15 Tell Your Sons You Love Them

In this heartfelt and deeply personal episode of Winning Regardless, Coach Rodo tackles a subject that is often unspoken, particularly in the Black community: the importance of fathers telling their sons that they love them. Rodo shares his own powerful story of growing up without hearing those words from his father and the emotional void that created.

He speaks candidly about how he’s broken that cycle with his own sons and the profound effect it has had on their relationship. This is a crucial conversation for men, offering insight into why this simple act of verbal affirmation can be so difficult for some and so vital for the next generation. Rodo's message is a powerful call to action for fathers everywhere to embrace vulnerability and give their sons the gift of knowing they are loved, unconditionally.

Key Discussion Points:

Breaking the Cycle: Rodo shares the emotional journey of growing up in a home where "I love you" was never said and how he consciously decided to be different for his sons.

The Giddy Feeling of Affirmation: He describes the surprising feeling of validation he experienced when his own father, later in life, finally began telling him he loved him.

Why Words Matter for Black Men: Rodo discusses the unique cultural dynamic in the Black community where expressing love to male children is often seen as a sign of weakness and how this needs to change.

Love as a Weapon of Good: He explains why "I love you" is a word of both affirmation and approval that can give young men a foundation of self-worth.

The Call to Action: A direct challenge to every father and male role model to pick up the phone and tell the young men in their lives that they love them.

Transcript

Hello everyone and I would like to welcome you to another session of Coach Rodo's podcast, Winning Regardless. Today is gonna be one of those hard, funny topics and it's for us men mostly. The thing I wanna talk about is telling your sons that you love them. It's easy for us to tell our daughters that we love them because

you know, the daughters come up in a world in which it's dangerous for them because, you know, you got songs that say it's a man's world. So they come up already being not so much taught, but with a leg behind, so to speak. So we always, you know, tell our daughters that we love them to make sure that they understand that love.

is a very, very strong word. And if we're telling it to them, then it's a word that we want them to use to take as a positivity to not listen to another person outside of us as parents telling them that they love them. Because the one thing that I used to always tell my daughter and younger women is, men, we fall in love with what we see. Women fall in love with what they hear.

So I used to always reiterate that I love you to her for the simple fact is I didn't want another man or another child, you know, as a seventh and eighth grader, girls hearing that, you know, boys knowing what it takes. I didn't want her to hear that word. And, know, that'd the first time that she heard it from another male and actually believe it. As far as us as.

men telling our sons, I can only speak to the black culture because obviously I'm black. I really can't speak to the white culture, the Asian culture, or any other ethnicities, culture, as far as telling your sons that you love them. It was funny because a friend of mine and I were having a discussion a couple weeks ago, and we were just talking. it was funny to listen to him.

combat me on telling him that he needs to tell his son that he loves him even though his son is 25 years old because I remember coming up as a kid I can't remember my father telling me he loved me.

except when he was about to whoop my ass, you know, that is, you know, I'm doing this because I love you. And you know, as a kid, you can't understand that. So your first thought process is, damn, if you beat my ass because you love me, then what the fuck you gonna do to me if you hate me? You know, but you know, as a kid, we couldn't understand that the punishment that you were getting was out of love because it didn't want the behavior to manifest and become something bigger as you got older.

But again, as a kid, couldn't understand that. So I was never told I love you in a tender manner as far as, know, ⁓ being a man and being a man and being a boy and being taught that. you know, my mom wasn't around to tell me that she loved me. it was that word was was something that I had to learn like a lot later in my life. But the one thing that I wanted to do

after I did understand it and after I found out that I actually did need to hear those words verbalized to me because as a man to not hear the words, to not hear that somebody loves you, once you start to understand it, kind of makes you feel unwanted or not worthy and I...

but again, I love me some me enough to where it wasn't gonna be my barrier in life because again, I love the hell out of myself. So it didn't matter if nobody else loved me or not. I had enough hubris to love me some me. But I wanted to break that cycle so as I started to have boys, I wanted to make sure that they understood that I loved them and...

I needed them to hear that because it was something that I finally had that was gonna love me unconditionally. Well, I also needed that entity to also know that I loved... the entity loved the child unconditionally. And even with it being a boy, I felt that I needed to express that. Even now, I mean, my 29-year-old, we tell each other we love each other all of the time, you know, and my 24-year-old...

