Like father, like son: Why there is an emotional distance in the relationship

Sandeep Mrabhaker didn’t have an expressive father but has now created a safe space for his son. PIC/SAYYED SAMEER ABEDI

Mardo ko console karna nahi aata," said Samay Raina in his stand-up special Still Alive, distilling a sentiment many Indian men have grown up internalising. In the same breath, he jokes about how sons cannot say "I love you" to their fathers because somewhere along the way, masculinity got entangled with emotional restraint. The idea that men are inherently inexpressive, even incapable of articulating affection, is a stereotype India is slowly trying to outgrow. But within the four walls of homes, particularly around father-son relationships, the emotional distance continues to linger.

A still from Mehta Boys (2025). Quite a few movies in the Bollywood industry address the emotional gap between a father and his son. PICS/PINTEREST

Popular culture has long mirrored this space. Films like Udaan portray a father whose authority eclipses affection, while Chiraiya captures the awkward silences and unspoken care between men. More recently, The Mehta Boys attempts to bridge that gap, showing men learning - often late in life - how to communicate vulnerability. These narratives suggest that men mirror their role models in the house who tend to be their fathers.

Sandeep Mrabhaker, 53, learnt to break the cycle with his nine-year-old son, Siddharth. "I didn't have a template to run or behave on," he says, reflecting on his own father. "Our parents, especially our fathers, were not very expressive. In hindsight, my father took a lot of pride in my achievements but he was not expressive enough when we were growing up." Like many men of his generation, affection was embedded in gestures, sacrifices, and responsibilities.

He recalls a childhood memory that now reads as love in retrospect. "I was yearning for a cricket bat as a child and we were not very well-off. But eventually dad did get it for me, and I realised the amount of sacrifices our parents made." The language of love, for fathers then, was provision.

A still from Udaan where the father's authority is a form of affection for his son

Even saying "I love you" almost felt alien. "I don't think we've ever said I love you to each other until perhaps in his last moments." It was only much later, after personal loss and distance, that Mrabhaker began to consciously express affection. "I started to hug him only once mummy passed away. Initially it was a little awkward. I think he was quite happy to receive that kind of love from his son after all these years."

What changed, however, is how he chose to parent. "My son today will come up to me and say ‘Papa, hug time'. And he does not feel embarrassed or shy to speak his mind. That's the kind of freedom we gave him for him to feel safe." In that small, ordinary moment, lies the rupture. It is proof that masculinity, and the emotional lives of men, may finally evolve to speak.

A study in India by Scientific Report found that 42 per cent of urban youth show medium to high emotional suppression. Additionally, NCRB data consistently shows that men account for over 70 per cent of suicides in India, pointing to a gendered mental health crisis linked to stigma and underreporting.

‘Dads are just grown-up kids'

Musician Dhruv Visvanath narrates how his father's love was vital in shaping the man he is

Having lost his father at 16, musician Dhruv Visvanath reflects on the void not just as loss, but as the absence of guidance. "What we really lack is some positive voices or guidance and for me, that was my father," he says, adding that while his mother anchored him, "the role my father played was vital in shaping who I am." Visvanath's music too, is heavily inspired by his father with a charismatic instrumental dedicated to him called Father.

Yet, unlike many stories of distant fathers, his memories are marked by warmth. "My dad was different. He used to tell me he loved me all the time," he recalls. That contrast sharpens his observation of men today. "I have noticed the way fathers are to their sons now. There is a silent acknowledgement," he says, describing a generation still learning how to articulate affection. "Dads are sometimes just grown-up kids who have gotten toys they don't know how to play with."

At the heart of it, he believes, is emotional conditioning. "Men create such high walls, they forget to leave the gates open," he says. The instinct, he admits, is often to fix rather than feel. "My brain has always been like ‘how can I fix this?'. But the important thing to learn is not about fixing but to listen. It all starts with listening."

How can men be better fathers?

"When someone does come to therapy for this, very often it's the person's partner or family member who recognises this emotional unavailability," counselling psychologist Paras Sharma explains. The work then goes into helping the man become more aware of his emotions, not go into default scripts of being stoic and quiet.

"So it is a mix of individual work and couples work that we do, where the focus is to try and help them identify how they have grown up or how they have continued to hold these very traditional scripts that patriarchy and society have instilled in them." There are alternative ways of being, and that's how men can be better fathers to their children. By seeking help.

‘My father was traditional, didn't express emotions'

Nikhil Taneja, with a year-old daughter, talks about how society forces men to repress their grief and joys

Calling himself a proud girl dad, Nikhil Taneja's father-son dynamic was shaped as much by presence as by absence of emotional vocabulary. "My father was a very traditional Indian man. He had a lot of love for us. But he did not know how to express." Instead, affection took the form of shared activities. "For him, to do something together is the way to be together - dinner, movies, or watching a match." It's a pattern he sees replicated widely, "Male friendships are defined by finding an excuse to be together."

"What I did not get with my father, I tried to do with my brother," he says, describing the pressure of becoming "the man of the house" as an elder son. "I went into clinical anxiety when I turned 30, then I went to therapy for many years," he says, linking emotional suppression to wider patterns where "men end up with substance abuse or becoming violent, because they never learnt healthy ways to express themselves."

Even grief and joy is policed for a man. "I cried when my daughter was born and I had people tell me not to cry because I was a man." And at his father's funeral, "I was inconsolable. People were saying, ‘You are the eldest son. How can you cry?' What society failed to notice was, "I was not crying to be weak. It is love for my father which is my strength." For him, men don't know how to console because they've never been consoled. Today, that awareness shapes how he shows up as a parent. "I want to be as present as I can to create safe spaces for my daughter."

