Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter

by Benjamin Perry

What happens when we cry--and when we don't?

One of our most private acts, weeping can forge connection. Tears may obscure our vision, but they can also bring great clarity. And in both literature and life, weeping often opens a door to transformation or even resurrection. But many of us have been taught to suppress our emotions and hide our tears. When writer Benjamin Perry realized he hadn't cried in more than ten years, he undertook an to cry every day. But he didn't anticipate how tears would bring him into deeper relationship with a world that's breaking.

Cry, Baby explores humans' rich legacy of weeping--and why some of us stopped. With the keen gaze of a journalist and the vulnerability of a good friend, Perry explores the great paradoxes of our tears. Why do we cry? In societies marked by racism, sexism, and homophobia, who is allowed to cry--and who isn't? And if weeping tells us something fundamental about who we are, what do our tears say? Exploring the vast history, literature, physiology, psychology, and spirituality of crying, we can recognize our deepest hopes and longings, how we connect to others, and the social forces bent on keeping us from mourning. When faced with the private and sometimes unspeakable sorrows of daily life, not to mention existential threats like climate change and systemic racism, we cry for the world in which we long to live. As we reclaim our crying as a central part of being human, we not only care for ourselves and relearn how to express our vulnerable emotions; we also prophetically reimagine the future. Ultimately, weeping can bring us closer to each other and to the world we desire and deserve.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Memoir, Emotion, Self Help, Science, Mental Health

225 pages, Hardcover

Published May 16, 2023

Reviews

[Katie Kaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong 3 stars. This isn't a scientific look at why we cry. It's a social account of what crying means to us; specifically groups of women, men, LGBTQIA+ people, Indigenous, Black people, and children in America. It does this through a series of interviews and stories in each chapter along with the author's own experiences and observations in his profession.

I was excited to read this. I'm a HUGE cryer. I think it's important for everyone to embrace it and understand what it can do for you. I think the book mostly achieved the goal here of showing the importance and highlighting stigmas.

However, the book took until chapter 3 to seem to find a clear voice. It was a bit all over in the first two chapters. Sometimes I felt this could have been a shorter read and put into an essay collection instead of a full book in and of itself.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly illuminating work about much more than just crying. Extremely thoughtful, personal, and carefully researched, it had me on the verge of tears (and at a few points, beyond) throughout. Perry's strong viewpoints on the subject from various lenses, backed up by diverse and knowledgeable quotes, made for a fascinating read.

Most importantly, this non-crier who has held his own tears for decades is ready--and long overdue-- for a transformation.

[Miriam]

Tried to read for book club. I’m about 10% in and I can’t stand this. It’s simply not for me. I already know the therapeutic benefits of crying, and I feel like I’m being mansplained to about it with this book. It’s also a little preachy. I’m looking forward to getting the cliffs notes from my book club people but I will not be reading this further.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently read the anthology Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears, which reminded me of a really great review of this book, so I picked it up to read as a companion read. The introduction shares how the author could not remember the last time he had cried and undertook a journey to become more expressive in his emotions. The majority of the book explores the various ways that tears help, heal, and connect us, while also taking on how various social and power structures affect who is allowed to cry. in what context, and how those emotions are seen and judged.

So we have chapters on gender and crying, which we see the drawbacks of women being judged for being too emotional while men are also damaged when their tears are redirected to less helpful emotions like anger. There is a chapter on crying and race (and how sometimes tears are weaponized against others), crying in the LGBTQIA+ community, and so on. The author brings in many diverse voices and experiences to supplement his own, as a queer Minister actively involved in social justice issues.

There were some beautiful passages here (I may go back and update with some quotes when I have the book in front of me) and, as a crier myself, it was validating. But it was also very anecdotal, and I would have liked more input from neuroscience, psychology, and sociology to add to Perry's more personal and cultural analysis.

[Lauren Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was a good, if not perfect read. Benjamin Perry looks at crying as an inherently human way of feeling and considers who is allowed to cry and who isn't.

The good: Perry's synthesis of anecdotes in each chapter is really well done. He has clearly gathered stories thoughtfully from a wide and diverse set of sources. I like the examination of crying thematically in each chapter. He considers gender, race, age, and biology.

