My Kids Need Me to Be Their Parent, Not Their Friend

The reasons I refuse to be friends with my kids

Image licensed from Canva

As a teenager, my mum was the coolest mum of all time. All my friends loved her. She was on a first-name basis with every one of them. My friends would hang around to spend time talking to her, even when I wasn’t home. All of them envied me for having such an awesome mum. She was brilliant, she was fun, she was understanding. With them.

Never with me!

And I complained my heart out to my friends, that she is not all that, she can be really bitchy, she is not fun and she yells at me. They didn’t believe me. She was a best friend in the form of a grown-up woman, with wisdom and understanding of life, always ready to listen and give insightful advice. She discussed sensitive boyfriend issues with my best friend — and never with me.

It was extremely frustrating — for years and years I thought she was always putting on a show, not being honest either with me or with my friends. When I confronted her, it was always the same seemingly empty answer: I can be friends to them, but not to you.

I am not your friend, I am your mother.

Years later, as I am a mother myself, I understand her now. Being a mum is a challenge, at any…