By Rachel Meghan 
When I was pregnant with my son, everyone warned me of what was to come. “Just you wait,” they’d say with an underlying schadenfreude, “you’ll never sleep again.” I fully expected sleep-deprived days and long, unrelenting nights, calming my son down from tantrums, trying to keep the peace with my marriage. But I got lucky—my son sleeps through the night, doesn’t throw tantrums, and my marriage is stronger than ever. I didn’t expect that, especially because I struggle with my own mental health and assumed I’d be in the weeds during my postpartum period.
Now that my son is almost two, I’ve observed a new trait in him. While he’s not a crier when it comes to full diapers, bedtime, or food, what I’ve noticed is that he does cry when he sees someone else sad. This is a very recent development, which I noticed while he was watching an episode of Barney where Baby Bop cries over a lost balloon. My son, seeing his favorite dinosaur sad, became inconsolable. As someone who has researched highly sensitive people, I feel my son has a strong sense of empathy.
This leads me to wonder: how am I supposed to raise a sensitive, empathetic boy in a world that rewards the opposite in men? How am I supposed to shield my son from the darkness and ugliness of the world when he feels the pain of others? What is the best way to go about fostering his empathy, while also making sure he’s strong enough for whatever the world throws at him as an adult?
Our job as parents is to show our kids how to be people, how to make their own way in the world in a way that is healthy and happy. I was raised by a father who wanted me to have a “thick skin” and would go out of his way to toughen me up, whether that was in the way he talked to me or the punishments he’d throw at me for whatever minor infraction occurred. I swore to myself when I became a parent that I’d never be like my father, who is now deceased. I don’t want to spread that energy to my kid, and I don’t want to give his sensitive soul any bad coping mechanisms.
When my son cries, I breathe with him. I model deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Right now, it’s just something he laughs at, but at least it stops him from crying. I hope that if I give him these tools now, he’ll remember them as he grows older, and it’ll give him the proper coping mechanisms when he gets overstimulated so he doesn’t lash out. I get overstimulated often, and it takes everything in me not to react as my dad did. It’s a conscious effort I make so I don’t poison my son’s mind, his sensitivity causing him to react poorly when in a stressful situation.
Little boys are often encouraged to be rowdy, to roughhouse, and to play dirty with each other. My son doesn’t play like that; he often chooses to play alone or with the people he already knows.
I know I can’t protect him forever, and that one day he’ll have to experience the world for what it is. But for now, I can protect him, keep him from seeing the world’s ugliness. I can turn off Barney and switch to another show. One day, he’ll be on social media and be subjected to the unfiltered nastiness of the internet. I fear this day, with his sensitivity and empathy as strong as it is. Honestly, though, what could I even do to prevent it? I was on message boards from a young age, in the early days of the internet, and I saw things I shouldn’t have, without my parents knowing. In today’s digital age, my son could have access to any number of toxic, disgusting things that come out of the brains of the most depraved and are set free to the wilds of TikTok or X.
Raising a little boy right now is hard. There are many bad role models out there ready to corrupt our kids and turn them into violent young men. And the sensitive boys are prime targets. I wish I could keep my son little forever, never getting him a smartphone, never putting him in public school, and keeping him from the horrors of the world. Unfortunately, I can’t do that, and I have to let my little empath, one day, become a member of society and make these choices for himself.
Recently, my son’s friend came over for a playdate. When his mother left, the other little boy cried hysterically, as young kids sometimes do. I looked over at my son while I held this other little boy, fully expecting him to also fall into hysterics. Instead, my son came over to this boy, hugged him, and offered him a toy. It gave me hope, not just for my own son, but for the next generation.
by Jordan Harrell 
by Marissa Bader 
by Alexis Linehan 
