I borrow the title of a very old song by Antonello Venditti to summarize the danger of a tendencyillusion that currently characterizes the way many parents understand their role.
I speak of a trend because, and this is a trivial element in its incidence, more and more the parental relationship emphasizes its affective function, renouncing the exercise of the normative one; it pursues consent and complicity, rather than a growth resulting from the effort of awareness, management and overcoming conflicts.
A friend more than a parent
We are increasingly faced with parents who have as their goal, or as their worry when they fail to do so, to please their children. Where “making happy,” which is, moreover, legitimate and desirable in many situations, and which is limited to the “here and now,” seems to become the only element of guidance and discrimination for an increasingly evanescent parental function. All in a general climate that fuels the illusion of the possibility of blurring if not nullifying role and age differences.
An amicable relationship is basically characterized by an equal status: one is on the same plane and at the same level. Hypothetically, there are no differences, and this (again hypothetically) could ensure that there are no conflicts.
The parent-child relationship, on the other hand, is based from its origin on the difference: between a “big one” and a “small one,” between those who have knowledge and skills, take responsibility, and act on their examination of present and future reality, and those who need to be helped to orient themselves, to learn, to acquire the tools, to be contained and accompanied to contact a sometimes difficult reality.
Behind the desire and sometimes the proud claim of “be like two friends” hide many elements: the fear of assuming a normative function, the insecurity of one’s adult role, the desire to erase all conflict and the inability to govern it, but also the “emptiness” of all those parental functions a child needs and is somehow deprived of.
“Being like two friends” therefore is not one more opportunity but one less, it robs the “little one” of the opportunity to form, to clash and to look for his own friends!