The meh: This is a little performatively woke and I was left wanting more depth from each chapter. It reads a lot like a set of longer articles than a really cohesive book and the chapters vary in quality. I think a more conclusive discussion of purpose would have worked well for me. Like, if we all cried more, what would be accomplished? What would we get out of a world where we felt free to cry more?

3/5.

[Artemisia Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

We can probably all admit that we can often have a weird relationship with our tears. All the taboos about crying at work, the ways we teach crying boys to “stop being a baby”, and even the controversy over leaving babies to “cry it out.” This book does a lot to demystify our tears and the various ways we have taken on so many of our culture’s responses to them, sometimes without questioning their necessity or their usefulness. Benjamin Perry offers alternatives to these old ways of thinking that are frankly, quite freeing. Perry goes into a lot of detail here and you may not agree with all he says about expressing your sadness by crying so freely and openly. Yet he certainly makes a brilliant case for proposing that the vulnerability of shedding a few tears now and then could do a lot to help us move past our individual fears and collective divisions.

[Patricia Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book thinking it was the authors personal experience with reconnecting to his own emotions.
It would be difficult to summarise, but I think it’s actually more about social impacts of not expressing tears. It’s a very worthwhile Reed and I really enjoyed it but it’s definitely not what I expected when I got the book.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written thought provoking book on the healing power of reclaiming our tears, not only for ourselves but for society as a whole. I especially appreciated all the personal stories and perspectives. I hope to read more from Benjamin Perry in the future.

[mp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I will be returning to write my full thoughts but this book brought so much affirmation as a person who cries so often. I left feeling more powerful and wisdom in my tears rather than feeling the anxiety and shame the accompanies my tears sometimes. This book did inspire my fervent desire now to get an onion tattoo — as a way to hold and remember that I am a cry baby 💜

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I think about tears as a doorway: an invitation to be fully human, in all the complexity that entails. Crying is not always an exclamation point that marks the end of growth or an emotional change; it can be an ellipsis that beckons us toward a more complete life.”

“Consider our proclivity to cry when we see someone else crying. These contagious or empathic tears are an outward manifestation of an inward kindness. How beautiful it is that our bodies are wired to spill care that words alone cannot express. If you’ve ever cried next to someone, you know that it can create an understanding that transcends language. When you cry empathic tears, instead of simply saying, “I feel your pain,” you have taken some of that anguish into your own body. It may not reduce the sorrow the other person is experiencing, but it makes both you and them feel less alone. That is not a blessing that should be taken lightly. The feeling of being seen for who we are and what we are experiencing is humanizing in the fullest sense of the word. “

The richness and diversity in this book is unparalleled with just enough science and psychology to accompany religion, arts, indigenous experience, BIPOC experience, LGBTQIA+ views, and a personal exploration of his own tears as a masculine passing, bisexual, white, Christian pastor. I was just wowed with the depth and learned so much and loved the breadth of it. Now I wait for the book on euphoric tears which I might reframe as meaningful, joyful, resonating. Those are my favorite.

Emotional numbness is sneaky: you don’t realize how much you’ve closed yourself off until you begin to feel again. It had become normal for me to witness pain, anguish, beauty, love, and ecstasy with detached indifference, or else with the simulacra of each emotion. I could experience broad contours, but they were all nearer to my resting state than any heightened sensation. I’d watch shadows flicker on the walls of my heart and make myself believe they were real.

Tears of grief hold outsized sway in these pages, while tears of joy and laughter do not nearly receive their due. For this I apologize. But I am writing what I know. I very much hope that someone else will write a book about euphoric tears; I look forward to reading it.

Reliably provoking emotional tears in a laboratory setting is more difficult than stimulating other biological processes such as sweating or salivation. Indeed, the laboratory setting itself may be part of the problem; being invited to weep under researchers’ patient gaze may itself hinder real emotion. Most researchers studying emotional crying show participants a sad film and cross their fingers that it’s sad enough. No one has done the kind of longitudinal studies that would help us tease apart the relationship between crying and physical health.

“other animals clearly communicate their needs and wants with expressive body language and by crying with whines, whimpers, yelps and screeches without tears.” And while we’ll get into why I think he’s right, we do ourselves a disservice as a species if we treat the social aspects of crying as if they were unimportant. Crying, quite literally, prevents us from dying before we develop the capacity for language.

