Are you your child’s best friend as a mother? Oh no?’

Patricia van Liemt is a radio presenter, writer and mother of Maria (13) and Phaedra (10). Every Friday she writes striking, honest, funny and above all recognizable columns about her life and motherhood.

This week I walked past a perfumery that still had cow letters on the window: ‘Because your mother is your best friend’. A relic of Mother’s Day that drowned out all other high street advertisements.

Your child’s best friend? No

You won’t soon hear me complain that I find something too commercial. No, on the contrary. I love Valentine’s Day and I love flying holidays like Halloween. Bring it on. But this quote just didn’t sit well with me. Because as a mother, are you your child’s best friend? Oh no? Especially if you have young children. Yes, you have a nice and trusted relationship. And you are a safe haven, a beacon, a home, a confidant, an example, an inspiration, from time to time the good cop, a psychologist, all of that for sure. But a best friend? No.

More comprehensive and complex

That slogan on that window also made me feel extremely insecure. Because I’m not my daughters best friend and I wasn’t my mother’s. In fact, I think many mother-daughter relationships are much broader and more complex, but all in their own way and not in a best friend way.

Read also: Patricia confesses: ‘I breastfed my child longer to lose weight’

Exceptions

Moreover, it is also an insult to mothers of boys. Because (after some research with my girlfriends) is a bestfriend scenario between mothers and sons is certainly not an issue at all. Well, of course there are always exceptions. And I sincerely mean: if your mother is your best friend, to whom you tell and communicate everything, that I really like that for you. But you are the exceptions.

Advice for slogans

So my advice for this perfumery is to put some more appealing slogans on the window next year, like:

“For my mother, who I sometimes can’t stand, but I love very much, because she is simply my mother”

Or: “For my mom, who always complains that I’m gaming too long, but who I love.”

That will probably appeal to more people…

Would you rather listen to Patricia’s column? Which can. Every Sunday between 4 and 6 pm she reads it on Wild FM.