This is really sweet, Steph. Obviously you know I don’t have any daughters, and I know you have 3 boys, too. I get that there are some things I just won’t understand about the relationship, not having a daughter and growing up with all sisters (so I never saw a mother-son relationship), but *how* is this relationship/friendship with your daughter different than those you have with your sons? Why is it easier or more common for mothers to see themselves in their daughters than their sons? I see bits of me in all my boys, but I don’t know how different it would be with a girl. (I think you know me well enough to know I ask all of this out of curiosity and without any trace of negativity or skepticism.) Hope I’m not sidetracking too much from your post….

My mom and I had our rough moments growing up, but for the most part, she was always my best friend. When I was 16, I worked 4-8 at Subway every Thursday and I’d come home, shower, and then we’d watch ER together and rub each other’s feet and just talk. It was really nice to have that kind of relationship where even as a teenager, I still really, really liked my mom.

Are you best friends with your mother? I think the best friends part comes after the mother stops “parenting” and the daughter stops needing to be “parented” and before the daughter needs to “parent” the mother – life’s cycles

As someone who actually feels she suffered from having a friend in her mother (to this day boundaries in that relationship are hard to defend) I can’t say that I want anything to do with befriending my daughter in a “best” sort of way. Maybe I’m too far in the other direction – having felt that I was not taught the rules of life or prepared for relationships outside of my family well … but I make it a point to not be my daughter’s (who is 6 1/2 now) “friend”.

Are we friendly? Absolutely! Do I encourage and play with her? Every day. Am I making it a point to have one on one time with her where we do things that “friends” do together? Yes.

Will I categorize myself as her friend? No. I think she learns about relationships, obviously, from being in them in our home – mine and hers, her and her dad, her brother and other friends. Those are all great things and wonderful things we applaud and encourage – but am I going to seek out my daughter when I need a friend? Absolutely not.

Maybe that’s the line for me – I was always thought of as my mom’s friend and not the other way around. I wasn’t given the choice to seek outside council. I was depended on. And I refuse to put that kind of emotional baggage on my own child. So maybe it’s not that we’re “not friends” and more than I’m not willing to claim her for myself – which I think is a selfish parental act. (and a difficult one to lay down too)

I think the difference between my role as a mother to my daughter (who just turned 17 today) and my role as a friend to other women, is that parents and children are not equals. One day, we can get closer to that. But, there are things that I won’t and shouldn’t confide in my daughter (that is was “friends” are for). And my job, as someone said, is to be a role model, a teacher, a guide. We are at different places in our lives and I need to respect those boundaries.

That being said, my daughter and I have a special relationship. And she and I have a lot of fun things that we do, and some of them are only understood by us. And it is our thing. But, friendship, to me, means something else entirely.

Well said jodi!!

I think it’s partly a problem of definitions. You don’t “hang out” with your daughter, she’s not a confidant. And she doesn’t play house with you and fight over who gets the purple crayon. You are on different levels, and you will be on different levels until she’s an adult. It’s problematic when people try to be their kid’s bff because that is a particular type if relationship, which is pretty artificial. It reduces the parent to the level of teenager and shirks the real responsibility of caring for this other human being. Your daughter isn’t your best friend, she’s just the person in your life who you enjoy more than anyone. :-). And sure she says you are her best friend… but she might also say she wants to marry Daddy. Obviously that does not mean she understands what that adult relationship means… she just loves you both in ways that her 3 year old vocabulary is inadequate to express.

I agree completely with Carolyn Vaughn, my relationship with my mother has been a cycle. As a child, teen and young adult, I wouldn’t of categorized my mother as my friend. We had a wonderful relationship, I had fun with her, spent tons of time together, were extremely close, but we weren’t what I would consider friends, she was my mother. She set limits and boundaries, rules, expectations. It’s only been within the last, say 3 or 4 years, where I’ve started to consider her a friend. (I’m 28). As I’ve now gotten married, started a career and now starting a family, the “parenting” aspect never completely disappears, but I call and chat with her in much the same way as I do with my best friends. Granted, she still buys me dinner when we’re together and will still foot the bill for the occasional new outfit when we’re shopping (I hope this never goes away :)) but our relationship has morphed slowly and gradually away from parent/child to the very best of friends and I love it! With that said, I do see where Jodi is coming from and have friends in similar relationships with their “parents”. It could go much differently.

I agree with you, my daughter is still young like yours so I don’t have personal experience as a Mom of a teen and beyond. But I was a teen and I AM friends with my Mom. There was a period where that was not true (middle school is so rough), but the older I got the more and more I appreciate and like my Mom as a person and a friend as well as a Mom. I was not spoiled, I did not get things I demanded growing up. I knew who was in charge and had respect for her rules. She was a Mom and a friend and did walk that line. So I do think it’s possible because I have lived it. I can only work for and hope for as much with my daughter.

I think this all boils down to how we are defining friendship. I consider my mom as a friend but not exactly in the same way as one of my circle of best friends. Not that she is any less, just different boundaries. I’d like it to be the same way between my kids (sons AND daughter) and me. I’d like to have that kind of closeness with my kids but I realize that their peer friendships (and their sibling relationships) will be different. I mean, my best friend isn’t going to ground me because she caught me smoking cigarettes behind the garage…I think that is just a small example of the difference.