Weve come a long way from the idealistic days of the 50s seen through television shows like leave it to beaver. Even decades later shows like the Wonder Years portray competent parents acting in the best interest for their children. For one reason or another it seems that those days have disappeared and in many relationships the role of parent had become more the role of friend. There have always been cases like this im sure, but in the modern day it seems to be much more common place and I cant help but wonder why.
If we go back to the television portrayals of families, most of the shows we see today have the fun parents or the incompetent parents. Look at a show like Modern Family, which portrays the dad as a fool most episodes. Of course its just television and this isnt reality but I think in a weird way it mimics what direction our society has moved. I see it all the time now where parents refuse to discipline their children because they want to stay their friend, but they are hurting them in the long run. Living in a world with no boundaries between parent and child is very dangerous.
There needs to be an established hierarchy between parent and child, especially at a young age so you can teach them how to behave in the world. Its hard to discipline a child if they think they are on the same wavelength as you. Its a sign of the times and how relaxed the structure has become, but I question if this is good in the long run. Do we really want children of children raising children? Sorry for the complicated sentence, but if no one grows up that is literally what we will have, a generation of people who never fully transition to adulthood.
Theres nothing wrong about being friends with your parent as long as there remains a clear hierarchy between you two. As you both get older the line blurs which is completely fine because you are both ideally adults at that point, but that should not be the case in your teens. You hear stories all the time now about parents who drink and go out with their kids or partake in other recreational illegal activities together and its very strange. This is the reality we live in and im not trying to judge just trying to understand how we ultimately got here. No doubt things changed at some point, but im curious when.
I dont know if there will even be long lasting effects of the parent-child hierarchy slowly disappearing, but I think there will be. In my opinion it will ultimately be holding back the development of many in the newer generations and a generation of adults who act like children is inevitable. There will always be outliers and you can raise your child anyway you want. I actually dont think that being too strict is the way to raise a child and at times you want them to be able to confide in you, but there always needs to be that separation. That is just my opinion though and im interested what you out there think.
-Calaber24p