My Kids Are Not My Mates
I don’t want to be friends with my kids. I want to be their Dad and their confidante and their teacher of life lessons and their geeky example to rebel against. But not their mate or their buddy or their pal.
Why other Dads call their kids ‘mate’ or ‘buddy’ or ‘pal’ is a complete mystery to me. Sure my three-year-old sometimes calls me his ‘best friend’, but then on other occasions his brother is also his best friend, and on others so too is his Mum, his teddy bear, the next-door neighbour’s cat and the stink beetles we pull off the lime tree every weekend.
When I call someone ‘mate’ it’s because I don’t know their name. I’m either attempting to be casual and non-threatening or I want to be deliberately threatening, such as in, ’Hey mate. Get your hands off my girlfriend’.
If I’m going to threaten my kids (with the naughty corner and its ‘comfy chair’ for those of you familiar with Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition) you can bet I’ll be using their name and possibly their middle and surnames too.
Why any father would think that calling his son ‘mate’ will improve their relationship is just as strange. Surely a toddler is no more likely to brush his teeth or go to bed just because his friend is telling him to instead of a father figure such as their actual father commanding it.
Any why do male children get the ‘buddy’ treatment and not girls? I hear plenty of Dads in the playground calling their male children by a matey nickname but never have I heard a girl being called ‘mate’ by their father let alone ‘sheila’ (unless it’s her name), ‘gal’, ‘chick’ or even ‘girl’, though Dads will often call their dog ‘girl’.
Imagine the damage being done to a girl’s confidence knowing that in the esteem of her father she ranks third in the friendship stakes behind the family heir and the family pet.
One Dad I know even calls his son ‘Mister’ as if elevating him to premature adulthood will somehow speed his self-esteem and his physical and emotional development. At least he calls his daughter ‘Miss’, although all he’s probably doing there is reinforcing sexual stereotypes.
Why not let kids be kids and call them by their own name no matter what the situation? Let them find their own identity in the world and work out who their friends really are rather than confuse the issue with meaningless labels that speak more of the father’s insecurity than their kids’.
