Yes, this a thousand times but it's not just fathers, men everywhere should help a brother out if he is in early male pattern baldness, definitely if he is young and seems oblivious. At the turn of the year I was NW1 with no visible hair loss anywhere, In February I went for a haircut for a job Interview and my hairdresser saw a small bald spot on my scalp, bare in mind he's been my barber for years and the spot was about a third bigger than it's previous size, a hairdresser must have cut the hair of hundreds of early onset male pattern baldness sufferers but Instead of telling me he decides to say that It was like that because of the way I used to style my hair, and that if I combed it forward then it will hide it and eventually it will grow back in...And I believed him...Fast forward 4 months and I go for a haircut again, still male pattern baldness is not obvious to me or anyone around me and I get another haircut, kept the hair combed forward and the spot was covered, I hadn't thought about it for months, then I have a huge Telogen Effluvium sheda few weeks after 2nd barber visit and lose like 30% hair density in a week. Bald spot is on show and since then been steadily losing and hair looks like ****, luckily the crown has held up well since then and hasn't gotten too much worse but gone from NW1 at start of the year to NW2 hairline now.
If my barber had told me honestly I was showing early male pattern baldness on either of the two occasions then I would have looked into it and got on propecia right away to maintain that lovely head of hair. Now gotta go hard on the protocol instead and hope I can regain the density and hairline that I miss so much. And he was bald himself so It's not likely he was oblivious to the existence of male pattern baldness like most full heads.
The point about fathers in particular bugs me, I get if you got the gene from your mum, then maybe your dad would not know you carried the gene and may not be able to warn you, but if your dad is bald and a lot of close male relatives to him are bald, then he should warn you, it is the right thing to do regardless of if you seek treatment or not. Hair loss isn't something people should have to put up with. One of my friends made a joke about my receding hairline at work a while back, he's recently started receding himself and although he looks like he notices, (stares in mirrrors more, seen him check hairline once or twice) I don't thin he is seeking treatment/doesn't know about the options. I have no intention of telling him cause he is a grade A ****, hope he goes bald and then gets flak for it.