Mom and Dad are Parents, Not Friends

Do you remember a time when your mom or dad said “You’ll thank me someday.”? Do you look back on that now, thinking they were right, and you actually are thankful for the lessons they taught you?

Do you remember a time when you said to yourself that you would not be like your parents, that you would do everything different and be the cool parent that all your child’s friends loved? Yet now that you are a parent you notice how much like your own mom or dad you’ve become, and now you’re actually proud to be like them?

Unfortunately in this day in age, many parents are too busy trying to be liked by their children, that they’re forgetting to be a parent. Society is getting worse and worse because parents are trying harder and harder to be cool and liked. No parent ever wants to hear their child say “I hate you”, no parent wants to make their child angry with them, unfortunatly that is sometimes a side effect of being a parent, especially as the children get older.

My children get angry with me quite often. I don’t let them do everything their friends do. I don’t give them every new technology their friends own. Sometimes I make my kids wear hand me downs and second hand clothes. I punish them and lecture them. I make them eat their vegetables at supper, no matter how much they don’t want to.

At the end of the day I sit back and smile. My children are not spoiled brats, and for the most part they’re well behaved. I am complimented by neighbors and strangers on the good behavior of my children. I know that by being a mean mom on occasion, I’m raising my children right!

Unfortunatly, I had to learn my lesson the hard way. While most people wanted to be the opposite of their parents so they could be cooler, I wanted to be the opposite of my mom to be better. See my mother was one of those who tried to be a cool mom.

My childhood is a bit complicated. I have a mother, but I only spent half my time with her. I had another woman in my life, a second mom if you will. Her name was Carol. I won’t try to explain why Carol was in my life, that’s really not important. What is important is the trials I went through as a teenager.