I know what I'm saying is shameful, but I do. My daughters and I are absolutely not BFFs. We are just not. We love each other. We argue. We get along. We have a lot of fun together. But there is a little detail that still distinguishes me from a good friend: everything I know about her, her mother immediately knows. Unfortunately I can't do anything against it, because I'm just this mother. Also, if they screwed up, I would tell her father straight away and without batting an eyelid. I expect that from me as a partner, because we are responsible for our children, my husband and I. But this point also makes me the worst friend in the world, doesn't it?
The most terrible best mother in the world
No, I am also not always well armed against the desire to be “the best” and somehow something like a friend. But then always notice that this is not so easy. Children are also very direct in their feedback. If you give them an ice cream, you are instantly great and are showered with declarations of love. However, if you find after this ice cream that there shouldn't be a second one, this status changes faster than you could wallow in her love. Zack, you're terribly mean, to be precise, the most common of all. It can be that fast. And that is a little too fickle for a friendship. In addition, my friends are supposed to stuff as much ice into themselves as they want. Because in my eyes friendship and upbringing don't go well together in some respects.
My mother and I
I am not just a mother, I am also a daughter, and one of the most blessed kind. Even though (or maybe because) we weren't best friends. She managed to let go of me selflessly than a friend could have done. I never had the feeling that I was letting her down or that I needed to be a support. Not if I would rather hang out with friends or the day I announced my move at 18. My best friend was different. For example, when I started a year abroad, she was crying in my arms. And that was exactly right. Still, it was good that my mother wasn't doing the same. She smiled proudly at me and let me go with a good feeling. "Fly off and make the world more beautiful!", She told me and I flew off.
At some point everything changes – definitely
Before everyone cries out: I'm not talking about adult children, I'm talking about children. Even if my opinion is perhaps a little unpopular, I am simply certain that children can only orient themselves well to parents if they can find them completely uncool, totally stupid or even uninteresting. Without the guilty conscience that you immediately have when you find your best friend stupid. When children grow up, it changes again. Then the relationship between children and parents slowly tilts into a balance that allows friendship in the classic sense. Sure, as a thirty-year-old I can handle it differently when mom lets off steam through dad or when I learn secrets that would have pulled the ground from under my feet as a child. I know this because my mother has become a really wonderful friend of mine, because she sometimes complains about my father and because she entrusts me with secrets that I would not have been able to cope with as a child.
And then we take care of it
Luckily, it will take a long time for me to get there, but at some point I will take care of my mother (of course also my father, but we're not talking about that here right now). Honestly: I think then we children are the ones who have to let go at the right time and not be too attached to the friendly aspect that connects us. If at some point my mother may become forgetful or will know that she won't be around much longer, I don't want her to feel like I'm abandoning her as her friend. No, I want to be able to say with a smile: "Fly away, mom, without a guilty conscience and be sure that you have made the world, especially mine, much more beautiful!" And yes, maybe that's a kind of friendship . But maybe the matter with mothers and daughters is something different and much bigger, more complicated and more confusing than the word "friendship" could ever describe.