Friendship question number two of two: are you friends with your parents? Do they think so, too? Why are you friends with them?

I had enormous respect and love for my parents. We took different paths in life. Both of them are now gone, but while we were here we knew our differences, but never lost our friendship and joy in being together when able.

Lucky dude.

@zensky Yes, having met a lot of people not so fortunate, I know that now.

Yes, I am friends with my parents. Not quite the same as my best girlfriend’s though. My parents and I talk about food, politics, travel and catch up on other friends and family. My mom tells me about medical diseases and treatments and what not to eat because it might be toxic. We also sometimes talk about funny TV shows. My mom calls me to look things up on the internet now and then because she refuses to touch a computer since she retired. Oh, and she asks me if I have been swimming quite often. She swims every day.

They can get on my nerves though, especially my dad. Too many questions from him. And, he is on a kick to be more verbally affectionate like say I love you and call me beautiful; I find it uncomfortable.

My dad and I are friend-ly, but it’s not like we hang out all the time. We love each other and get along well, but I don’t think I’d call us friends. I am not in contact with my mother, so that’s a “no” for her.

I hope things will be different between my kids and I, as they grow older. My husband’s grown sons are good friends to us and we hang out with the one who lives closest on a regular basis. We really enjoy that.

Mine are deceased and for years I was their caretaker. Caretaker to two people who didn’t take very good care of me at all. I had to let the past go in order to get what was needed done. It was a lousy experience. I should have walked away. Friends? No, I choose those.

I love my mom, and we are definately friends most of the time. But she’s that friend who never stops talking, and you just stop listening…

My mom and I are very close. I bought two concert tickets recently, and she was the first one I invited. Over all my friends, boyfriend, and brothers, but she had to respectfully decline due to work. There is nobody else that can have a great time at a concert like my mom. We love to do things together, and I know I can always talk to her about anything. She has always been honest with my three older brothers and I. The five of us have been through so much together, and that has only brought us closer to one another. Don’t get me wrong though. She is a wonderful friend to me, but I know that she is a parent, and she makes that very clear by setting rules and guidelines. I love my mom more than anything else!

When it comes to my dad, that is a whole different story. He is there for me now, but when I was little he would just leave for months at a time without a goodbye, hug, or kiss. He wasn’t there for me then, so now I have this wall that blocks me from getting too close to him now. I love him, but I would only consider him a parent, not a friend.

My mom and dad seemed to me to be different from my friends’ parents—“hipper” somehow. I liked that, but I also worried about it, like somehow I wouldn’t fit in with my friends if my parents weren’t like theirs. Nonetheless, friends loved coming to my house because of that. I remember many times my friends telling me how “cool” my mom and dad were, although they didn’t use that word.

Looking back—that was a long, long time ago—I think my parents were different in some ways. They were Jewish, which most of my friends’ parents weren’t, and they, my dad particularly, had different interests in music, food, cars and moves (he liked foreign for both), politics, social issues, and certainly religious beliefs. Some of that made me nervous and some of it I embraced. Today I’m grateful for who mom and dad were because that helped build the skills, interests and values that I prize most in myself.

My father and I were close when I was a child. I still have many of the same interests he shared with me at a young age. My bookshelves look much like his did – horror novels, science fiction, fantasy, DIY instruction manuals, history – I think if we had not been forced apart by my shallow, sodden cardboard-cutout of a mother, we would still be close today, and may have moved into a “friend” type relationship.

My parents have been dead for a long time now and no, we were not close. Tolerable, sorta. haha
I was very invested in being as better parent to my daughter than I had modeled for me.
My daughter and I however are great pals and enjoy many of the same things. We spent yesterday evening together and are getting together again this afternoon for some running around.

I love knowing my daughter as an adult and man, she is waaay more mature and non-neurotic at 25 than I was. Must have done something right. lol

@Coloma I bet you were/are a bitchin’ mom. Seriously.

My dad and I are great friends. We do a lot of typically friendy type things like have movie nights, go to the theatre, call each other for a chat and have jokey text conversations. He’s usually the first person I tell my news to (him and my boyfriend, whoever I speak to first!) and the one I go to for help and advise.

@Seek_Kolinahr Awww..thanks! :-)

My father and I were as tight as two people can be growing up. I was known as Daddy’s little shadow. I think I may be more of a parent to my mother now. If anything happens she immediately turns to me. But I had an excellent relationship with them. I was blessed.

My relationship with my parents is one of the areas in life in which I’ve been most fortunate. I was lucky to be born to awesomely supportive and loving parents. They’ve been two of my best friends for my whole life, especially during high school. I am perfectly content to go home on my college breaks and just hang out with them for a week. I love the relationship we have…and I know it makes me luckier than most. You can’t choose your parents, but I was very fortunate in that department.

My parents both passed on, many years ago. My relationship with them was one that developed into a friendship as I grew. As a young adult, my relationship with them was sometimes bumpy, and we had our disagreements, but there was no doubt that the love was there.

My relationship with my father grew and grew. His approval was very important to me. I had the opportunity to spend a few months with him about a year before he passed, and I cherish those memories as much if not more than any others I have of him. This year it will be 25 years ago that he passed, and I still miss him often.

My mother made each of us kids feel like each one we were the apple of her eye. I got to spend some of her later days with her, and spoke with her days before she passed. The biggest loss was the knowledge that she was no longer just a phone call away. This year it will be 17 years ago.

@zensky BTW, I was the parent who had the walkman!

:-) ^ Cool.

I am not friends with my dad. I don’t dislike to old man, but I don’t feel any connection to him either. Honestly I can take him or leave him. I try to keep in touch with him, that is about the extent of it.

My husband is friends with his grown children and I think it is pretty great for all involved. They enjoy each other’s company and I really hope when my kids grow up we have easy and comfortable relationships too.

Not friends. Family. It’s different. Everyone knows that. There are things I can’t talk about with them. But it’s nice enough as far is it goes.

My mom is one of my best friends. We can tell each other pretty much anything, and we get along amazingly well. I had some issues with her butting in on my parenting technique, but have since solved that problem, so we’re great!

Even though we don’t have a ton of things in common, we talk and laugh and have a blast together. I think it helps that I get along better with the older crowd, too. Several other girlfriends of mine are my mom’s age.

No. My father is dead, and I had cut off communication with him a few years before his death because he was incapable of healthy relationships.

I am on friendly terms with my mother. I would not call her a friend, nor could I say that I love her the way people with relatively normal upbringings love their parents.

One of the best moments of my life was when my son was about 17, and he told me that I was his best friend because we could talk about anything, but even with his closest lifelong friends there were things he couldn’t discuss. We’re not as close now that he’s 21, but I think that is normal for this stage of life.

My father was too busy chasing a dream to be much of anything to me much less a friend.
My Mother…..no. I wouldn’t say we were friends. We don’t communicate with each other a lot. As a family unit, we spend most of our year being distant and doing our own thing – which has been the case for as long as I can remember.