‘In order to be free, I need to free them first'

Zara Khan, a housewife and a digital artist, says how the men in her family suffer from not being able to show the affection they hold for their loved ones

For Zara Khan, the conversation around male emotional suppression is shaped by the men in her life. She is a housewife and a digital artist on Instagram. Her viral artwork on the idea of the "Raja Beta" stems from her realisation of what feminism is, "In order to be free, I need to free them first." Questioning traditional roles, she notes how men are often pushed into becoming providers at the cost of themselves. "Not every man wants to earn either. Some people are forced to earn," she says.

A still of artwork by Zara Khan on the patriarchy's impact on men. PIC/INSTAGRAM@zarx_art__

That pressure is something she has witnessed closely in her husband. "He used to have dreams and earned trophies for playing badminton. He gave up all of it because of the pressure." Today, she says, "he is growing emotionally bitter and I can't even talk to him about it." Attempts at conversation are met with defensiveness. "There is no openness to even process such thoughts for him," she adds, which led her to create the artwork instead "to hold a mirror to him."

The emotional distance extends across generations. "My father also jokes with me but never with my brother. They don't even hug!" she says. "During Eid my brother tears up and runs to the washroom after the embrace while my dad idly sits in front of a TV." In that brief encounter lies the enduring gap between fathers and sons.

‘Fathers were not taught to show love'

Vedant Baliyan explains how he jumped into the trend of telling his father ‘I love you' after Samay Raina's stand-up special went viral

Saying "I love you" to his father felt like crossing an invisible line for Vedant Baliyan. Inspired by Samay Raina's challenge to say the three holy words to one's fathers, Baliyan took the leap only to be met with surprise. "It does feel weird to say I love you to your papa. Utni himmat nahi hoti hai," he admits. In his video, his father paused, then reciprocated, "almost in relief."

"At home, love is shown differently," Baliyan says. "If I tell my mom, she says it back. My dad says, ‘Okay sure, what do you want?'" He understands that, "expressing love verbally is always a hard task for fathers, since they were never taught this."

‘Fathers tend to be deaf to their sons growing up'

Actor and comedian Boman Irani speaks about his movie The Mehta Boys, a tale about a dysfunctional relationship between a father and son

Contrary to popular belief, Boman Irani's The Mehta Boys - which he co-wrote, co-directed, and acted in - does not come from a personal experience. "I never grew up with a father. My sons and I have a fantastic relationship. It's mostly casual and loving." However his work and research on the film comes from the sections in society that exist in silences between fathers and sons, "who are unable to express what is irking them, how they actually feel."

Boman Irani. File pic

Irani explains that The Mehta Boys is about misunderstandings, taking conversations in different directions. "It is not just about a father-son relationship but all throughout the world. You knock on 10 different doors, you'll hear 10 different stories about this," Irani says.

In the film, Irani's character, Shiv Mehta, is not a stereotypical patriarchal father. He is quite expressive about falling in love with his late wife. "I wanted to break that stereotype. Indian men don't like to talk about their romance." Lastly, Irani breaks down that, "When sons get older, a father sometimes tends to be deaf to that change in the growing man. And we have to understand that we must change our tonality towards our kids; that they aren't children anymore."

Ranbir aur Rishi ki kahani

Actor Ranbir Kapoor with mom Neetu Singh and dad Rishi Kapoor. PIC/NIMESH DAVE

Even in celebrity culture, this emotional imbalance finds resonance. Ranbir Kapoor has often spoken about his relationship with Rishi Kapoor with striking honesty. The actor revealed that he was never very close to his father while growing up, even though they shared love. He admitted that this emotional distance still affects him today. It was only later that things shifted, "In the last few years, we became friends."

What about the girls?

PIC/ISTOCK

The paper, ‘The Role of Father Neglect and Abuse in Romantic Relationships' (2023), notes that women who experience emotional neglect from fathers are more likely to gravitate toward emotionally unavailable or distant partners. Across these studies, common relationship patterns emerge: overcompensating in relationships, people-pleasing, difficulty trusting consistent affection, and sometimes remaining in unfulfilling partnerships. Protective factors such as supportive relationships, self-awareness, and therapy can significantly reshape attachment styles and partner choices over time. But that's a whole different story. Watch this space.

‘Men don't have healthy role models'

Counselling psychologist Paras Sharma explains how men often choose to be emotionally absent with their families

From his doctoral thesis Shaping Masculinity, counselling psychologist and director of Alternative Therapy, Paras Sharma traces how emotionally absent fathers create a template that sons often replicate. "People who grew up with unemotional fathers further the idea of stoicism, where you aren't supposed to convey any feeling," he explains. Without witnessing intimacy between parents or emotional engagement at home, "you don't see a role model of how a man acts as an adult."

Sharma rejects the idea that all men are forced to be distant because of societal stigma. "There are a lot of situations where they are allowed to be absent. They choose that life actively." He also points to how culture reinforces this. "Stand-up comics romanticise the idea of your father being serious and absent," he notes, arguing that such portrayals "absolve the father from all the responsibilities."

At its core, the issue lies in how masculinity is taught. Boys are raised to prioritise achievement over emotional development. "You ask young boys to only think about studies. Then you suddenly ask them to get married when they haven't developed any relationship skills." The result, he suggests, is a cycle where socially sanctioned roles become the easiest mantle to inhabit.

Research in Journal of Family Psychology by John Bowlby shows men raised by emotionally absent fathers often develop avoidant attachment, leading to low intimacy, emotional withdrawal, and difficulty expressing vulnerability. Studies by Philip Shaver find they disengage during conflict, leaving partners feeling unsupported. Ross Parke's work shows that such men replicate emotional distance with their children, prioritising being a provider over affection.