Ladies, Stop Your Crying!

Of course crying is a sign of weakness.   You cry when your emotional fortitude has been compromised.   So it logically follows that if you're someone who cries all the time, you are emotionally weak.   To the chorus of tearful, outraged voices that just rose up in protest, I close my eyes, put up my hand and block you.  Oh, did that make you cry out of frustration?   Cut it out.

 "But," you wimper, "I cry because I'm sad (or insert your favorite sympathy-inducing emotion here)".   Listen.   There's a time and a place.  And it's not every day at all hours.  Crying is for venting extreme emotion: joy, sorrow, pain.  If you cry to express every degree of emotion, you’re doing it wrong.  If you do it because someone once told you it’s okay to cry, you read too deeply into their words.

 I can't speak for the guys.  However, to the ladies I say: turn off the waterworks.   Cry when your kids are born.  Obviously.  Cry at a funeral.  Of course.   Cry at a chick flick.  Duh.  Cry when you drop a pitcher of orange juice on the floor?   Or when your kids are mouthy?   Or when the discussion with dear hubby isn't going your way?   Are you five?

Crying is an expense of your precious energy.  If you just wipe up the spilled OJ without the blubbering, you've saved yourself half the energy you would have otherwise spent.

Crying is a sign of defeat and a game-changer.   Mouthy kids get empowered if they realize you get all noodley over a little lippiness.   When this happens, it stops being about the issue at hand and turns into a power play.  Who's the boss in that relationship, anyway?  If anyone should be crying, it's the kids.  And they should be crying because you've imposed extreme sorrow (due to an extreme grounding) on their disrespectful hind-ends.

Crying is manipulative.  When you cry during a discussion with hubby that's not going in your favor, you're bailing out on your chance to guide things to a decent end.  You're trying to illicit an emotional response from your opponent and hoping it will gain you some ground.   You’re going somewhere you know he won’t go. That's playing dirty.  Have some integrity.

At the very least, stop crying to preserve your dignity.  How much respect does a red-faced, runny-nosed, sobbing mess command?  Not much.  Children cry at the drop of a hat because they are looking for attention or because they don’t know there are other ways to deal with difficult situations.  When you cry at the drop of a hat, you appear child-like, which is hardly becoming of the capable, adult woman you’ve become.

Dry up, chin up, cheer up and carry on.