That Must Be Really Hard: Unraveling Toxic Masculinity — Jenny Smith

My 7-year-old son and I sat on a couch on the back porch at his grandparents' home in Florida. A breeze ruffled the palm trees and stingrays floated down the canal.

He looked over at me and said, “I hate being the smallest one in the family."

His eyes welled up with tears.

I had a choice in that heartbreaking moment. I could launch into a litany of reasons being the smallest was fun and okay or why he must have misunderstood something.

But I was on vacation and feeling extra present to the slow pace of the day. I took a deep breath and looked at him. Really looked at him.

I echoed his statement, "You hate being the smallest one in the family." He nodded.

"That must be really hard," I said.

He nodded and tears trickled down his cheeks.

That moment felt like holy ground. In not rushing to explain, justify or fix, I was given a moment we so often miss. His pain existed out in the open. His hurt. His anger.

It took patience and compassion to be willing to see his pain and imagine how he felt. He felt seen and validated. The emotion rose up in him, was acknowledged, and then passed. A few minutes later, he grinned about something and ran off to play.

A little while later we circled back to talk about it and why that felt true. I affirmed his presence in our family and all the ways he is loved.

I'm grateful for these moments where we learn how to sit with our pain. He practiced feeling it instead of watching his mom try to offload it for him. I don’t want him to bypass those big feelings. Especially as he gets older and moves in a world of toxic masculinity that screams at him to shove the feelings away.

Speaking of toxic masculinity, you should know it's far easier for me to sit with my daughter in her emotions than it is for me to slow down with my son. This conditioning is real and we're invited to show up and pay attention to it in our relationships. Here's to opening our hands wide to bear witness to the pain of our people, without fixing, explaining and offloading. The pain itself is beautiful. May your choice to bear witness create space for others to heal.