Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Mothers are Best Friends, and Fathers are...

Nowhere!

That's right. This article in the Economic Times discusses how mothers of celebrities, celebrity mothers, as well as other less-famous mothers are so obsessed with being friends with their children that they do not adequately parent them. The article exhorts mothers to be parents, not friends, and gives valuable advice such as mothers being friends with their children "leaves the children without a mother who can guide them" and as "kids need a parent, not another friend, this leaves them motherless."

So if the mother becoming a friend leaves the child parentless, what is the father doing? And if there isn't any father around, isn't that part of the problem? (Unless the fathers of all the children the psychologists and other experts in the article studied, are dead.) One of the experts apparently attributes "the rise in the number of mothers wanting to be their children’s best friend to a lack of time and to parents finding it is easier to let children lay down their own rules." So if this is about parents not parenting well, why is there no mention of fathers?

We can view this in either of two ways: a) mothers are to be blamed when anything goes wrong - even when they are at their child's side doing their best, it is their fault; b) fathers aren't parents at all.

Either way, there is something wrong.

4 comments:

Nilesh said...

I wonder what are the functions of a "friend" according to those psychologists!

Indian Home Maker said...

I ask the same question, and what is a friend? I had read something very similar recently and couldn't put in words my annoyance. And as for dad's being expected to participate in parenting...I recently saw, when a child started crying in a gathering, and only the father was around, everyone looked for some female relative to pick and comfort the child.

Unmana said...

Indeed! I suppose they think of a "friend" as someone who acts the child's age, with no responsibility.

And to your experience, Indian home maker: I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am. I hope the father did pick up the child.

Aanchal said...

I read this article too - and thought it was stupid beyond belief.