Teach your boys cowboys can cry

The story we run on page 14 today – about cowboys in the American West becoming suicidal or addicted to opioid drugs – might, at first, seem a long way from our lived experience on the southern tip of Africa.

Yet, these are the very men – and most of them are male – who embody the phrase “cowboys don’t cry”.

Some are participants in rodeos and become hooked on the drugs which were initially prescribed to ease the pain from injuries. Others keep their own depression bottled up and head down the road to suicide.

Sure, the opioid pandemic in the United States may not spread this far but, certainly, the culture of men and boys bottling up their emotions is one of the pillars on which our South African patriarchal society is built.

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As a result, some men turn to booze, drugs and, most importantly, anger as relief valves for their mental pressure cookers.

Sadly, many women become victims in the process. Boys need to be educated early – by their families and by the school system – that showing emotions and talking about them is not a sign of weakness.

When you recognise your own vulnerabilities, too, you recognise them in others. Cowboys can – and should – cry…