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Last Sunday was Father’s Day. I am usually excited about Father’s Day because it’s the day I can get all mushy mushy with my dad. My dad is not the mushy mushy kind. The first day I told him that I loved him, it was so awkward. He did not even know what to say! Anyway for some reason, I was not so excited about this year’s Father’s Day. When I woke up that Sunday morning, I saw a few celebratory messages on BBM. I glanced at them as I hurried to church, not paying much attention to them. There was nothing unusual about the messages I read. However, later that evening (after what turned out to be a really long day) I got on social media and my eyes were full. Oh, it was terrible. There were so many posts bashing men and calling them all sorts of names. Then there were the “Happy Father’s Day, mum” posts or the celebration of single mothers posts. I wasn’t joking when I said my eyes were full. To be honest it all made me sad. I was sad because of all the negativity. Why are we progressively trying to portray the male gender as being terrible? I agree, there are some bad men out there but there are also bad women too. It’s always important to put things in perspective. Yes you somehow happen to personally know 10 bad fathers. Does that mean all the millions of fathers around the world are bad too? Is there no possibility that there is just one good father out there? I had a conversation with one of these ‘Team all men are bad’ people and as she was going on and on dishing out the various sins of men, I had to ask “So you’re saying your brother is bad too?” Her response: “Who is talking about my brother? I am talking about men. My brother is one of a kind not like all those depraved men out there.” Believe me, I don’t know what confused me more; her hypocrisy or the fact that she believed she had just made an intelligent point! We need to change the way we address our men. We need to celebrate them more. It doesn’t matter if you feel it is their responsibility to provide or protect you. Take time and celebrate them for the little things that they do right. I always thank my dad for everything he does for me. Forget that entitlement mentality. There are some men who don’t provide for their kids. My dad does and I celebrate him for that. If some men have hurt you in the past, why don’t you choose to celebrate the good ones instead? I have been hurt in a past relationship before (funny enough, we are good friends now) but I have not written down the whole male gender because of that. I know you have good reasons to be angry with ‘men’ but can you please let go of that hurt and forgive? All this while you’ve bashed tons and tons of men; where has it led to? Do you know that people are likely to behave better when you praise and celebrate them? It works like magic with a lot of men. Praise them for the small things that they do and watch them work hard to do more for you. I have seen it happen countless times. Even if they don’t do more, appreciate them still. It won’t cost you anything. Not all men are bad. In fact, I will like to argue that it is just a small percent of them that are bad. Let’s show our men more love please. We need them. They need us. God created that perfect synergy for a reason! Photo Credit: Dewdropnails.com About the Writer: Adedoyin Jaiyesimi is a Writer, Media Content Creator and Brand Manager. The various publications she has written for include Y! Magazine (now Y! Africa), Discovery, Pride Magazine Nigeria, Butterscotch magazine amongst others. She currently holds the position of Brand Communications Manager at Victor Adeyemi Ministries and she is also the founder of LRouge Media, an editorial and brand consultancy company which provides content writing and editing services for business websites, magazines and blogs. When she is not creating content, you can find her in church doing the work of her Father. She tweets @msdoyeen and blogs at www.adedoyinjaiyesimi.wordpress.com