Talk Through Your Tears with Your Children

“Mom, why are you crying?”

Before I could even begin to explain the dozens of reasons why, I looked to the next sentence in the book I was reading aloud to my ten-year-old son and was met with “‘Oh, Alex,’ she said, as she pulled him into her arms and started to cry” (Rogers 180). All I could do was point to that sentence.

“Mom, I still don’t understand. Why are you both crying?”
The words started to come.
“Sometimes parents cry because there’s so much in the world that we don’t want our kids to know.”
“Mom, it’s okay. Take deep breaths. I’ll keep reading for you.”

The book is Eleven by Tom Rogers, and we were so close to the end. So much was unfolding in the final pages (I will not reveal any spoilers), and there was no way we could stop now, even if a steady stream of tears were falling from my eyes.

As I continued to cry, my son had to take a break from reading. He sipped some water, explaining his throat was “tickly.” I caught him quickly wiping an eye with one of his threadbare “softies” before placing it on my soaked cheek.

We took turns reading, and when we finished, he immediately stated, “That was a good book. I really liked it.”

For a moment, my subjectivity was rooted not in being a tearful mother but in being a veteran English teacher able to rattle off reasons why this book was so “well-written.” We flipped back to much earlier pages of the novel to re-examine certain narrative choices. We made connections to Wonder, another book we had read together. But the question remained: “Mom, why did you cry so much with this book?”

And so I told him. This book gave me a window into his eyes and mind, should he ever need to make big decisions and protect himself and his sisters when I or their dad wasn’t there. It helped me see he’s ready to take on hard stuff, just like Alex in the book. It made me feel for all the people who lost someone on 9/11.

He admitted that he had cried when he saw me crying. He said, ”I don’t know why, but I start crying when I see other people crying.” I told him that meant he was exhibiting empathy. He felt the pain or sorrow others were feeling.

Eliciting empathy is one of the markers of really good writing and a really good text. Helping students become better readers and writers is important, but fostering empathy will always be my most important goal as a teacher. I am as honest with my students as I am with my children about how texts make me cry. I tell them about how characters or lines of beautiful poetry move me to tears.

Crying is an act of compassion. Adults cry, and children should know that. It is not a sign of weakness. This is all to say, keep reading books with your kids, no matter how old they get. Choose books that tackle hard stuff. Talk through the tears.

I leave you with some lines of my creative writing that I shared with my students, where I imagine a scene for the mother in Eleven, who could be any of us.

Alex, I used to take you to World Storytime at the library on Sundays.
The librarian would call up a child and ask them to spin the globe to find
out where we were traveling that day.
One Sunday, a girl spun the globe a little too wildly, and it
slipped off its stand. It fell toward your feet.
You were only two, and you picked it up and said, “I hold world. It heavy.”
Oh, Alex, it is so heavy.

The world is heavy, but it becomes lighter through empathy.