“I will not teach you or love you or show you absolutely anything, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you—really, deeply, seeing you.” ~Brené Brown
The first time my kids saw me really cry was Christmas 2021. My eldest was sixteen, and my youngest was twelve.
They had just opened their presents. It was supposed to be a warm, pleasant morning. Instead, I turned towards the gate near the entrance to the house, with my back turned, as the tears threatened to spill. My mother—whose emotional breakdown had disrupted much of my life—was also in a mental hospital. His mental health was in tatters as well, and the sadness of it all, the repetition, the powerlessness, finally caught up with me.
I had spent years trying to hide my pain. I thought I could hide it again. But this time, I couldn’t.
Both my children asked, “Are you okay?”
I whispered, “I’m fine,” even as the tears fell.
Then something unexpected happened. They both came to me and hugged me. There is no fear. There is no confusion. Just love. Clean and strong.
That moment began to reveal something to me. What met me was compassion. My children were not overwhelmed by my sadness. They just answer it. At that moment, something old began to crack: the belief that my pain was a danger to the people I loved the most.
I had spent a long time trying not to be like my mother. I always felt responsible for his feelings and well-being, and I didn’t want my own children to feel as burdened as I did. But in trying so hard not to repeat the past, I kept my emotional insides to myself when I was sad.
I thought I was protecting them.
What I didn’t understand at the time was that my children didn’t need protection from my personality. They needed some connection to it.
Towards the end of 2023, my youngest child made an observation that showed me that my hiding wasn’t really working.
“You are the sad one,” she said, “and my father is the mad one.”
The truth stung, but I knew he was not cruel. He was just saying what he saw.
And he was not wrong.
After that Christmas, I was back to holding everything in and trying not to let my sadness show. But even through the tears, my son could still see my sadness for years—for what was happening with my mother, for the loss that I had silently carried, for the burdens that I thought I had silently placed on myself.
Yes, he could hear. Maybe it was in my behavior or my strength, in the stress on my face, in the way I sometimes looked without saying anything, or in the times when he had to call my name several times before I came back. He used to ask, “Are you okay, Mom?” He knew something was up.
It was then that I realized that there was no reason to hide my inner world if my children could already hear without words.
Children are incredibly intelligent. Even if they don’t have a language, they can hear what is happening. They become intense, sad, distant, and hard long before anyone can explain them. If we act like everything is fine, they still feel that something is off.
What I began to understand was that without context, they were left to make sense of what they were hearing. They might think that my sadness had something to do with them, or that it was something they needed to fix.
But when I started giving them enough truth—without throwing away grief, without making them carry what was mine—they became better at not understanding what they were hearing. They understood that I had feelings, that those feelings were real and human, and that those feelings were not their fault.
I also began to see something else clearly: my children always saw me as strong, independent, and capable, in charge and handling what needed to be handled. Because I didn’t let them see what I saw as weakness, I didn’t give them a chance to know this either: I have feelings. My feelings are also important. Not just theirs.
As I began to share my inner space in age-appropriate ways, my children became more thoughtful and considerate. Not because they were responsible for me, but because they understood me fully.
What struck me the most was the realization that the very thing I felt as a child—not being seen—was the same thing I repeated with my children without realizing it. Not in the same way, but in the same emotional way.
How would they really see me if I didn’t tell them anything about what was going on inside me? How can we have true connection if I only let them relate to my strength, ability, and calmness while I hide the deepest parts of my inner world?
By 2026, something had begun to change, but not quickly and not by accident. It came after years of therapy, meditation, and slowly learning how much I still suppressed what I felt—suppressing it, swallowing hard, going into my room to hide it, trying to catch my breath before anyone saw. Little by little I stopped like that. I cried with relief. Let me see more.
My youngest son, who is autistic and very close to me, at first didn’t know what to do when I started letting my tears show more often. A few months ago, when I was crying, he said, “I want to make you feel better, but I don’t know how.
I told her, “You don’t need to fix anything. Just let me be me, and I’ll let you be you. That’s the best gift we can give.”
After that, I felt his discomfort begin to soften into acceptance.
A little while later, when we landed in Houston after a trip to Canada, the tears started again. I didn’t want to come back. That place no longer feels like home to me. Without saying anything, my son put his arms around me and held me while I was crying.
After a few minutes, I exhaled and said, “Thank you. I feel better now.”
But it was the time in the car that stayed with me the most.
About a month later, I cried again while driving. A song came on the radio that reminded me of a person I missed, sadness quickly arose. He was sitting next to me, and I said, “I’m fine, honey.”
Even then I still felt self-conscious. Another part of me is still worried that he might be judging me.
Instead, he said something that completely surprised me.
“I wish I could cry like that,” she said. “You are strong.”
I chuckled and said, “I understand, honey. We’ll find you again.”
I was willing to be kind, but I also realized then that he had learned the same lessons that many boys learn early on—that tears are shed, emotions are held, crying becomes something to resist. And I knew that he had learned some of that from what his father and I modeled. It may take some time to complete.
That moment stayed with me because he showed me that he saw my tears in a different way than I always saw myself.
For most of my life, I equated crying with weakness. I thought being strong meant holding everything, staying steady, pushing, and keeping the hard parts hidden. But through my son’s eyes, I saw something different. He didn’t see my tears as failures. He saw courage in them.
That moment opened another conversation between us. He told me that he couldn’t cry anymore. He said it always felt stuck in his throat. He could hear it but it didn’t come out. He told me that the last time he really cried was when he was thirteen.
Then I thought about how much energy we waste trying to add to what is already there.
For years, I thought that being a good parent meant being unmoved. I thought strength meant preventing my children from seeing my grief, my frustration, my compassion, and my broken points.
Now I think children need to be honest more than work. They need to know that difficult feelings can be felt without being dangerous, that sadness can pass through the room without being their burden, and that love does not end when life gets difficult.
I thought my tears would make my children feel safe.
What I know now is that when those tears are caught with honesty and care, they can teach something powerful: that being fully human is not a weakness, and that connection often deepens when we stop pretending we don’t feel anything.
About Allison Briggs
Allison Jeanette Briggs is a therapist, author, and speaker who specializes in helping women heal from addiction, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. She combines psychological insight and spiritual depth to guide clients and students toward self-confidence, boundaries, and authentic connection. Allison is the author of the forthcoming memoir On Being Real: Healing the Codependent Heart of a Woman and shares thoughts on healing, resilience, and inner freedom at on-being-real.com.
