Crying

Crying

To threaten a child for crying is a form of emotional abuse. Here are some stories about parents who threaten their children when they cry. Some parents have also killed their children for crying.

Crying alone - Boy in South America

Crying alone - Pato in Argentina

Hold Me While I Cry

Threatened for Crying

You Have To Be Strong They Say

Crying Myself To Sleep

Well Go Cry Then

Killed for Crying

Tears

It's okay to cry as hard and as long as you want to.. just make sure that when you stop crying, you won't cry for the same reason anymore. -- Anon

EQI.org Home Page

Core Components of EQI.org

Other EQI.org Topics:

Search EQI.org | Support EQI.org

EQI.org Library and Bookstore

Online Consulting, Counseling Coaching from EQI.org

Threatened for Crying

I once saw a mother say "Stop crying or I will hit you."

My partner's father once said to her, "If you don't stop crying I will hit you so hard you will remember it for the rest of your life."

A teen reports that when she was very young her mother threatened to put her outside the house and leave her there till she stopped crying. She then cried louder, out of obvious fear. But when the mother picked her up, her survival instinct stopped her from crying any more. Now this teen cries herself to sleep, hiding her tears from her family.

Toyrianna Smith - Killed her son for crying

CHICAGO - Chicago police say 20-year-old mother Toyrianna Smith killed her infant son when he would not stop crying and then took the dead infant shopping with her.

Police say Smith took her 3-year-old daughter and 3-month-old son to a friend's home where she hung out with her friends, drank liquor and had her hair done, according to CBS station WBBM.

Later that night she stumbled into her room and slept. During the night her son, Ken Blackman Jr., began to cry. When Smith woke up, she allegedly slapped him in the face repeatedly and put a blanket over his head.

The child cried a second time. Authorities say Smith once again slapped him and put a blanket over his face, pressing down until his arms began jerking and he stopped crying. Prosecutors said friends asked the next morning why the baby was not moving and she said he was asleep. In the morning she allegedly dressed Ken and put him in a Baby Bjorn, then took the dead infant with her while she shopped for several hours.

A neighbor noticed blood on the child's blanket and thought the child was not breathing and called police.

The death was ruled a homicide by suffocation and an autopsy estimated the child was dead for up to 14 hours.

Smith allegedly confessed to the murder and demonstrated for police how she struck and suffocated the child.

You Have To Be Strong They Say

- Writing by a teen

I hate it

I really hate these words: "You have to be strong."
I hate it.
Especially when my loved ones are the ones who say it.

What does it mean to be 'strong'?
to fight all the bad guys when they try to kill you?
to stand your ground when you have a fight with your friends?
Or not to cry when sadness comes over you?

Which one is it?

To me, it means the last one.

It's been a really long time since someone has seen me cry. And it's been a long time since someone said anything about it and comforted me.
And it hasn't been a long time since the last time I cried.
And no one knows about it.
I don't intend to tell them either. Why should I? I know what they're going to say.

"It's a waste of tears to cry over something not worth it."

or

"Why are you crying? It's not that big of a deal. Don't be a cry baby. You have to be strong."

And plenty of other responses.

It's a waste of tears to cry over something not worth it? Really?

Do you even know what my problem is? Do you even know what it feels like right now to be in my position? I'll tell you, YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.

Don't be a cry baby?
Really? What's the problem with crying once in a while?

All they know is that I'm a happy girl.
That girl who is smiling all the time. But they don't see that my smile doesn't reach my eyes.
No one knows.

I can't be angry with my loved ones.
If I become angry and frustrated, the tears will roll down my cheeks.

But they see it as anger. They don't see it as sadness.
And I don't understand why they don't understand.

I thought they knew me. They claim they do.
But they don't know what they were talking about. They don't know me.

They only know half of a girl. A girl who in the day puts a smile on her face and smiles all the time.

But they don't know the other half of the girl during the night, when she cries herself to sleep in the dark.

Crying over her tortured and devastated heart.

Well Go Cry Then

When Becca was 12 she went to her father and said "I feel like crying...." She wanted and needed to be comforted. She needed reassurance and wanted to know she would be accepted by her father, even when she not happy and smiling. Her father said uncaringly, "Well go cry then."

When she needed comfort, acceptance and reassurance, she got rejection. - from emotional abuse page