Repressing Emotions and Feelings in America

Denying Your Feelings

In America people raise their children to deny emotions. Mothers discourage children from crying, being sad, being angry or even being happy. These children then grow up to deny themselves these same emotions. Today doctors diagnose happy children as having Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribing Ritalin for them. Teachers, who are ill trained and probably have no business being in the classroom, describe these children as "uncontrollable", and hence there must be a problem with them. All of this amounts to, people who are not raised properly, have no psychological training, and are so out of tune with a healthy mind that they don't understand one when they see one.

You and your children need to feel all emotions. Let me repeat this.

• You need to feel happy on a consistent basis
• you need to feel sad on a consistent basis
• you need to feel angry on a consistent basis
• you need to feel aggressive on a consistent basis
• you need to feel meek on a consistent basis

Notice fear is not on the list. Sadness, is not akin to fear. And, understand sadness and happiness can be linked together. There can be things that are so beautiful that they not only make you happy to see, but they make you cry and ache with how beautiful they are. The emotionally sound mind can run the gamut of emotions all in one breath. You can laugh until you cry. You have heard, "tears of joy". This is from an emotionally sound mind. They are so overcome by their emotions that it brings tears to their eyes in a joyful situation.

Stifling Emotions can be Dangerous

"Big boys don't cry Billy." Have you heard this? Have you said this to your own child? Have you been told this as a child yourself? The pervasive notion that men or males should no cry set a very dangerous precedent. You are teaching male children to repress all emotions which lead to crying. This repression of course has to come out some way. So if it doesn't come out by crying, it comes out by beating his wife, murdering his children, opening fire with a machine gun on a crowded room.

Of course men should cry. Of course boys should cry. Are they any less human? Are women the only human on the planet privileged to show their emotions? Our society is so screwed up that we welcome the sick mind, instead of the healthy mind. If something is "wrong" you should cry about it. If something is sad you should cry about it. Feel the emotion. Does God not cry over us? Does he not weep? I have no idea who started this notion that men shouldn't cry, but it is a very dangerous act.

"A real man sucks it up." No no, a real man keeps going in spite of a sad situation. That is a totally different notion than a real man not feeling emotions.

Who here, reading this, would expect a father to NOT cry at the death of their child? Cry, I would expect them to be inconsolable, for at least a week if not a month. Who here would expect a husband to NOT cry over a wife leaving him? Again, I would expect him to be nigh comatose for a good half month. But you see, in each of these instances, the unhealthy mind represses the feelings. And, what do you have with that? You have a disaster waiting to happen.

What should you do in that situation, if it were a friend / relative going through that situation? You should:

• put on a ragedy shirt
• buy some cleenex
• go over to his house
• sit him down next to you
• put the cleenex on his lap
• pull his head right on your shoulder
• order, command, demand him to cry

Yes, you should make him cry, right on your shoulder. And, what happens after a good cry? We all feel better don't we?

Have you ever just got the urge to cry? This is your body telling you, you need this release. You need to be angry and sad, just like you need to be happy. Your body needs to feel all of those emotions, and quit frequently.

But Isn't Being Angry a Bad Thing?

We need to be angry, just like we need to be happy. Have you ever see a baby, infant, cry and then growl while they're crying? Obviously they are feeling the anger emotion. It just naturally comes out. There could be no change in the environment, they just wanted to growl a little. And, you can be "angry" over many situations. In fact the word - anger - is the child version of the word. You can be:

• frustrated
• disconcerted
• embarrassed
  
• hurt / sad
• jealous
• perplexed

Those are more specific emotions. We go through those daily. But most of us were raise to think it was bad to actually feel or worse, admit to those emotions. How many of you reading this would admit to being jealous? How many of you would admit to being frustrated.

Most times, these emotions are embarrassing to admit to, because we feel it is a reflection on an inadequacy that we, ourselves have. Why would I admit to being jealous. That means that I feel beneath that person that made me feel that way. Why would I admit to being frustrated? That means that I am too stupid to understand the problem. Why would I admit to being embarrassed? That means I am a virgin / fat and don't want people to know.

Anger is an emotion people are not only taught to avoid, but they themselves try to repress. We have so many social stigmas that people are often made to feel they must repress anger and the subcategories under it, in order to fit in. It has to be the most unhealthy emotion to repress. The person that represses anger, blows up eventually.

The nagging wife, the busy body mom, the nosy neighbor - these all make people repress their anger emotions. Then one day ... They blow up, and the person doesn't understand why they blew up. That's what is truly ironic about the situation.