It's... It was a habit since we always got off the phone and when we talked to each other or whatever, it you, son, love you, pops, love you, son. So to this day, I still tell my boys that I love them because as black fathers, for some reason, we're taught that if we tell our kids that somehow we're diminishing our manhood or we're diminishing what a man is when...

that I learned is not correct. Our boys need to as fathers that we love them. They need to hear that we are proud of them. We, in our culture, need to get away from that. We need to break that cycle. ⁓ I think that a lot of our black kids would have done a lot better or done more

had they heard, you know, those three words from a male figure. It is, it's amazing what words can do and especially when you start them out young, you know, I make it a habit of telling my boys that I love them all the time. But then when I hear my, when I talk to some of my friends,

They tell me, oh yeah, man, my boys, I love them, they've done a third. But my first question in my head is, do you tell them? Because if you don't, and they don't hear it, how will they believe it? And not only that, then it becomes just a word to them. And words, again, are powerful. So it becomes a powerful word that they use to their advantage.

to get what they want, whether it be from a female or whether it be from a person of influence, that hearing that word or knowing that you can use that word as a weapon and not even feel it or even know what it's about to have it in your heart because it was never taught to you or it was never told to you.

And not never told you, because moms always tell their kids that they love them. But the thing is for men, for black men, black kids, again, I'm only speaking from my cultural experiences. I didn't really hear my uncles telling my cousins, my male cousins that I love you. You know, I didn't hear my friends' dads telling them that they love them. So we come up with a hardness.

about that word, love. ⁓ We believe that, you know, it's for some reason it's equated with softness when we're talking to our children and when we're talking to our, especially our male children, especially black, because we teach our black children that you have to be hard because the world is gonna be hard on you and there ain't no place for love in this world if you don't hear those words.

being told to you that you can love, learn and live at the same time. And I think as black males, we get away from telling that to our young black children. Because we're quick to tell them that, you know, I'm pissed at you. I'm mad at you. ⁓ I'm disappointed in you. Well, what the fuck? I love you.

What's wrong with it? mean, it's even though you may not have heard it as that young man's father doesn't mean that he should not hear it because if it's a feeling, don't you feel that way about your son? I did. I do. Which is why I always make sure that I tell my boy, they don't even have to tell me they love me back. I just need them to know that I love them.

I just need them to know that when I go tomorrow, if I go tomorrow, the one thing that both of them motherfuckers can stand up and say is, the motherfucker told me he loved me all the time, so therefore I know my daddy loved me. And again, it was a word that I did not, I knew how it was for feeling towards my sons, but I never understood how it felt for me.

from my father until maybe two or three years ago. I was golfing in Lansing and went over to his house and him and I had a long conversation and we sat down and we talked about some things and you know, one of the things that when he actually told me that he loved me, at first I blew it off, you know, it was like, okay, I've never heard it in that type of a capacity so.

How do I accept it? And then when he said it to me a couple of more times, because you know, he had gotten older, he's getting older and you know, when you come to your realizing your mortality, you sort of ⁓ try to make amends. And I don't say that that's what he was doing. What I think he was doing was thinking back on things that I may have needed.

that he didn't give me such as words of affirmation because he didn't receive words of affirmation. So it was that cycle. My grandfather never told him that he loved him. It was always, I'll buy you clothes, I'll buy you food, I'll put a roof over your motherfucking head, I'll pay the bills, motherfucker, that's my love. So that's what he came up with. So he believed that it worked for him and he turned out, you know,

what he did, so he figured the same thing, but he realized a little later, I turned out the way that I did in spite of, not because of. And had it been because of, along with his determination, who knows what he could have been, and what he could have passed on to me. But it wasn't passed on to me.

So I had to take it upon myself. I had to learn it upon myself because when you become a loner, like I was, as a middle, meagre grown up person, words of affirmation that never came, they really don't mean nothing. So you don't really believe them when they come from other people and you start hearing them. So that was my problem as I got older from never hearing it.

I, whenever I did hear it, it was fake to me. Or whenever I said it, was definitely fake coming from me because it was a feeling and an emotion that I had never heard nor did I understand. But I knew how to use it as a weapon. As I said, it can be used as a weapon. So therefore I did use it as a weapon until my wife would now use it as a weapon against me. So, but that's a, that's a different story. So.

