I Love You Dad!

Last Sunday was Father's Day, and social media was abuzz with celebratory messages, and 'thank you' posts, with netizens showing off daddy dearest😊. While it's great to celebrate our parents, (this includes our dads of course), it's also important that we have 'the talk' or at least a part of it. And while the purpose of this article is not to go in-depth on the subject, it is important we scratch the surface on the subject of men and a certain degree of their emotional disconnection.

Masculinity is a set of traits, behaviours and attributes associated with boys and men. Although masculinity is believed to be a social construct, there is still some debate as to what degree it is influenced by biology, or how valid the nature vs nurture argument is in understanding masculinity. On one hand, there's nothing wrong with masculinity in the traditional sense. Courage, a sense of independence, a dash of chivalry, some level of assertiveness, are all welcome qualities for the male child to exhibit. But, on the other hand, it is possible for men to exhibit other harmful masculine traits and ideals known to be toxic, such as aggression, a desire to be dominant, pressure to conform to societal expectations and particularly, the restriction and discouragement of emotional expression, which brings us to the koko of the oro.

Boys, or in this case men, have become accustomed to certain cultural nuances. 'Boys will be boys, be a man about it, grow a pair, boys don't cry, have some balls, kilode! are you not a man?', are just some of the phrases boys have grown up with, heard often and have come to believe, due to years of psychological conditioning, which is made worse by the media and the promotion of the 'ideal' man. In many cultures, boys are raised to believe expressing emotions is 'girly', hence, majority of men either have difficulty expressing their emotions, or simply isolate it. In Nigeria, men find it hard to say, 'I love you', or simply don't know how to react when same affection is expressed towards them. That's the common school of thought anyway. So, we decided to put this school of thought to the test.

The Social Experiment

We gathered 6 participants to test this theory. The task was simple. Call your dad, tell him you love him, and wait for his reaction. Six out of six times, the men never said, 'I love you' back. Some went silent, others waved it off and tried to change the subject. Others prayed for their kids. The experiment, executed for Insight Publicis Nigeria, is captured in the video below.

While this video might come across as funny, it is saddening and heart-breaking that this is the reality in most Nigerian homes. The fact that our dads find it hard to say the 'L' word, or that they go silent when their kids say it, or that they wave it off with a prayer, a hint of confusion, or a "I don't have money" comment, is an indication that something needs to change.

It's an indication that we need to break the cycle. The cycle of machismo, toxic masculinity, and the 'boys don't cry' state of mind. Let us tell them how much they mean to us as often as we can. Let them get used to it, to the point where they are comfortable hearing it. Let us raise our boys to become accustomed to embracing their emotions. And most especially, let"I LOVE YOU " become a phrase that's here to stay.

P.S. If our dads don't say, "I love you", it doesn't mean they don't love us. They have most likely found another way to express it, but that's an experiment for another day.

Grillobaba Said So.

Montero, A.H (2018). Depression In Men: The Cycle Of Toxic Masculinity [online] Available at: https://www.psycom.net/depression-in-men/depression-in-men-toxic-masculinity. (Accessed 28th June, 2020)

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