In as much as most fathers and their first sons are supposed to be best of friends, over time, I have come to deduce that such is not a common occurrence.

Every boy wants to be his father’s best friend and favorite son/child, but this hardly happens in most case scenarios I’ve been opportune to come across.

An older female relation of mine once shared with me that while it is easier for daughters and their fathers to blend and be most of friends; it has become increasingly difficult for sons to find such love from their fathers. Too bad indeed! But boys will always yearn within the inner recesses of their hearts that their fathers are actually rooting for them in all things. Men, and here, fathers are not physically as expressive as the mothers are. A boy would only be hurting himself if he lacks the emotional intelligence if he refuses to understand that a man is very much different from a woman when it comes to openly emotional display of affections. A mother despite slapping the taste out of her son’s mouth over a little provocation knows she will still get the son back into her embrace when the boy is hungry and needing her mother-nurture-nature care. A son, on the other hand, knows quite well, that his mother who feeds him doesn’t actually hate him because, she’s all he’s got when he needs care, attention and love from physical attention to emotional display of care.  Most fathers are not that way constructed. A father loves and cares within the confines of his large heart and uses his sense of sight to observe his son and wish him well in all his endeavours. Correction comes in heavily-handed verbal reprimand. This scares the son to stay the heck away more from the father with all thoughts and conclusions that his father is a demon who hates him needlessly. A dangerous seed is planted here. The son’s eye opens when he realizes eventually that his father never hates him, but only watched out for him the time he was ignorant of life’s ways. Most mothers take advantage of this to deprive their sons their father’s blessings that emanate from the heart.

Now, the worst of it, as in the major reason why most fathers and their sons appear to be on each other’s throat even when they have all become adults is simply because whenever the father looks at his son, all he see is himself. His imperfections when he was his son’s age and how much he wouldn’t accept his son to live his life his own way in his own understanding. This is skewed love. This father sees himself in his son and does everything within his powers to protect his son from the vagaries of our perfidious world. The son hardly understands this powerful care that evokes so much friction instead of open love from his father seeing that his father hardly shares with him his life and sad events that preoccupy his thoughts towards his son and his weak ability to protect his son who is blind to his masculine display of love, care and attention.

This brings about friction between the two. They are alike in so many ways. None understands the other, because they are emotionally poor.

Nothing stops a man from hugging his son from his tender age to his adulthood. What makes fathers stop relating to their sons in such style! Because of their past experiences which hardly are configured into their sons’ lives. The Man in the Mirror scares fathers shitless. That is why it is good that every man while growing up should live right so that when their own sons are growing up, there will be room for them to tolerate each other as there is a synergy of healthy emotional display of love instead of the erring suspicion that “this boy could end up worse than me when I was his age, then my enemies will mock me even in my grave.”

Every father should endeavour to understand that their sons are not created in their image even though the striking physical resemblances are yawning down our faces.

Allow your son to make his own mistakes and learn from them. Trying to stop him from making his own mistakes will damage your relationship with him and affect the natural order of life. Life of men. Doing so amounts to you playing God in the life of your son. And he will resist you with everything he’s got.

Fathers, please, learn to love your sons unconditionally just like you love your daughters.