Never let them see you cry....Don't buy that boys don't cry BS!

Yesterday Little E had a rough end of school day. He's been having spats with one of his best friends, they play on opposite teams at recess and when Little E's team wins his buddy gets upset and refuses to talk to E. Sometimes name calling occurs and Little E gets extremely heart broken. I've always told them that they can totally cry and let their feelings out but never to let them see him cry at school. So he climbs into the SUV at pick up and I can immediately tell he's upset. I continue with my usual "How was school today?", he spits out "Terrible!" and starts to let his recess drama unfold. I can tell he wants to cry. We pull up to Z's school, park and wait for Z to be released for the day. I tell E if he would like me to hold him so he can cry it out. He nods yes and he starts to bawl, he's so upset my heart breaks. He pulls away and tells me "Boys shouldn't cry right?" I respond with "Who told you that?" He says no one that it's just known. Well I reassure him that his been horribly misinformed, boys can most definitely cry and whoever tells him otherwise is on crack! He giggles at my response and looks to ease up and smiles at me, crisis for now is averted. My point is telling our boys that they "Shouldn't cry", "Be a man", "Man up" is a bunch of BS. As a mother of 3 boys I want strong and independent boys who can most definitely show their emotions. I don't want emotionless, meatballs who can't show how they feel. Sadly, society pushes us on what women and men should be and we all have to fit in societies perfect little box. Well lucky for us we don't play by the rules we dance to the beat of our own drums and in our house boys can most definitely cry!