Struck that people call their 17/18 yo DC their “best mates”. I adore my teenagers but I am their mum not their best mate!

[Bigfatglasses]

I have recently joined a Facebook group recommended on here called What I want to know about University. I joined coz my eldest daughter is in year 12 and I don’t know about universities as I didn’t go to one.

i have learnt a lot about process of applying to uni from this facebook group but it has made me feel like a terribly bad mother: I don’t regard my teen/tweenage children as my best friends - and I have seen so many posts where parents call their son or daughter that and are utterly bereft when they go to uni. Is this normal coz if so I am not! Am looking forward to my DC moving on and growing but will miss them but overall EXCITED for them! Furthermore, it had never occurred to me to say they must go to uni 2-3 hours from home; I hadn’t thought of sending what seem to be called “care packages” (eg. open this gift/wrapped pressie when you feel low). Questioning my parenting now tbh and I worry too hands-off.

You don't seem hands-off. Just not unhealthily enmeshed with your kids! I'm with you - i am my children's mother first and foremost. Of course as they grow older the nature of the relationship will change, but I don't aspire to be my child's bestie. Very unhealthy IMO.

Agree about distance too - I am in the US and it's likely that my kids will be a flight away during college. And that's great! I want them to see the world; I'd hate it if they wanted to stay within a 2-hour radius of home. I'd think I'd failed TBH.

@candyisdandybutliquorisquicker you have made me feel better. The Facebook group has made me question my whole style of parenting and I have felt bad that I am leaving it to DC to decide what they want (with gentle suggestions from me)

Quite agree, OP. I certainly wouldn't have wanted my mother thinking of herself as my best mate, close as we were in my teens. It's a different relationship, different boundaries and requirements. Even worse are the ones who talk about their little kids as their best mates. Who's doing the parenting there? It sounds clingy and unhealthy to me.

I have a similar aged kid, I joined that Facebook page too. And then had to unfollow. It was so overwhelming, so over the top and christ if MN is judgemental then that place is crazy. Like you I am excited for DS to head off, I'll miss him of course but he's ready and he's excited.too.

I agree with you. Kids and parents are just that, kids and parents. Friendship dynamic is very different from parental one and those two shouldn't be mixed.

Same. It freaked me out!!

My kids don't need me as a friend, they've got those already. They need a mum - they only have one of those.

We enjoy each others company but, no, a mum is an entirely different relationship to a best friend.

Don't question your parenting based on what some hysterical types do on WIWIKAU.

It is useful for uni stuff even as they go through later years with regard to tenancies and issues they encounter along the way.

However I would either mute it over results day when there is inevitably angst about not meeting grades and demanding remarks/reviews and then the tears and heart break (🙄) of their kids going to uni and them being bereft and distraught. And then the daft care packages or "open when" gifts. Such OTT nonsense. Mute or scroll by. I definitely eye roll at those type of posts.

No 17yo should have their mum as their best mate. You are their parent, that is a different relationship to friendship, and personally I think it's important that parents stay parents

It sounds like you have a healthy relationship

No way is my DD my best friend!
I am the parent and she is the child - we have a lovely relationship but not friends! Maybe one day when she is a fully fledged adult but until then, no!

I left that group ages ago as they’re all clingy nutters on there and I also felt similarly to you. It’s a shame as it is good for practical advice, but I haven’t posted since the autumn.
My DC are both at uni and what’s important to me is that they’re happy and coping with their course/have nice friends and a decent social life.
I am in a lot of contact w DD as she likes to WhatsApp almost daily but that comes from her. DS is less communicative when things are good so it’s no news us good news from him.
I would say I do have a very open and friendly relationship with both DCs (they are 20/22 now), but I’m def their mum still even when we’re joking about!

Ps - the only thing re distance - DS had major issues in his first term and we had to go there a few times to see him/help him. It was useful that he was only a couple of hours away, but ordinarily we would visit once a term (more than them coming home).

I always think when parents say their teen children are their “best mates” that it is all about them. There is something missing in their lives if they aren’t able to be excited for their child who is growing up and taking their first step in to independence.

And there’s such utterly ridiculous maudlin nonsense women about empty nest syndrome. Of course it’s bitter sweet when they leave because you love the very bones of them, and I did feel a bit lost for a while, but frankly teens aren’t always the most easy of house mates , so although I missed them, I also enjoyed waking up to a clean kitchen and an empty laundry basket, and not having to wait up until 2am to see if they needed a lift back from Becky’s party or whatever!

