Can you be Best Friends with Your Kids?
Tough subject.
Love my kids, lots and lots and lots. But, I remind them often, I'm not your friend, I'm your mom.
They look at me every time like I'm the meanest lady alive. I could be, I don't care.
I remember growing up and my mom telling me the same thing, I'm like you're DAMN right you're not my friend (in my head, you think I'm crazy!?), you are SO mean mom!
I'm more impressed with my parents all the time. There are 5 kids in our family and I look back on our childhood thinking they didn't miss a beat. I think they did an incredible job raising us and they somehow made it look seamless. 
Here's my take on being BFF's with your children. The way I think about and go about it is this, I love you more than anything. If I pave your golden path and make life easy and hurt free, you are either going to live with me the rest of your life, or you're going to be the biggest and most entitled wuss on the planet. Both of those situations make me throw up in my mouth a bit.
I see it every day. Bratty little punks that think the world revolves around their little bubble of a life. They are sassy, lazy, expectant, irritable, and zero fun to be around. Those type of kids drive me bonkers.
My kids are far from perfect, like galaxies away (me too) --- but GOSH damn. I am not on this planet to be their personal happiness advisor, taxi, or ATM. They need to learn, grow, stretch themselves, fall the F down, and get the F up. They need to struggle, to feel defeated, hurt, disappointed, and frustrated sometimes. Don't we as adults feel that ish on the regular?
What about when they're teenagers?
My kids are still pretty young. Like 10 and under and we're straight up learning as we go. I think what it takes it lots of communication, showing them that they are loved, and relating to them.
I will say. Since having children, I've often thought about the teenage years. Do we kinda 'be friends' so they don't have to hide anything? Or do we lay the ultimatums and hope for the best? Tricky or no?
Those of you that have teenagers, what is your philosophy? Do you often think of how you were as a kid and relay that automatically to your own child? I'm assuming that is normal, I mean that's our experience, not just a guess.
Having fun with my family is high on my agenda every day. We laugh, we make jokes, we dance, we sing, we do lots of activities, but despite the fun, they still know. I'm your mom.
Now that I'm older, I do consider my mom my best friend. She is, but the relationship has been able to evolve into more of a friendship, probably because she's teaching me how to be a responsible and respectful human.
That's possible when you raise your kids to respect you as a mother and not treat you as a BFF.
To my young children I say, there is a big beautiful life ahead for you and I will forever be your biggest cheerleader, you can take that to the bank, but not my debit card!
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