To Be A Mother or A Best Friend

Parenting is not an easy skill. I remember a friend of mine, who is also a parent, while discussing challenges in raising kids in this modern age, asked me ‘who taught you how to be a parent?’. I laughed and replied that nobody teaches you how to be a parent; you just become one and learn on the job and hope you do the best. I don’t know how my grandmother did it and raised 10 of them, or how our parents coped; could it be that the times are different now?

Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear fellow parents advice you to strive and be your child’s best friend, so the child will be able to freely open up to you and communicate effectively. Can one really be a best friend and a parent effectively? I remember watching Oprah Winfrey show, years ago even before I became a mother, Vanessa Williams and her mother came on the show. Oprah asked her opinion on being her daughter’s best friend and the old woman replied that her job to Vanessa was to be her mother, not her best friend. 

Now, I know what my best friends and I get up to, the mischief and the silly pranks. There are a lot of things I do with my friends that my mother would have high blood pressure if she knew about. I am close to my mother, I can communicate effectively with her, but there are boundaries. I am not her best friend and I wouldn’t want to be. Friends support each other through thick and thin, through good decisions and horrible decisions. A mother wouldn’t stand by and allow you take a horrible decision just  so you’d call her your best friend. 

I have become a mother, and I do not wish to be my daughter’s best friend, she should have her best friends who’d get up to mischief with her, and hold her head when she gets drunk, or gist with her about the new boyfriend or who’s a better kisser. Those are the things I discuss with my friends, among other intelligent discussions though (we don’t always talk about the opposite sex, lol). As her mother, I wouldn’t want to know a lot of details, but she already knows my arms and ears are always open for whatever she feels comfortable talking to me about. The relationship between parents and their children could be close and satisfying without being best buddies. Make fiends your own age abeg, and don’t be that parent who has nothing else going for him/her, and who clings to their children because they don’t have other friends their age, having abandoned all their friends because they were playing 'mummy'. The children find that stifling, I bet, following them everywhere, wouldn’t allow them out of your sight, wanting to know everything they do every second. 

Parents discipline, but friends don’t bother with that much. I mean, if I’m getting drunk, my friend is probably there by my side doing the same. My mother will scold me from here to the end of Africa, even when I’m no more paying attention, and will tell anyone that comes by to warn me o! hahahahaha… trust Nigerian mum. I know she means well though. These days we want to be seen as 'cool ' parents that we sacrifice parenting on the altar of friendship with our children. 

Enjoy your weekend, and may we get the grace needed to be good parents to our children. 

Hugs....