My DD is off to uni soon. She was torn whether to stay home or go away for three reasons: cost (no maintenance loan if she stayed at home); the university itself (brilliant reputation) and yes because of me. We are very close, but I wouldn't characterise it as 'best friends'. She has friends, she has been abroad on her own, but we also have a very easy relationship (most of the time). As it happens she's going a five hour train away, which I do think is healthier, though I would have preferred one three hours away! I will miss her of course, and i may cry after waving goodbye, but more as it's a goodbye to her childhood and the knowledge that it won't ever be quite the same again. That's a good thing, but also hard.
What I don't like on WIWIKAU is, for example currently, the pics of bags of laundry the mums seem to be martyrs about doing now their kids are home for the summer. Or the pics of batched cooked meals for their child to take back to uni. The snowplowing/helicopter parenting.
I am shocked at the continual 'when is the deadline for SFE'? 'What is the UCAS process'? 'What university is good for Law'? type questions. Do they not read the gazillions of other posts about the exact same thing? Do they not have their kid do some research? I did not go to uni in this country and I'm a widow - no idea how the processes worked. But between the info from school, my research and my DDs it was fairly straightforward. Sure the site is useful, but I doubt think I've ever posted a question myself. And if I reply, I read the other replies first so not to repeat what has already been said which happens constantly too.

Always told my kids this-I'm your Mum, not your mate. I'll love you and support you forever, but I'm here to parent you not be your bestie.
Seems to have worked out so far! They knew their boundaries, and how far to push them and they don't seem hard done by because of it!

Your approach sounds much better OP. My mum did a lot right, but leaning on me emotionally was what she got very wrong, and it pushed us apart for a while in my 20s.

I feel sorry for the kids frankly. Having parents with no life, who needs them as their best friend, it's ridiculous. You only have one mum, how is that not enough of a role!

It explains how flabbergasted Unis are today, when students turn up with parents - as opposed to just being given a lift and dropped at the door with their belonging. Parents contacting the teachers and the Uni, getting involved.

What's next? Bored mummy coming to hold your hand on your finals? Bored mummy coming to hold your hand for your job interviews?

It's normal to care and help out your kids. When you only come home every few months, a care package is quite sweet. It's still motherly 😂.
The "best friend" nonsense is cringing and suffocating. Let the kids make real friends.

I’m with you, it’s really weird. Also kind of pathetic they’ve had to birth themselves a friend. I feel bad for the kids having such involved and dependent parents. I’m grateful how my parents made us be really independent and let us make our own choices.

There's a balance to be struck.

My ds is moving next week to his uni city, and I am going to miss him like mad, I will be sending him little care packages, and bits just to cheer him up and let him know I'm thinking of him, he isn't my best mate, but he is my son, and our relationship is changing which is tricky for us to navigate until we get our new normal, as happened with my son who moved 10 minutes away, I still get him little things I know he would like, or buy his favourite snacks in for visits etc.

You seem to think your way is superior, but it's not, it's what works for you and your dc, me being more emotional about it is what's normal for us.

Nah they're nutters. My daughter is 16, and I had her at 16 so we're closer in age than most teens and their parents - but she's still not my friend. I love her, she's very fucking cool and I'm proud of the young woman she's becoming, but she's my child not my friend. She has age appropriate friends that she's made organically and so do I! It'd be very weird of me to rely on her for that friendship, and not healthy at all imo.

I'm excited for her to spread her wings and enter the adult world when she's ready in a few years. I'll miss her, I'll miss the mother/child bond we have as our relationship changes and grows, but I won't be bereft and I won't have lost my best friend. I'm excited for her to gain the independence I've been preparing her for through her teen years!

Golly, OP. I thought I was the only one who felt like you! Some of the parents on WIWIKAU are living a university life vicariously through their kids with perfectly set up rooms by them, an in-depth knowledge of their timetable and tracking their every movement when they're out socialising. At least that's the impression their posts give.

My DD isn't my best friend, and we're both clear on that. It would be very sad not to have best friends her own age, going through the same life experiences as her at the same time as her.

I once heard a single mum describe her seven year old son as her best friend. Wonder how that poor kid turned out.

It's a great group for uni advice - very helpful to first timers and those whose schools/colleges aren't great at giving info.

BUT the personal side!! I've got one just graduating after a 4 year course and one who is a first year, albeit second year away (it's complicated!), but no neither of them are my best mate. I'm their Mum, there needs to be that relationship - I think that's why we have so many behaviour problems. Parents needs to provide boundaries, not be BFFs!

Of course I missed them when they went (especially DS who went in 2020 - lockdown, had to be in a bubble of 6 flatmates who he had never met, online lectures , isolating etc. But he was fine. DD had a traumatic first attempt which was stressful, but I was there to guide her as a Mum, not get hysterical like her mates would.

OP you are perfectly normal!

I am very close to both my children, and do actually consider them as friends as well as being my children. But I love that they are happily living their own lives, independently of me.

Son graduated last year, daughter is in second year at uni. I joined WIWIKAU at around the time my son's A Level results came out. Some of the stuff on there is useful but the amount of weeping and wailing about teens leaving home, the going on about Abba's Slipping Through My Fingers song, the 'open when' care packages etc., etc. all seems a bit strange and needy to me. But each to their own.
I am a right tough nut but occasionally have a little cry when passing the Angel of the North on my own (daughter is at Newcastle) and get a little choked if I ever hear 'She's Leaving Home' by the Beatles. But don't tell anyone!

I don't really think any of our emotional responses are better or more valid than anyone else's, tbh.