"Behave billy", says the overbearing mother. Anger is a behavior, mom. Be a better mother and understand how to be a mother and allow your child to be angry. You as a parent need to simply ask questions in those situations. Don't try to repress the anger. I repeat, do not say "calm down". If someone is ranting and raving, simply stand back, let them rant and rave. They need the ranting and raving, as much as they need laughter. When you can get a word in edgewise, assist them in feeling the emotion by asking them "why". A parent is a "guide". You're not there to beat them over the head. A good behaved child, is not a sheep that follows you around with a silent smile. You'll raise a doorknob of a kid, if that is what you think the ideal child is.

You need to feel anger, just as much as you need to feel overjoyed the 49ers won the superbowl. Think for a second. Who's the best friend you ever had? Did he / she just let you vent about whatever and just nod and let you keep venting? That's a good friend. That's a good parent. That's a person that lets you be emotionally healthy. Why do we talk to psychiatrists, bartenders, priests? We need to let it all out. We need to tell it. We need to get it off our chest.

You as a wife / husband / father / mother need to be the bartender / psychiatrist / priest. Hear the confessions. Hear the emotions. Hear the sob stories. And you need to nod and say "mm hmm". And take turns with your wife / husband.

Wfie: "How was your day hunny?"
Husband: "Oh let me tell you, first I dropped the honey bun in my lap on the way to work."
Wife: "oh I bet you got frustrated at that. Did you stain your pants?"
Husband: "yes and I had to hide under my desk all morning long till it evaporated and went away."
Wfie: "oh I bet that was embarrassing. Did anyone see you?"
Husband: "no, and I just casually walked around with files if I had to get up"
Wife: "did you make it home ok?"
Husband: "yes, on the way home Timothy saw this pretty woman who came to the car and asked us directions. He was so smitten, he started stuttering. I couldn't stop laughing."
Wife: "oh, poor thing, and you laughed right there as they were talking, or trying to?"
Husband: "I couldn't help it. It was funny."
Wife: "Well besides the honey bunn sounds like you had a good day."
Husband: "how was yours?"
Wife: "oh the teacher called and said Billy peed his pants. Come to find out another kid had spilled a drink on him. At first I was so shocked, but then when they found out what happened, I didn't know if I should laugh or what.."
Husband: "I hope Billy didn't punch the kid or anything."
Wife: "oh no, I think it was a friend of his. He would never punch one of his friends."
Husband: "lucky for his friends. He's a real fireball when he gets angry."
Wife: "Yes, it's pretty funny when he gets so angry. But honey, that wasn't the main reason his teacher called."
Husband: "don't tell me something serious happened."
Wife: "yes, one of the kids at school died of a rare disease. They called all the parents to tell them. They want the parents to be the one to tell the kids. It was little Susan, the neighbors daughter."
Husband: "well, I'll be. I just can't believe that. Instead of just telling Billy, let's bake a pie, get some Kleenex and all three of us go over there and give them all a big hug. Speaking of hugs, where's Billy now. I think he's going to be needing quite a few hugs before this is all over."

Conclusion

Feel all of your emotions. Don't repress them. Don't teach your children to repress them. You can see people who are emotionally stressed out, break out on their skin. They are holding and bottling up their emotions and their bodies are trying to let it out. If you need to have cry sessions with your mother or husband, do it. Tell them, it's a new thing you want to start up. Invite friends over and watch sad movies and everyone cry. Afterwards, hug each other or talk about it. Go around and ask how it made you feel.

You might want to start a pillow fight night. At least once a week. Get some anger out. It is a good thing. Can you imagine how much you can get your family to let out, if you did this on a consistent basis? Wrestle with your kids. Keep it clean and fun. You can laugh and let out anger at the same time. These emotions you want to let out. If you or your children are feeling an emotion, go through the entire emotion. Don't just cry for a second and then repress it. That's just as dangerous as not doing it in the first place. If it takes you an hour to cry, so be it. You work at your job for 8 hours, why not cry for an hou? Keep everything in perspective. If your boss makes you angry for 8 hours, you might need to pillow fight for a whole hour to let it out.

No one said you couldn't mix fun, with feeling emotions. If you kid is angry, give him a notebook to rip up, sit him in the bathroom and tell him to rip it up. Simply have him clean it up afterwards. These are ideas to let you feel your emotions.

