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Your Kid Isn’t Your Friend Either
Codependency is a two-lane highway.
My first husband and I split up when my daughter was two and a half years old. I was 32 and it was a young age to suddenly figure out how to raise a child on your own.
There is nothing I have done in my entire life that has made me more nervous than raising a human being. There is a margin of error in parenting and, unfortunately, when you make a mistake you’re not the only person that has to pay for that.
I received a lot of advice when she was little, just like every new parent does. I think the piece of advice most often given to all parents is this: You should never be your kid’s friend. You are their parent.
What sometimes gets lost is that the converse is also true:
You kid is not there to be your friend. You have friends to be your friend. Your kid gets to have this glorious, boundary filled role of being your child.
My daughter has been the main priority in my life and the center of most of my decisions. I want to raise a good, kind, wholehearted human being. Not just a kid. I’m looking toward her adulthood.
