Should you call your children your best friend, is this healthy? Had this discussion with a family member and it didn’t go too well really.

[Caramelshortcake1]

We can absolutely all have our own opinions on this but I’m pretty sure making your children your best friend isn’t healthy. This family member definitely has some kind of people trauma and she always talks about how people are bad. Her two girls she is bringing up to be her best friends. They all do things together. They don’t have any friends outside, they don’t go to groups. They say that when they grow up they will all live together and never leave home. Family is all they need, friends let you down etc etc.

I just find this odd. I mean I love my kids but I have my own friends and I actively encourage them about how important friends are. I invite them over and they go to clubs etc. No way in hell do I want us all living together forever. I want them to go and live a life. But obviously we’ll be here if they need in anyway.

Do you think it’s healthy to live with that belief? Won’t it stop them from loving life and seeking who they are?

Sort of. I guess when you say they're your best friend it is still meant in a but I tell them what to do when necessary way.

My family is chaos…so yeah I’m thinking/hoping it’s normal. I’m trying to raise girls who make waves….but it’s that fine line between confidence and rudeness and we don’t always get it right lol!

When she was 7, DD asked me when Dad would move out with her brothers so it could just be us. It was a phase (thank goodness).

My adult children are some of the best, funniest, most interesting, best company and kindest people I know. I love spending time with them.

They are not my best friends. I am not theirs. I’m their mum.

I am always on their side. But I don’t share my worries and burdens, my (rare) arguments with their dad, my health concerns or menopause issues or all that stuff I share with my best friends because that’s not my role in their lives.

I love them but ours is not a relationship of peers.

DH has two friends like this. Their DF (now deceased) had an affair and went off with the OW. Their (D)M created a world of them three as a unit. That was over fifty years ago. She's well into her 80s now and nothing has changed. Both DC have professional careers in local government but still share a bedroom. Neither has even had a girlfriend, learned to drive, etc. They're 56 and 57 years old.
It feels like she stole their lives to comfort hers.

My cousin's are the same. None are married or have children and they are all in their 50s. They haven't really left home and are there as often as possible. My aunt refused to go on holiday in case they needed her.

Gilmore Girls has a lot to answer for.

Would you class this as co-dependancy?

I find it weird to call your child your friend. I have children in their thirties and they have so many wonderful friends from school uni and work. I'm Mum! We are in contact all the time and we really are very very close but why would I be their friend when they've got friends already?

Mind you, I find it odd these mums who go out clubbing with their daughters! Don't get me wrong, we've been to gigs and concerts together but to go out clubbing all the time with daughters is odd in my opinion. There is a mum I know who goes to the local pub and just hangs around with her son (in his late twenties) and all his friends.

I tell my 2 that I am their Mum and not their friend, I say that they will have lots of friends but only 1 Mum

No. Co dependency comes from alcoholism. People in the sector noticed that the partners of alcoholics were enablers. It's now used across addiction to refer to the unhealthy relationship between addict and enabler.

It’s the logical result of that Mn regular ‘I have no friends but I don’t need friends now I’ve got my own little family’.

She posts that quote every week. All I need is my little family. I need friends…who would we all complain to and put the world to rights!

There is a mum I know who goes to the local pub and just hangs around with her son (in his late twenties) and all his friends.

How bizarre.

My son is early 30's. We get on great but there's no way I would want to hang out with his friends. He would hate it too lol.

I feel sorry for those girls OP. I wonder what will happen when they get to teenage years and want to date etc. Can't imagine any guy wanting to join in their little group.....

Just as PP's posts, some families are so dysfunctional the kids end up "failing to launch".

I am very close to my kids and we sometimes do stuff that I would also do with friends so if we were roughly the same age and not related I would have happily been their best friend but that's not the case so we are just mum and kids. I think it's very damaging to stop your kids from having other relationships that aren't family relationships. They need to experience other ways of living too.

Not healthy at all. I love spending time with my DDs and I know I'll be heartbroken when they leave home - but I want them to leave one day and live their own lives

I see this a lot on Fb

Esp happy birthdays - to their daughter usually from mum but have seen dad

To my best friend

I love dd lots. More the. Anything tbh but she isn't my best friend

Even when she will be a teen /early 20's I hope we will have a good relationship where she can come to me and tell me anything

But as a mum. Not a best friend

My best friends are those I've grown up with and around my age

Mine are little and I call them my best buddies or besties but I don’t TREAT them as such.

My small one I call my little bestie because she is only 2 and we spend all day every day together. But I want her to love the world and love people. She already loves people lol! Calls them all “my people”. I know they learn by copying so I try to show them what it’s like to go and be chatty and not shy and want to experience things and people.

What you're describing is not normal and is clearly damaging the children. I know it's hard but I'd be having a chat to the safeguarding officer at their school. All three of them need help.

I agree with everyone that it’s not healthy, it’s controlling and it’s very damaging. And I think safeguarding officer at school will be a good shout.
In one of updates you’ve mentioned that you don’t see them often and that her parents in law encourage this behaviour. So I wonder if your relative in an abusive and controlling relationship herself and the way she treats her children reflects how she is treated.
If her PIL are promoting this kind of behaviour I suspect they are the root of the problem where’s your relatives’s mental health issues just became a breeding ground for all of this.

I would say my mum is my friend (I'm
36). But mainly because I don't need her to parent me the relationship is more equal and we like each others company and make each other laugh. But there are still boundaries. She may not talk to me about say how my dad has annoyed her but she will talk to her friends about that.

However young children no. Sometimes I think my DS is like my crazy friend but he's very much my son and it's my job to lead. I also want him to make his own friends and have his own life!

That’s the bit I was trying to talk to her about. The kids need their own friends and they need to go out and do clubs and stuff. She is passing her trauma of people being bad onto them. Some people are bad yeah but not everyone in the whole world. They don’t ever want to leave home when they grow up because she is scaring them about the big world. She encourages it because she has no identity without them. It’s wrong!

Funny you say that! I loved the series when I was a teenager. Then rewatched it in my mid twenties and found it so uncomfortable...

Thankyou.
Yes l agree with you.. on everything you have said.
I hope you do have a fabulous relationship as your daughter grows into adulthood.

No.

My children are not my best friends. I have friends. It's very different relationship.