We Are Not Friends With Our Kids—And That's the Point

Michelle Obama said something on a recent episode of her "IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson" podcast that made people squirm in their seats. "We are not friends with our kids." The June 2025 episode, which featured psychologist Jonathan Haidt discussing social media's impact on children, sparked the kind of discomfort that was immediate and predictable. Parents rushed to defend their close relationships with their children, insisting they could be both authority figure and confidant. But Obama wasn't dismissing connection. She was naming something most parents refuse to admit: the moment you prioritize being liked over being effective, you've already lost.

The problem starts when parents decide friendship is the goal. Once that shift happens, every decision becomes filtered through one anxious question—will my child still like me after this? That fear changes everything. Boundaries soften. Consequences disappear. Difficult conversations get avoided because discomfort feels like failure.

Parenting has almost nothing to do with being liked. Children need to learn how to sit with unhappiness, and they need to learn it at home. Their first experience with unfairness cannot arrive at school or show up uninvited when they turn thirty. If a parent cannot tolerate their child's frustration, the child never builds the muscles to handle it themselves.

Some people hear "we're not friends" and assume it means coldness. It does not. Effective parenting absolutely includes being someone a child can approach with big feelings, mistakes, fear, and honesty. What it does not include is centering whether they approve of your decisions. The distinction matters more than most parents want to acknowledge.

Plenty of adult friendships function with similar dynamics. Good friends listen without panicking. They validate feelings without immediately fixing problems. They allow frustration to exist. They hold each other accountable. The behavior looks the same. The brain and the role are what differ.

Children's brains are still developing. They are hardwired for approval and belonging. Their peers operate from the same wiring, which means peer feedback is rarely about what is right or safe or necessary. That is why a steady caregiver matters. A parent does not respond from the need to be liked. A parent responds from responsibility.

Friends try to keep the peace. Friends avoid disappointment. Friends tell you what you want to hear because maintaining harmony feels good. You do not get that luxury. Your job involves setting limits. Your job requires tolerating your child's unhappiness when the limit is necessary. Your job demands saying no when yes would have been easier. That is not cruelty. That is safety.

Here is where parents lose their balance. You can be warm, curious, playful, connected, and deeply attuned to your child. You can learn who they are. You can laugh with them. You can know them well. You can even call them your bestie and still understand this is not a peer relationship. Unlike a friend, you are not here to always agree. You are here to guide. You are here to protect. You are here to hold boundaries even when your child does not like them.

That is the part that builds trust long term. A child who knows their parent can handle anger, frustration, and big feelings while still keeping them safe is a child who comes back. That certainty creates security no friendship ever could.

So no, parents are not friends in the traditional sense of peer relationships. Parents are something far more important. Parents are caregivers. Parents are the trusted grown-ups who choose responsibility over popularity every single time. When executed well, that relationship transcends friendship entirely.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

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