A distinct sign of this enduring relationship between crying and securing assistance is its cultural universality. If the link between adult crying and securing assistance were not biologically innate, people in some parts of the world—but not others—would offer assistance to criers. Research, however, shows that no matter where they live, people are more likely to offer help when they see someone crying. In one study of more than seven thousand people across forty-one countries and six continents, participants were shown pictures of faces with or without digitally added tears. They were then asked to rate how much they felt drawn to offer that person assistance. Researchers in every single country reported that tears significantly increased people’s likelihood to help. (If you’re curious, the effect of the added tears was smallest in South Korea and greatest in the United Arab Emirates.)

We can communicate that we need support through salt water leaking out of our eyes: this might seem like a trite or insignificant observation, but it is truly radical. Even more remarkable is the fact that this communicative effort can reliably make other people—even ones we don’t know—more likely to provide it! The human ability to expand our tribe—to widen our circle beyond those few people who share a biological incentive to ensure our genes are passed on—has few analogues in the natural world. It is what has allowed humans to develop exponentially more complex social bonds than those of other creatures.

As early as ancient Rome, the poet Ovid observed, “It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears.” Despite longstanding belief that tears attenuate sorrow, however, many of the early laboratory studies examining this relationship rejected the hypothesis. A 1988 study found no positive effects of crying, and likewise Randall Martin and Susan Labott found “no support for the view that crying improves mood.” So what gives? Are we fooling ourselves that tears are cathartic?
Yet while science has begun to confirm what people have long known to be true, it does not yet explain why crying is cathartic. One fascinating hypothesis suggests that tears are a marker of a psychological change. Dr. Matthew Pelowski wondered what makes some people cry when they react to a piece of art, while others do not. Crying, he argues in his papers, is a product of a cognitive or emotional journey between our previous expectations and the need to confront reality.
Crying in this model does not manifest purely in the event itself, but through a larger process as we “experience disappearance of a barrier, solution to a problem, or transformation of a previously held worldview.”

In his seminal book Crying: The Mystery of Tears, Dr. William H. Frey summarizes a series of studies his team conducted examining emotional tears’ chemical composition. The news-grabbing headline from their study was that, compared to tears prompted by an irritant in the eye, “the protein concentration of emotional tears was 21% higher.” Specifically, Frey reported that the hormones prolactin and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and the endorphine leucine-enkephalin were found in much higher concentrations than they were in other parts of the body. The presence of ACTH is of particular note, because it’s a very reliable stress indicator. Outside the kidney, no other body part is known to concentrate proteins above the levels at which they’re present in the bloodstream. On the basis of these results Frey hypothesized that crying may actually be one process by which the body excretes the byproducts of stress, to help return our system to homeostasis.

If tears do serve an excretory function—if they do, in a real way, detoxify our bodies—it could help explain why people who never cry can seem so, well, toxic.

One of my favorite parts of the Bible is the story of Joseph. Having been introduced to a trans reading of this ancient Hebrew text, I now can’t see it any other way, so that’s the emphasis I’ll hold in this retelling. And my deep thanks goes to to J. Mase III, coeditor of the The Black Trans Prayer Book, for this perspective. Jo is Jacob’s favorite child—the one who can do no wrong in their father’s eyes. As a sign of that affection Jacob, thrilled and delighted, tells Jo to ask for anything they want. Jo gleefully requests a beautiful dress. The Hebrew words k’tonet passim, often translated “coat of many colors,” are used only one other place in the Bible: 2 Samuel 13, in which the phrase describes a princess’s gown. (less)

But Jo doesn’t let trauma steal what God bestowed. Somewhere in that weeping, Jo affirms their prophetic calling, because they continue interpreting dreams.
to quote J. Mase’s poem “Josephine,” love broke through the darkness of resentment And for the first time your family saw you as you as Magnificent for it was your word that saved them from starvation.

These crying episodes are not incidental details. They arrive at pivotal moments of transformation, and the tears themselves are transformative.

The Mahayana Buddhist tradition, for example, tells a story about Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It is said that Avalokiteshvara began to meditate when, all of a sudden, she confronted the vast magnitude of worldly suffering. In that moment, she was so overwhelmed she began to cry. Miraculously, those tears took a new human form: Tara, the physical embodiment of compassion. One tear became White Tara, the gentle, comforting aspect of this boundless love, while the other became Green Tara—its active, protective manifestation.

