needed help immediately, and it wasn't coming. I can remember how it felt like time slowed down, my emotions pulled back, and I knew exactly what I needed to do to help her. In that moment, if I let my emotions run, I may crumble. But I also know that at some point, I will need to process those emotions that I pushed back. They need to be felt and expressed, or they will turn into something they shouldn't.

My hope would be that the culture around men and emotions can continue to change. Maybe if these coaches had a better relationship with their emotions, they wouldn't have lost control of themselves and taken things out on their players. With the proper tools and space to express, I think men can continue to become more alive and healthier humans. I have seen these things change in my own life, and I have hope for them to change for my sons as well.