Bottling emotions in, can lead to a shorter life span. I am being completely serious about that. Can you imagine, high blood pressure so high that you lose your hair and other outrageous symptoms? No, let the emotions out and do it on a consistent basis. Encourage your family to do it. Encourage your friends to do it. If society looks at you strange, keep in mind, this is your health you have in your hands. Think to yourself, "I'm not going to repress this and kill myself at an early age, just to make them not feel awkward."


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Do You Mother Your Children?

So Many "Parents" So Little "Parenting"

I wanted to take a break and breach a topic that no one seems to want to say out in the open. And, I think this is one of the MAJOR problems facing America today. A general lack of parenting. I understand you now have two jobs in a household and you don't have time to pay attention to parenting. And, yes, contrary to what the news tells you, there are not and overwhelming amount of single parent homes. I know that's probably shocking news. And, you might be wondering why I even bring up that there aren't a plethora of single parent homes. Because when I say there is a general lack of parenting going on, people always get defensive and think "that doesn't apply to me, because there's probably tons of single parents who have no home training themselves." Or, you might think that teen pregnancy is the reason behind the break down in social norms.

No, the majority of all households, regardless of race, in America, are married with children. So this applies to everyone.

So what's the problem? It's obvious isn't it? We, moms and dads, are so caught up in the nuts and bolts of American living that we don't even take the time to think ABOUT parenting. Oh, you might delude yourself into thinking that you are a good parent. You might even fool yourself into believing that you of all people are doing the right thing by your kids.



I'm not going to go into a whole child psychology episode. What I want to concentrate on is "mothering" your children. What I mean by "mothering", is the whole June Cleaver type of mom.

• baking fresh pies
• reading to her kids while they sit on her lap
• rocking them to sleep while they lay their head against your breast in a rocking chair
• stopping them to have a "how did school go today Beav" and sitting down and listening
• hugging them good morning
• hugging them good night
• tousling their hair
• kissing them off to school
• dressing them
• tying their shoes
• cooking them home made meals
• playing board games with them
• playing thinking games with them

This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea of where I'm going with this. This is mothering.

Mothering Your Child is Feeding Your Child

Taking your kids to McDonalds and giving them a "happy meal" is not only not good parenting, but you are killing your kid in the process and child protective services should come take the kids away from you. For all the information we know today, there is no excuse why any parent should take their child to McDonalds or any other fast death ... I mean fast food place in America. I cannot convey to you how very serious I am about that particular point.

Home cooked meals, with vegetables, meats, fruits, is the only thing you should be feeding your kids. Prepared lunches from home with nutritious home cooked food, is the only thing your kid should be eating at schools. Even the schools are a disgusting fat causing; diabetes causing; disease ridden place now. One school that refused the state food and hired its own pure foods company to come in and cook for them, came under fire from the soda companies and the junk food companies. But, it was a losing battle for those companies. You may have seen the piece on t.v.. It was a school for "troubled" kids. They found IMMEDIATELY that when the children ate nutritious meals, ALL of their problems disappeared. In fact, they had no instance of violence, truancy, bad behavior at all at the school. And, the principal attributed it all to the diet they provided the students. She said the good healthy food cleared up the "behavioral disorders".

Do you see how serious food is with the development of your child? All of these over diagnosis of ADHD could simply be that your little child is eating junk food as their only source of nutrition throughout the day.

Mothering Your Child with Hugs and Kisses

I grew up afraid of my mother for a big portion of my formative years. As an adult, I came to understand that she is just an evil, selfish person. I point this out, because I think there is a lot of selfishness going on that people do not think about when parenting. The man that feeds his kids first, before he eats, is a good father. My paternal grandmother, would feed us and wait till we were done eating before she ate. She cooked every meal and stood by the table. I would always ask her to sit down and eat. She would just smile. She and my maternal grandmother helped form me into the caring individual that I am today. She died when I was young, and I have not met such a lady since her passing.

She was the epitome of a good mother. She was so kind. She was so generous. She would cheer me on, even when I knew she was joking about a ridiculous topic. She would say stuff like "one day you'll be a"... this or that. This is how you mother your children.

My maternal grandmother was the same way. She would sit me down and listen to me and teach me things from her own wisdom. I'm sure plenty of you right there, may have said under your breath that there are many women today with children "with no wisdom". You may be right. You may just be right. But, that's your responsibility as a good neighbor too. Take a young mother under your wing. We need to stop being afraid of someone telling us off, and be more afraid that they are raising hoodlum kids that will turn out to be mass murderers. Which is more fearful, that your young mother neighbor might tell you to mind your own business or that her son my murder your own child one day?