As I started analyzing things in my life, I realized that I didn't want my sons to be like me at 53, sitting down talking to their dad and hearing for the first time their dad saying, in an affirmation sort of sense of, I love you. You know, I mean, it was, again, I didn't realize what it had, what those words from him had did to me until later on.

when I realized that I'm saying it to my sons so much and how I felt hearing it from him, to be honest with you, I felt like I got validation from the one motherfucker in my life that I was telling my life I didn't need the validation from when actuality I did.

I didn't know it until he told me, until he told me again. And then again, we started running into each other. We would have conversations. then I started to, and I think it was my brother passing that he understood that it was necessary to tell me because.

I don't know if he even was able to tell my brother. And with my brother passing, I don't know if that led, or triggering him to, I have one son left, and I need him to understand that I love him. That he's here out of love, he was created out of love, even though I didn't tell him. So I don't know if that's the thought, I like to think that those are the thoughts that he had because.

You know, even today when we talk on the phone, we get off the phone, you know, he tells me he loves me. And I feel kind of fucking giddy. know, mean, shit, here I am, this, you know, almost 55 year old man, you know, sitting here and, you know, count on one hand how many times his daddy told him that he loved him. And now when his dad tells him he loves him, he fucking smiles. You know, so that's...

why I knew that it was important for me to have today's conversation with my black men, my black fathers. The help that we can give our black young men is by words of affirmation. I love you, son. Even when you fuck up, I love you. I don't care that you fucked up. I still love you. I'm gonna get in your ass, but I still love you. There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with telling them that you love them when they mess up. You tell them, know, when I hear more dads praise their kids during sporting events than they do when their kid acts right when he's out in public or when he's getting ready to get in the car and go somewhere with his friends. It's, all right, hit me up if you need me. Nah, I used to tell my boys all the time, hey, love y'all, be safe. Love you, be safe.

Love you, be safe, because I didn't want.

God forbid anything to happen and not have told them that I love them.

I don't want them to ever wonder if I love them because I told them and they know how I am with my words. They know I don't say shit that I really don't mean. They know that I don't just throw a word out there just because. I mean, I'm past that. I used to, but not with them. ⁓

It touches me when I hear other black fathers tell their grown kids that they love them. I got a friend of mine who, he's just like me, every time he gets off the phone with his 24 year old son, he tells him, I love you. And his son tells him back. And I get a smile on my face because I love it when I say it to my boys and they say it to me back.

Because again, not hearing it. And again, I get giddy. That's why I get giddy when my dad says it to me, because now it's like, I've told myself all my life, I'm not trying to prove nothing to him, this, and the third. And now that I am where I'm at in my life, and then I hear them words coming from him, and then it makes me feel a certain way. It makes me also question, damn, were you really doing this to get his affirmation? And I guess,

When I look back and I think about it, a part of me was because, you know, when you're not told that, you think that, okay, you get love based upon your success. You know, you think you get the love based on who you are in society and what you've done instead of because they're your parent. And I think...

We need to change that narrative when it comes to our black young men. We need to teach them love. We need to tell them we love them. And I don't mean, I mean as black young men and older men telling our kids, telling our nephews, you know, I got nephews now when I get off the phone with them, I tell them I love them. you know, I don't know if their father's just telling them, but what I need them to know is that they uncle love them. You know?

They uncle that they look up to who they think is this, you know, and this is what they tell me. I don't think that, but who they think is this big, mighty guy and this, that and the third, you know. I, okay, if this is what you think of me, then I need you to know how I feel about you. I love you. And I can see the effect in them. I can see how it does them. It forces them to tell me that they love me back. It forces them to...

express themselves and the thing that you learn about, you know kids and young men is they If you as a male tell it to them, they don't waste their words because if they don't love you that motherfucker ain't gonna say it back He gonna smile at you and he gonna give you a dappin a hug and this that and a third but Like my nephew Lorenzo

Every time we get off the phone, he's just like my sons. Love you, nephew. Love you too, uncle. And I can tell that it means a lot for him to hear that because he's my fucking cousin and he calls me uncle. He's been calling me his uncle since he was seven years old. And I asked my aunt why my auntie said, honey, that's because he loves you and he looks up to you. And therefore, I need to make sure that he knows how much I love him.