The prophet Muhammad similarly embodies this compassion, as recorded in the hadith, when he holds his dying son, Ibrahim. The prophet’s face grows wet with tears, even trickling down into his beard, a tangible expression of Muhammad’s internal sorrow. As Yahya Ibrahim of the AlMaghrib Institute describes, these tears are a sign that the prophet “experienced the revelation of the Quran as personal,” not an intellectual exercise. There’s something about weeping that moves us from cognitive concern toward a physical embodiment of worldly pain.

There’s a verse in the book of Revelation that I long struggled with: a promise that in the new earth, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). I used to read that as a promise that God’s future would be a world without weeping, until someone pointed out that they read that passage simply as a promise that every tear would be held.

I wonder if, without weeping, La Llorona or Medea simply recede into emptiness. Had they transmuted that pain into deadened numbness, would they have slain their kids? Likewise, if Grendel’s mother had suppressed her tears, would she have sought vengeance at Heorot? No doubt, from a moral perspective, most people consider that preferable, and ethicists would agree. Yet as a reader, I can’t help but feel that I don’t want to live in a world where men leave brokenness in their wake and women are left to quietly sit within it.

A survey of 222 white medical students and residents revealed that “half of them endorsed at least one myth about physiological differences between Black people and white people, including that Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.” When some of the most educated members of white society imagine entire communities to be less susceptible to pain and harm, it should shock no one that Zianna Oliphant’s tears are discarded. Black people’s weeping is too often treated as a mere simulacrum of genuine sorrow.

Black cultures in America embrace a depth of feeling—a breadth between pain and pleasure—that often dwarfs that of their white counterparts. The brutality and violence inflicted on generations birthed sweeping artistic responses that both process that suffering and foster fierce joy to resist its abuses.

“Sociologically, physiologically, biologically, or psychologically: we have come over a way that with tears has been watered,” Dr. Lewis says. This way of tears isn’t just something that Black children learn about in a history book; it is passed down between generations. “It is the archetypal memory of, ‘I am standing on the block, being sold away from my mother,’” she says. “I’m not there, but I’m always there. I’m always there.” The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow isn’t ethereal; it’s inscribed in the very landscape. “You go to Montgomery, and you go to the Equal Justice Initiative museum, and you look down the river. You don’t have to see a picture to picture a little baby being ripped out of their mother’s arm, or fathers being sold away, or children standing by the fencepost watching someone get whipped,” she says, her face grave. “All of that is etched into the soul of Black America and into my soul as a Black American. The reasons for tears are plentiful.”

Gender is a spectrum, and a more complicated one than a simple male-female axis. Many of my nonbinary friends don’t view their gender as some metaphysical land in-between masculinity and femininity; rather, they know themselves to be wholly outside those two poles. Even the seemingly stable ends of that spectrum begin to dissolve under closer examination. These days, I’m less and less comfortable calling myself a man because, when asked what, exactly, constitutes my maleness, I don’t have satisfactory answers. The gender explanation in which I most often seek refuge comes from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, in which she describes gender as the sum total of our behaviors—a performance we create and recreate throughout our lives. “Gender ought not to be conceived as a noun or a substantial thing or a static cultural marker,” she writes, “but rather as an incessant and repeated action.”

The binary gender system, after all, is not an inescapable natural destiny but a political and cultural choice to favor particular outcomes. “There is no reason to divide up human bodies into male and female sexes,” Butler writes, “except that such a division suits the economic needs of heterosexuality and lends a naturalistic gloss to the institution of heterosexuality.” The cultural restraints we impose on crying are not incidental; they serve to reinforce that institution and support the division of life into public and private spheres—men and women safely ensconced in

[Adam Bricker · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all I think it should be noted that this book is written from a pretty liberal/leftist point of view. I don't think this was necessarily a choice by the author, but more a recognition that conservative people tend to have a more rigid view of life, emotion and change, whereas the opposite can be said of the left. That said, obviously the main theme is the exploration of the act of crying and how its impact on history, the sexes, society, our psychology, our bodies and humanity in general. Aside from a view tangents that seemed longer than necessary, I thought this was an interesting book and the ideas presented well worth the time it takes to read.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crying: it's just something we do, right? And many of us go out of our way to try to avoid it, especially when in the presence of others. I don't know that I'd personally given much thought to the benefits of it beyond the notion that sometimes a good cry is what one needs to get through a challenging time. This book challenged my assumptions and brought to light many of the previously undiscovered (by me) benefits of being a little more open with one's tears.