Yes, I lay such things at the feet of the parents. When the child is controlling the parent, that's a broken household. I don't care how many psychologist say "but the father and mother are together". If the father is busy at work all the time, comes home, drinks a beer and falls asleep. And, the mother lets the children do whatever they want to, including cursing her out and yelling at her, that is not a family. That is a group of individuals in a house.

Mother Them When They are Young

Every bad parent looks up and says "how did i end up with THIS". Their child is now 12 or 16 and cursing them out, stealing money from them, slapping them, or worse. This didn't just happen. This didn't creep up all of a sudden and voila, juvenile delinquent. This started from the day you brought that little bundle home from the hospital. You sat the bundle down, went and cried over the hospital bills and called up 100 day care centers, because you had to be to work in a couple of days. That's when that started. When you didn't take the time to enjoy the first words or first steps of your toddler. That's when that started. When he cried the first day of school and you told him to shut up. That's when that started. When he threw a temper tantrum because that's the only thing YOU respond to. That's when that started.

You have to love and mother your child from day one. You have to keep your eyes and ears open for him / her, because they don't have the same eyes and ears you have.

Yelling - trust me on this on! When you yell at a child, it's just like yelling at a dog or a cat, they don't hear anything you say, they only hear yelling. If you simply must yell, yell only their name. The rest, say in a conversational tone. You can be stern and not yell. You can be firm and not yell. Trust me, you do not want your child afraid of you. Because when some life experience comes that they need an adult to help them figure out, they are not going to come to you with it, they are going to go ask their older, hoodlum friends about it. Oh, and guess where that's leading.

Love your child even when they do wrong. Parenting isn't about beating your child to death when they do something YOU think is wrong. Parenting is instructing a child as to making the correct decisions when presented with life's lessons. Let's take a look at this word "wrong". Stealing is wrong. Yes, everyone can agree with that. But, why is your child stealing in the first place. I guarantee, you taught your child to steal. I guarantee you did something that made them feel, the only way they could obtain the object was by stealing. Or, they wanted to get your attention, your fault. Or, they learned it from a hoodlum friend, your fault. Either way, it is your fault they did wrong. Now some things aren't wrong at all. you just happen to consider them wrong. To another person, or parent, they wouldn't be wrong at all. This is a case of you parenting your child from day one to believe in your way of thinking. Maybe you think it is wrong to drink alcohol. That is obviously something debatable. You wouldn't beat or scream at your child for drinking. You would instruct them beforehand as to how you believe and how they should believe. The difference is oceans apart from yelling or screaming. If you don't want your child to smoke or drink, you would teach them your value system. They may grow out of your value system, as an adult, but as a child they will adopt your value system.

Mothering is the way to not only cultivate a warm and loving child, but also teach them your values. How defensive would a child be, if you sat with them in your lap in a rocking chair and you talked about your value system to them night after night? Not at all! You are providing a warm loving environment, that they now associate with your value system. When one of life's lessons presents itself, they will be glad to decide in favor of your value system, because of how you presented it. They will also enjoy telling you how they came to that decision.

Conclusion

I am going to say this, and I make no apologies about it. I am Black, so of course I grew up around Black parents. I have not conducted any scientific studies on the subject, but I get a sense of general lack of mothering in the Black community. I understand that being Black in America is very frustrating. It's hard to get and keep jobs in America for Black parents. And, the system may be designed that way, to be against Black Americans. Please, distance your own frustrations from your children. When it comes to your children, you need to mother them. You need to make them feel that they are the apple of your eye. That's the way it should be.

So often I hear Black mothers yelling and screaming at their children. I see them cursing their own children with harsh adult curse words. I see them embarrassing their children in public, for all the world to hear. I see them act selfishly towards their children.

I admit, probably these examples I'm giving, ought not to have children in the first place, but it is a reality that they have them. We need to take time out and try and help them, not just shrug and move on. If we are a community, Black and White, we should act like a community. There's nothing to say that you can't correct a young white mother as much as you can a young Black mother.

Like I said, swallow your own pride and take a young mother under your wing. And, if they try to tell you off, simply tell them that you want what's best for them, what's best for their child, and that you're older and wiser and they better listen, because they only have one chance to raise their child.

And, that's the truth. You have only one opportunity to raise your child.


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