Here's Why Fathers Must Not Struggle to Say "I Love You" to Their Children

It started with a school assignment. Kofi Mensah, forty-three years old, a civil engineer based in Accra, received a WhatsApp message from his fourteen-year-old son, Nana Yaw, on a Tuesday afternoon. Kofi was in the middle of a site meeting when the notification came in.

He glanced at it, fully intending to respond later.

The message read: ‘Dad, my teacher gave us homework. We have to write three things our parents say to us the most. I couldn't remember you saying anything except 'did you study?' and 'sit properly.' I didn't submit the paper.’

Kofi said he sat with that message for three days before he called his son.

He had never once considered the gap between how much he loved his children and how much they actually felt it. "I build bridges for a living," he said, half laughing, half pained, "but I couldn't even build a sentence."

That sentence? "I love you."

The love is real, undeniable, and deep. It shows up at 5 a.m. when they leave the house before anyone is awake. It shows up in school fees paid on time, in second-hand textbooks bought without complaint, in driving kids to the hospital at midnight without a word of frustration.

The love is everywhere. It just rarely shows up in words.

And this is not a character flaw. It is, in large part, inherited behaviour. Most of today's fathers were raised by men who themselves never said "I love you." The language of emotional expression simply wasn't passed down the same way a trade, a name, or a farm would be.

Provision was love. Discipline was love. Being present was love. And for that generation, perhaps it was enough.

But children today are not growing up in that same emotional climate. They are growing up in a world that speaks loudly through social media, school counsellors, peer conversations, and content that tells them constantly what healthy love looks like.

They are noticing the silence, and they are drawing their own conclusions from it.

What Happens in the Quiet

Akosua Boateng, a secondary school counsellor in Kumasi, has worked with teenagers for over twelve years. The same story walks into her office in different shoes every single week.

A brilliant, well-dressed child from a loving home, academically stable, no obvious red flags, and yet quietly struggling with one nagging belief: my father doesn't really care about me.

"They don't say it that way at first," Akosua explains. "They'll say things like 'my dad is strict' or 'my dad is always busy.' But when you sit with them long enough, what they're really saying is — I don't feel seen by him. I don't know if he actually likes me, let alone loves me."

The danger here isn't that these children go off the rails immediately. It's subtler.

It's the teenage girl who doesn't know how to receive care from people who genuinely offer it, because warmth from a man always felt conditional to her. It's the young man who grows into an adult unable to express vulnerability because his model of manhood said feelings were silent things. It's the child who excels in school, earns every grade, wins every prize because they are still trying to earn the validation of a father who just never learned to give it directly.

Silence has a cost. It's just a delayed one.

The Myth of "They Know I Love Them"

Many fathers operate under a quiet assumption: my children know I love them. I don't have to say it. They point to the food on the table, the school uniforms ironed, the vacations taken, the bicycles bought. They say, "actions speak louder than words," and they mean it sincerely.

But children do not automatically translate action into emotional certainty.

A child whose father never says "I love you" does not grow up thinking, ah yes, the school fees he paid were clearly his way of expressing deep paternal affection. A child thinks in feelings, not financial logic.

And if the feeling is never loud, the child fills that gap with whatever story makes sense to them, and that story is rarely the generous one.

This is not about blame. This is about awareness. And once you are aware, you cannot un-know it.

The Day Kofi Made the Call

Three days after receiving Nana Yaw's WhatsApp message, Kofi Mensah dialled his son's number, the kind of call that felt more deliberate. Nana Yaw picked up on the second ring, clearly surprised.

"I just called to tell you something," Kofi said. He paused for what he described as an agonisingly long three seconds. "I love you. I don't think I say it enough. Actually, I know I don't say it enough. But I do. Very much."

Nana Yaw went quiet. Then he said, "Okay, Dad."

But Kofi could hear his son's voice smiling — not in the words, but in the tone. "It was like something loosened," he said. "In both of us."

That three-second pause Kofi described?

That is the pause millions of fathers sit inside every day. It is not cruelty. It is unfamiliarity. It is discomfort. It is a generation of men who were never handed the tools and are now being asked to build something new. The beautiful truth is: it is absolutely buildable.

For a father who has never once said "I love you" to you directly, please know this: his silence is likely not a verdict on your worth. It is almost certainly a language barrier, not a love deficit.

He probably does not know how much weight his unspoken words carry. He probably doesn't know that you are waiting.

And if you feel safe enough to do so — you could be the one to start. Not to take responsibility for his emotional work, but because sometimes the first person to say it is the one who opens the door for the other.

A simple "I love you, Dad" said without expectation or demand can land differently than any conversation ever could. You might be surprised what comes back.

You are not asking for too much when you want to hear it. You are asking for something entirely reasonable and entirely human.

How Fathers Can Start

Start small and specific. You do not have to deliver a speech. "I'm proud of how you handled that" is a form of love expressed. "I enjoyed talking to you today" is love expressed. Build up to the full phrase gradually if the direct path feels too steep.

Say it in motion. Sometimes the words come easier when you are not face to face. Many fathers find it far less intimidating to say "I love you" when they are doing something else alongside their child, because it removes the intensity of direct eye contact.

Write it once. If speaking feels impossible right now, write it. A text, a note tucked into a school bag, a voice note sent on a quiet Sunday morning. The medium matters less than the message. What your child needs to know is that the feeling is real and named.

Repeat it until it feels normal. The discomfort is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a sign that you are doing something new. New things are uncomfortable, and then they become habit, and then they become part of who you are.

The words build something. They build a child who knows, without a shadow of doubt, that they are loved.

That is not a small thing. That is a legacy.