Spiderman cried….....

I had always encouraged my four year old son to be tough. As he is maturing from his fussy-missy baby world, I have tried to train him not to cry if he wanted something or if he fell down.

The other day he started crying while we were waiting in the hospital. He started wailing in high pitch. As he saw my grim face, the high pitch dropped at least a couple of octaves and his tight-lipped mouth was quivering trying to insulate the noise coming out of his mouth.

Although it was a bit heartbreaking to watch his eyes filled with tears, I managed to keep a tough face and talked to him with a calm tone.

Do you want to be strong?

He nods his head assertively and says, “Yes”.

If you want to be strong, you can not cry like a baby. You are a big boy.

Have you ever seen superman cry?

“No”

Have you every seen spiderman cry?

“No.”

As I was about to present the concluding punchline, he interrupted me. As if a truth had suddenly dawned on him, he raised his voice and said (emotionally), “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

I was perplexed.

What do you mean, “yes”?

Then he said something that cracked me up and completely blew me away.

“Yes dad, I have seen spiderman cry”. He continued to cry.

I had such a tough time controlling my laughter and put up a brave face. Tobey Maguire cries in the movie, Spiderman, when his uncle passes away.

I told him that it is okay to cry, but he should try not to cry for every incident.

These are constant reminders of the profound influence of TV on our lives, especially the lives of our children who do not have the ability to distinguish good from evil.

Well, this is an incident that I have treasured to share it with my son as he grows to be a man.