Why You Should Never Tell Your Parent to Stop Being Your Kid’s Friend
I was wiping down the kitchen counter after dinner last week when I glanced into the living room and caught my dad slipping a chocolate chip cookie to my 8-year-old son Milo behind the couch. I’d already said no extra treats that night—Milo hadn’t finished his chicken and rice, and he’d had a popsicle an hour earlier. I opened my mouth, ready to call out across the room: Dad, stop being his friend. You’re supposed to back me up on the rules.
Then I paused. Milo peeked around the edge of the couch, grinning, and whispered, “Don’t tell Mom, okay?” My dad leaned down and whispered back, “Our secret. But next time you gotta eat all your broccoli first, yeah? I don’t wanna get in trouble with your mom.” I shut my mouth and went back to wiping the counter. I didn’t call him out, I didn’t say anything about him being too friendly with Milo.
A couple of months earlier, I was sitting across from my friend Sarah at a coffee shop, listening to her complain about her mom. Sarah’s 10-year-old daughter has ADHD, and Sarah’s been working hard to stick to a consistent low-sugar routine to help her manage her moods. But every time her mom comes to visit, she sneaks gummy bears and candy into her purse, and lets her stay up an hour past bedtime. Sarah ended the conversation by saying she’d finally told her mom: “Stop being her friend. You’re the grandma, act like it.” I nodded along at the time. I’d read enough posts online that say the same thing—grandparents need to be authority figures, not friends, and it’s the parents’ job to set the rules so grandparents don’t overstep.
But as I stood there that night watching my dad and Milo, I thought about my own grandpa. When I was 14, I fought with my mom almost every week about everything from homework to my haircut to boys. I never fought with grandpa. He’d let me sit in his garage while he fixed lawnmowers, and he’d just listen while I ranted about how unfair everything was. He never told me I was wrong, he never told my mom what I’d said, he just slipped me root beer from his mini fridge and nodded. My mom never told him to stop being my friend. He was my safe place when everything at home felt tense.
A few months back, Milo tripped over his shoelace at soccer practice in front of the entire team, and scraped his knee so bad he needed three stitches. He was mortified—wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t even look at me when I asked how he was feeling. When my dad came over that weekend, he grabbed his old fishing net and they headed down to the creek behind our house to catch minnows. An hour later, I looked out the kitchen window and saw them both sitting on the bank, laughing. Milo told me later that dad told him about tripping over a curb on his way to his high school prom, tearing a hole in his suit and spilling punch on his date. By the time he was done telling the story, Milo didn’t feel embarrassed anymore. If my dad wasn’t his friend, if he was just some formal authority figure who stuck rigidly to my rules, I don’t think Milo would have opened up like that.
I get the frustration, I really do. It’s easy to feel like your parent is undermining you when they break your rules. But telling them to stop being your kid’s friend is not the answer, and it usually just hurts their feelings and creates unnecessary tension. Instead of that big, confrontational line, I’ve started doing three small things that work way better. First, I give small, specific rules ahead of time, not when I’m angry in the moment. If we’re having my dad over for dinner, I’ll text him the day before: “Milo can have one treat after dinner, okay? No extra sugar before bed.” If he’s watching Milo for the night, I’ll write the bedtime on the fridge and leave it at that. Second, if he does cross a line I don’t call him out in front of Milo. I wait until we’re alone, then I say something calm and specific, like “Hey, next time can you get him to bed by 8:30? He’s really grumpy at school the next day if he’s tired.” Third, I let the small stuff go. One extra cookie isn’t going to ruin all my hard work as a parent. An extra 20 minutes of screen time isn’t the end of the world.
Some people will say that grandparents have to pick a side—either they support the parents, or they’re the fun friend. But it doesn’t have to be black and white. A grandparent can be your kid’s friend and still respect your boundaries. In fact, when they’re a friend to your kid, that just means they have a close, loving bond with them that doesn’t replace you, it adds to it. Your kid gets people who love them in different ways: you set the rules and keep them safe, their grandparent gets to be the one they can go to with the stuff they don’t want to tell you.
I still catch my dad breaking the rules sometimes. Last month, he let Milo stay up two hours past bedtime to finish a Lego set, and Milo fell asleep in math class the next day. I pulled my dad aside the next day, told him what happened, and he just laughed and said “Sorry, kid, we got carried away. Next time I’ll watch the clock.” No big fight, no hurt feelings. I don’t know if this setup is perfect. There are still times I get annoyed, and I’m sure there are times my dad gets annoyed with my constant little rules. But right now, it works. Milo has a grandpa who’s his friend, and that’s a good thing for both of them.
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