Mother and daughter best friends, what do you think when you hear this ?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

Just been watching George Clarke flipping fast and two for the contestants are mother n daughter and both describe themselves as best friends

jistbwondered what you generally think to mothers and daughters that say this

as tbh it’s often how I feel about my dd we are such good friends
but I tend not to say that as it’s like it makes people feel sick or eye roll etc

She'll be utterly bereft when her parent dies though. You have to set your children up for navigating all of life, not just the part when you are there. If you don't, their life after you will be devastated. I don't think that's what a generous parent wants.

Most people are devastated and bereft when a loved one dies. Grief is the price we pay for love. Any parent who thinks they can protect their children from normal human emotion is very far from generous, they’re setting them up for a half life. Teaching children how to navigate grief is good parenting, not trying to teach them to avoid it.

Not sure how this works in real life anyway I am left for dust by my teen girls for their friends!

That's a travesty of what I meant.

There's a balance. When you are young your mum and dad are everything to you. Everything. As you grow up you slowly loosen the bonds, or should, especially during teenage years until in adulthood the relationship has changed so that you are both adults. Less life experience on the child's side of course, but they will gain it in time. That's healthy.

As long as the child has other deep relationships then best friends should work, but it's very far from healthy for the child if the mother is (by a long margin) the best friend. Growing up needs to experience loosening and changing of the bonds and some losses (friendship losses, grandparental losses in time, maybe a friend or whose life is sadly cut short).

Enjoying your mother's company is great. When hers is the only really deep relationship a daughter has, that's not.

When you see mothers who claim to be best friends but it's very obvious their child has little life of their own and never learned how to cope with loss and develop some resilience, because by far the deepest relationship they have is with their mother as a long-grown adult - and when you see what happens to the adult daughter after their mum dies - no. (Hint, it's not pretty). That sort of 'best friend' mother-daughter relationship is based in the mother's selfishness.

There has to be a balance.

That sort of 'best friend' mother-daughter relationship is based in the mother's selfishness

My mother was the most selfless person in the world. No, it wasn’t pretty. Grief isn’t pretty, it’s not meant to be. But here I am and I wouldn’t have changed it for an instant.

I've been thinking a lot about this, everyone's posts are really interesting.

I think that firstly some people use "best friend" to mean a friend they 'rank' as the absolute best. When others like myself say best friend, I'm not really thinking about it comparatively, I just mean they're very, very close to me. I've never thought of it as like a category or a status that only one person could have.

When I describe my mum as my best friend, I can't actually put into words why she is. She just is! My dad, on the other hand, is not my best friend. I love him the same as I love my mum, and I know that they both love me the same as eachother, but I just have a different relationship with my mum.

She's still my mum, and she still acts like my mum. The "best friend" part is almost secondary to the mother-daughter relationship. And I don't think that means our relationship is in any way superior to people who aren't best friends with their parent, it's just different. And we've not always been best friends, either. But she's always been my mum.

In the same way, my husband is also my best friend. But the way in which he's my best friend is different to the way my mum and my other friends are my best friend. And him being my best friend is secondary to him being my husband.

And when I think of the handful of girlfriends I'd describe as best friends, all of those friendships are slightly different too, with different things we can talk to each other about and different ways we spend time together and interact.

Does that make even a tiny bit of sense? I'm not very good at explaining things.

I also just wanted to make a point about the poster who have a niece they're concerned about as their only best friend is their mum. I understand why that's worrying, but I just wondered if maybe the following could be applicable...

If you had a daughter who was having a really hard time making friends despite all your encouragement, would you not fill that role for her until she finds her social circle? If your daughter had no friends, you would probably want to make sure she was still getting out the house and doing fun things, so you'd end up being the person she does that with. Maybe the mum is trying really hard to encourage the daughter to have friends behind the scenes and boost her confidence, but all anyone else sees is her spending lots of time with the daughter.

I'm sure you know the people in question best so you're probably right about their intentions. But I just thought I'd moot the possibility

Um sexuality?!

I have friends who are best friends with their mother. I don't think there is anything wrong with it and I envy them. I don't have a good relationship with mine at all, and would love to have that sort of closeness.
As for grief, there is grief when you lose someone you love, whether they are friends or relatives.

I don't understand the need to be your child's best friend. I am already something special to my child and vice versa. Absolutely her friends should be her friends not me. I would never off load my problems onto her and ask her for advice for example. I look out for her, but she doesn't need to look out for me. It is not her job.

I get on brilliantly with my Mum and with my daughters. (And my sons!). I genuinely have a lot in common with them and we all laugh a lot when we are together. I would never describe those relationships as best friends relationship. That sounds weird

Totally agree with last 2 posters. I talk to friends about what’s worrying me etc. wouldn’t want to burden my kids with that.

Thank you Belephant . She doesn't struggle to have a social circle, she has friends for sure, but she is with her parents ALL the time to the exclusion of friends sometimes. It's sort of like the relationship a 14 yo has with their parents than an almost 20 yo: discusses everything with them, advice on everything, risk-averse because of how the parents have brought her up, they know where she is at every, single moment, she's been wrapped in cotton wool since birth and she doesn't really know how to be an adult if that makes sense- in the way of making decisions, having her own mind etc. Parents are both police officers so inevitably see the danger around every corner as we live in a big city.

In contrast my 17, almost 18 yo wants to defer uni and travel for a year in S America on his own! It's my fault as I brought him up to be very independent.