Note: I received a free copy of this book from the Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had some mixed feelings about this book. One one hand, I appreciated the stories Perry collected from a diverse range of people on their experiences with crying and their feelings, and I want to honor their vulnerability in contributing to this book. On the other hand, I felt that Perry was explaining something very obvious to me, which I found tiresome. There is an audience that needs to hear this message, though, and I sincerely hope they find their way to a more liberated emotional life somehow, whether that is via this book or some other means.

[Melissa Kapow · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish this as it stalled out many times. I am a life-long “crier” so he was kinda preaching to the choir on this, and I feel the people that could really use this info won’t ever, ever read a pink book with this title, sadly. I wanted more of the scientific side, which was there off and on, but then I started skimming once the book just became a long riff on social/racist/sexist/gender. Started to snooze at this point, as anyone on the Internet is aware of all these sound bites.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful, personal exploration of tears, what they mean, and why we repress them. The author beautifully explores his own journey as someone who went from not crying for a decade to reconnecting with his emotions. A personal narrative is woven in with first-hand interviews and research about the different ways tears are used (and sometimes weaponized) in our society. I loved it!

[Laura Cohran · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim at the library. It looked interesting - I once went quite a while without crying, too, and was interested to analyze more of the benefits of crying, etc. As I started this book, I could quickly tell that it was not what I expected it to be. Much more political and agenda-focused than I find necessary. More experiential than fact-based. Did not finish.

[Sara Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a moving, impactful, thought-provoking read for me. Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, I shed quite a few tears in the reading of it. If your heart yearns for a greater level of authenticity, connectedness, self-awareness, a better world, and justice for all, I highly recommend it. (If you find a left/liberal perspective off-putting, it's likely not a book for you.)

[Cat Cecere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a powerful, thought-provoking reflection of how crying is used and represented biblically, historically, and culturally. The author’s vulnerability pushed my own self-reflection of my relationship and views on crying. A must read.

[NuevoBereano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed parts of this book a lot - and I like the author’s writing style - but it went on a bit long for me. I appreciate the concept and the clear personal and psychological research that went into the book. It is clearly organized. It is preachy, but you can tell that from the title.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Begins as a book about how the world interprets tears, and ends as a book about how tears interpret our world. Excellent.

[Kat Dixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not a lot in this book that's new or strikingly insightful, but it does have a few pieces of interest sprinkled throughout - and on the whole it is a nice reminder.

[Aashka Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting to read but agree with the reviews, a little too obvious of how “liberal” the author is and some parts a little dramatic

[Perpetua Cannistraro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I highlighted it top to bottom -- there were so many beautiful and powerful quotes and messages from the author and the folks he interviewed for the project -- but it ultimately fell flat for me. I think this is because, despite the many societal groups the author covers as he explores the impacts of both crying and *not* crying, it's not written from an expert's perspective. I value the personal journey of the author in his pursuit to give himself permission to experience such vulnerability, but I found myself desiring more empirical info applied to these many corners of society.

Overall, the book is a thoughtful and earnest effort to encourage readers to think about the power of tears and what they mean for different people. If you're looking for something more prescriptive and "how-to," this book isn't it.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book about the importance of crying in our lives.

From the physical affects on our body to the emotional ones, Perry provides stories that allow one to be vulnerable through tears. Crying is a way of connecting with one another, either on an individual or a global scale.

I appreciate the different chapters being broken up into social issues, all related to crying, such as men, women, Black, queer, and children.

The book spoke to me as a call to action for activists trying to create social change.

Here are just some of the many nuggets that stuck out to me.

"it is that movement of attention from our heads into our bodies that leads us toward the fullest expression of our humanity." (p. 50)
"Being vulnerable with someone is being intimate with someone." (p. 81)
"We re born believing that other people are basically good; that they will offer help to us if we need it...Slowly the world tries to strangle these beautiful instincts...But I believe we still have a choice about whether we let the child within us wither. It becomes an awfully cold world when they are gone." (p. 132-133)
"If we can be present, even in pain, it magnifies our jubilation." (p. 148)
"We should feel overwhelmed by structural violence, not to the point of our numbness but certainly enough that we realize community is our only hope to overcome it." (p. 193)