I sat in on a parenting class a few weeks ago and the topic was:
(in jargon)
-improving parents' ability to identify, express, process and manage feelings such as anger, stress, loss, grief and guilt
-increasing parents' understanding of varied approaches to positive parenting including discipline, setting structure, child rearing, conflict resolution and problem-solving
-increasing parents' knowledge of nurturing and responsive parenting interactions, including empathy, caring, and respect for self and others.
(in lay terms)
should you let your boy cry or should you tell him to sack up and be a man?

Those top three things are three of the six objectives of all parenting programs funded under the parenting program for which I work.
That bottom one thing is something that haunts parents of boychildren everywhere.

The class was broken into two parts.
Part one:
Do we let our sons cry?  Do we set emotional standards for our boys that we wouldn't hold our daughters to?  Are boys allowed to be upset?  Emotional?  Sad?  Weak? Where do we draw the line?
Like most of our classes, the majority of parents were moms with a few dads thrown in.  Most admitted to being harsher on their sons than their daughters.  The ban on crying starts when their sons are toddlers, some said when their sons are preschoolers, but not many.  I'm guessing it's a common age.  No matter who you are, where you live.
"It's important that we teach our boys to be men", they said.  "We can't raise them in this world to be soft.  To be vulnerable.  To be pussies."

Part two:
Ladies, what do you look for in a partner?  A husband?  A male friend?
Hands flew up.  Someone who is in touch with himself.  Someone who is in touch with me.  With my children.  With our children.  Someone who isn't hard.  Isn't grizzled.  Isn't street.
Men, what do you wish you would have gotten from your fathers when you were young?
Hands didn't fly up.  Eyes teared up.
Understanding
Love
Empathy
Sympathy
Affection
Feeling
Emotion
Patience

Part important:
When are we going to start raising our boys to be the men we wish the men in our lives to be?