(CNN)  -- When the late Sen. Edward Kennedy was growing up, there was a family edict: Kennedy men don't cry. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, left, and Ted Kennedy Jr. appear on "Larry King Live" on Monday evening. On "Larry King Live" Monday night, the senator's sons -- Ted Kennedy Jr. and Rep. Patrick Kennedy -- said times have changed, and that includes the no-tears rule of an earlier generation. In a wide-ranging interview, they also discussed the moment of their father's passing, how their mother, Joan, was handling her ex-husband's death, the legacy of Chappaquiddick, the Kennedy "curse" and their impressions of their dad's memoir, "True Compass." The 77-year-old senator died August 25 after a battle with brain cancer.
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Sons of late Sen. Edward Kennedy say dad learned to embrace emotional side
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They say they don't believe in the so-called "Kennedy curse"
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Ted Kennedy Jr. says moment of his father's passing was peaceful, spiritual
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On Chappaquiddick: He accepted responsibility for what happened, sons say
Larry King Live
Larry King Live
"You know my father was very good at overcoming his own kind of old, traditional sense of not talking about your feelings, not really expressing a lot of emotions," Patrick Kennedy told @placeholder.
Larry King Live
Larry King Live
"Many people castigated him and attacked him and made him a caricature where he actually was a very real person as we've seen in this book," Patrick Kennedy told @placeholder.