And so I tell him all the time, my nephew, but I love him like he's one of my sons. But again, it's that word, it's that affirmation, it's that word that I hope he passes on and breaks the cycle himself. Because again, as black men, we tend to hold onto that word as if it's a dollar bill or something.

To be honest with you, we only use it to get a woman. But we need to use it to save our black children.

We need to use it to let them know that.

as your father, as your male role model, I love you. Whether you do good or whether you do bad, I love you because you are a part of me. And again, I love me some me. So how could I not love what is a part of me? And how could I not express that love? And how could I not tell them about that love that I have for them?

A lot of kids, I believe, go down the wrong path because they don't believe that there is a male love for them out there because...

of the way that we may think love really means or, you know, ⁓ it's not cool for the man to tell another man that he love him. I mean, I've broken the cycle so bad that, you know, and my Marine Corps boys have done the same. We tell each other we love each other all of the time because some of us have fell off. Some of us have died. When I say fell off, some of us have died over the years.

And we've been through some shit together to where we do love each other, to where we do care about each other. So therefore we tell each other, and we have these conversations with each other about needing to make sure that the black young men in our lives and the older men who have young black males in their lives, that they tell them that they love them.

Because again, in our community, that is a word that is missing amongst our youth. And it's because we, as the older males, aren't telling it to them and teaching it to them. it's because we weren't taught. But who's to say that we have to be taught? You know, they say, in order to learn, you have to be taught. But you can also learn by observing.

You don't have to be taught all of the time. You can observe. You can look at a person's reaction. Like I would look at my, man, how I look at how my son's friends react when they see me tell them that I love them. And then you know what's funny is some of the dads will be sitting there hearing me say it and then all of sudden they tell their sons they love them. And I mean some of the sons look at me like, what?

But then they'll get a smile on their face like, dang, because maybe they hadn't heard it. And then they hear somebody like me ⁓ say that to his boys, forces it to say that to their boys. Then all of a sudden, they're saying it to each other all of the time. And it creates a dynamic. And now all of a sudden, that love becomes approval. And in order to get your approval, I need to do the things that are right in life.

Because I'm sure you're not approving of me fucking up out here. But I bet you if I bring you home some A's and B's, I get to hear that word some more. That word is approval as well. It's not just a feeling that comes with it. That word is also letting them know that you approve of the fact that they are a life in itself.

Because again, if you love yourself, then you have to love your sons. Because they are a part of you. And those who don't, I can't understand it because it's not anything that they asked for. They didn't ask to be here. They only asked that while I'm here, you do your duty. And duty as a black father to a young black male is to raise them to be

productive member of society and that starts with love and that starts with telling them that you love them so that they can begin to understand what love is, so they can begin to observe what love is along with being taught what it is. I just think that, again, as black males, forget it, ethnicity, whatever ethnicity you are, if you find yourself not telling your sons,

your nephews, that you love them. And if you really do, you know, take this time out right now if you hear this podcast. Take this time out when you get done listening to it, pick up the phone. Call them and tell them you love them. You never know. They might be having a bad day today. And the thing about a dad telling the son is different than a mom telling the son. Mom tells the son every five minutes.

Dad tell the son every 10 years. Big difference. But imagine if you get done listening to my podcast, listen to me talk to you about it. You pick up your phone and, hey son, man, you know what? I was just riding today and just thinking about you, man. I started laughing about some of the shit we've been through. And I just wanted to call and tell you I love you, man. You have a good day. That motherfucker gonna have a good day for the rest of that day. Because the one person

who can influence him the most from birth. As a male figure, just told him how he felt about him.

So I hope, you know, in closing, I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Remember, if you have a young son or, you know, nephew or whatever in your life and you haven't told them that you love them in a while, you know, try to make it a habit. Try to teach them. Try to help them learn that, you know, love is also a word of affirmation. It's also a word of approval. It's also

a word that can make or break somebody's day. So again, thank you for tuning in to Coach Rodo's podcast, Winning Regardless. And I hope you have a winning day, regardless of what happens. I remember today's subject, love. And you can listen to us anywhere you listen to your podcast. Have a good