Saturday, April 16, 2011

Never Judge a Book by its Cover

The letter N stands for Never ...

... never judge a book by its cover.

I'm actually talking about teenage boys. They carry themselves a certain way on the outside, but there is so much more going on, on the inside.

Here's a follow up to a previous post (LIFE) about the drunk driving program that was conducted at my children's high school.

My 17-yr-old son came home on Thursday, and I asked him how the assembly went. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to change the subject. I brought him back to the topic and told him I'd like to hear how it went. He listed out the facts, the schedule, the speakers, the people I knew. He said, "It was weird." I prodded him more with questions, and he finally explained how by the end a lot of girls were crying.

"Only girls?" I asked.
"Well, only the girls were noticeable. No guy would want to cry in that situation."
"Right ... " I said.
"But there was definitely a lot of nose wiping and sniffing from everyone."
"Did it make you emotional?" I asked.
"Oh yeah. It was pretty uncomfortable."

He's an awesome young man. Maybe the program did have an impact.

9 comments:

  1. Good for him for acknowledging what he was feeling, good for you for getting him to express it. Our boys need to know it's absolutely OKAY to FEEL!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awh bless! My younger brother used to wear black leather iron maiden jackets and T-shirts and help old ladies in need> That got a few surprised comments as they expected him to be a selfish, toughie deliquent! :O)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a shame that we've made our world be unacceptable for men to cry. Men are humans too and should be allowed to show their emotions (other than anger, which seems to be the only acceptable form). Good for him for acknowledging his feelings and sharing them with you. I sure hope the program had an impact!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I try to see past the uniform of choice because the young are so much more than they appear.

    ReplyDelete
  5. How can we expect our youth to know exactly who they are with so little life experience to go on? I'm still finding myself at 33!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Having two sons - they were teenagers once, I appreciate how moving it is when they actually let you in. It must be really tough to be a boy, or a man, sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You know I found out with my 2 boys, now 29 and 33, that I had to do just as you did to be able to communicate with them. It was not always an easy task. But if I was persistent and we were alone, the chances were good that they would discuss their feelings about whatever happened with me. And its still true even though they are grown up and out of the house.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My teenage brother (17 yrs old) is exactly the same. I find I'm able to have deeper conversations with him on MSN chat, because it's less confronting for him. He's got a heart of gold though and I'm proud to be his big sister ('big' only in age, he's about a foot and a half taller than me!).

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cally's comment reminds me of my own brother, who's way taller than me at 6'5" (he used to be tiny, too!), and also has a heart of gold. He is a guy I can really admire, and I'm proud to be his big sis. :D Of course, he's 28...but I was proud when he was a teen too. LOL.

    ReplyDelete