Best friends
I have a sneaking suspicion that I may hold a minority opinion on this, but you know what? My children, even my older ones, are not my best friends, and I don't have the expectation that they will be . I am also not best friends with my mother or father. At face value all of this sounds rather dreadful, especially given the friend culture we live in. To be friends, especially best friends, bff's, is the ultimate goal in any relationship, it seems. But I want more than this in my relationship with my parents and with my children. Ideally, the parent/child relationship is deeper and stronger than mere friends. This is not belittle close friendships; I am blessed with many of those and I know that those friends would literally give me the shirts off their backs if I needed them, and vice versa. But a parent/child relationship is a deep, deep part of who we are. It is our first relationship as an infant and that infant is what transforms an adult into a parent. It comes with a l...