Jacqueline ElliottLeadership Strategist | CEO, Mother, Wife, Legacy-Builder

BE A PARENT, NOT THEIR FRIEND

18 Nov 2025 · 0 min

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0:21

A short excerpt from a YouTube video in which two speakers discuss parenting philosophy, arguing that a parent's role is to prioritize safety and moral development over being a child's friend. The speakers contrast corrective, boundary-focused parenting with permissive or purely punitive approaches, and reflect on how different styles affected their own development.

I tell my kids all the time I love you, and I kind of want you to be happy, but I don't care that you're not happy. I need you to be safe, and I need you to be a good person. And sometimes you're gonna hate me, and that's totally cool, because my job is not to be your best friend. Like, I want you to be able to confide in me and tell me your problems, and I'm gonna correct you because I'm your mother above all things. And keeping you safe is more important. Making sure that you turn into a good human being.
Is important challenge. It helps them develop and grow and figure things out on their own. My dad was like, too much the other way. They made sure I didn't die. There was no parenting. There was no, let me teach you something. And if it was, it was a belt that was teaching me not to do whatever I did.
But do you feel like those experiences of them being very hard on you then made you more adaptable?
Them caught. Allowing me to figure it out for myself made me a survivor and resourceful, and I think that's the true attribute that makes one successful.