How friendly is too friendly when it comes to other people's kids? Read the advice of Maddy Phillipps and email dearmaddy@tvnz.co.nz for answers to your own quandaries.
DEAR MADDY: I have a friend who regularly reaches out to my teenage daughter on social media and sometimes by text. To be clear, this is a 15-year-old girl and a 43-year-old woman who've only met each other a handful of times. I know there's nothing untoward in it on behalf of my friend, other than a genuine desire to connect with a teenager she likes. But it annoys me. It's like she's trying to create a special bond that excludes me. She sends funny memes, recipes, photos of her cat – that kind of thing. At one point she asked my daughter about a night out with her friends and told her that anything she said would be "confidential". I wouldn't know about any of this if my daughter hadn't mentioned it to me. I feel this friend would find it really strange if I did the same thing with her teenage sons. She doesn't have a daughter and her own mother died when she was a child. This makes me feel that she a) doesn't fully understand that she's overstepping; and b) is craving something she maybe lacked growing up. I know I should feel more generous – and I don't voice my feelings about it to my daughter because I don't want her bad about it. But it bugs me. Should I say something?
Jacqui
MADDY WRITES: Argh! Jacqui, this is a particularly nightmarish quandary, because it’s something involving a kid that feels “a bit weird,” but isn’t actually sinister. Unfortunately, it’s hard to discuss anything “a bit weird” involving a child and an adult without making the adult sound like a Frankenstein’s monster mash-up of Cardinal Pell, Jeffrey Epstein, and Rolf Harris. Luckily, though, in this column we do not shy away from challenge and complexity, so let us continue.
Jacqui, you’re asking whether you should say something, but I think you’re really asking a different question – is this situation okay, really? This is a nuanced question, so let’s see if we can answer it rationally together, resolving to calmy ignore the angry mob of keyboard warriors screaming “OF COURSE IT’S NOT OKAY YOUR CHILD IS BEING GROOMED BY A PREDATOR, WAKE UP BAD MOTHER!!” into the ether.
First, I think it’s actually quite normal and healthy for teenagers to develop some level of “friendship” with their parents’ friends as they mature. As a teenager, I desperately wanted to be included in my mum’s chats with her closest friends. Sipping decaf coffee or sparkling grape juice as they cackled and surgically dissected the latest deaths, divorces, and domestic dramas in their orbit felt like admission into the rarefied sanctum of womanhood. Terribly thrilling stuff for a 16-year-old, especially when the friends included me by asking about my own travails of life and love.
Similarly, as an adult, when my best friend’s daughter was still a teenager we’d often all hang out together. Sometimes I sent my friend and her daughter Snapchats (still a thing at the time, don’t judge), her daughter would reply to me in an individual thread, and we’d have a one-on-one conversation. Her daughter seemed to feel okay telling me pretty much anything, as she knew I wouldn’t judge, although if she’d ever told me something truly concerning I definitely would have passed it on to her mum. I can only assume she thought I was cool, although now she is 21 she has long since abandoned that belief (correctly, of course. After all, I used the phrase “hang out” a few sentences ago).
Obviously these examples differ from your situation in that the parents were fully aware of the conversations, but the point is that teenagers can enjoy having close relationships with trusted adults for lots of reasons. Maybe it feels like play-acting as an adult; maybe the person is fun; maybe it’s easier to take advice from that person than a parent, because they’re not immediately overwhelmed with the urge to vehemently disagree. So long as the kid is safe, all of this is fine. Any relationship between an adult and a child has to be, first and foremost, about what the child wants and needs. This means that, when assessing the overall rightness or wrongness of the situation, you’ve skipped over the most important factor: what, if anything, your daughter is getting out of this.
Always ask: what's in it for the kid?
To find out, you need to simply ask her how she feels about it, without being accusatory or implying she’s doing anything wrong. If your daughter is inwardly eye-rolling every time your friend forwards a TikTok, uses the word “rizz,” or sends yet another picture of her “fur baby” – then obviously there’s no reason for the conversations to continue, and you’ll need to have that awkward conversation with your friend. Maybe something along the lines of your daughter being busy, overwhelmed with other messages, needs to spend less time on her phone, not so keen on all these one-on-one conversations, yada yada yada.
A good confidante is valuable
But! If your daughter genuinely likes talking to your friend – maybe even considers her a valued confidante – then shutting down that line of communication isn’t going to serve her. I know how irritating that is to hear, given that the way the conversations began (i.e. without you knowing) is distinctly annoying. However, I think a lot of that annoyance is driven by the belief that these interactions are fundamentally self-serving for your friend – trying to recreate a relationship dynamic she’s always wanted and never had – but not actually nourishing your daughter. Should that belief turn out to be wrong, the need to put the kibosh on the conversations altogether falls away. Instead, you can switch your focus to what boundaries you can put in place so everyone feels comfortable, then communicate those thoughts to your friend.
When you have that conversation, don’t be afraid to communicate your hurt at being excluded. If it felt rude – maybe even like she was encroaching on your role as a mother – then say that! But make sure you also acknowledge her good intentions, and emphasise how much you appreciate her friendship, and whatever good things she’s doing for your daughter. I think you also need to address the “confidentiality” remark, explaining that while you know it was jokey and not sinister, you’re worried your friend might find herself unable to share something serious with you out of reluctance to break your daughter’s trust, and you need to know that she’ll pass on anything truly concerning.
Jacqui, I don’t think for a moment you’re not being “generous.” Any parent would be annoyed in this situation! Still, annoyance notwithstanding, whether these conversations should continue really depends on whether they’re having a positive impact on your daughter. In what form they should continue is up to you. Armed with that crucial distinction, I have every confidence that you can communicate whatever you decide to your friend kindly, accurately, and without sounding like you’re setting her up to appear in an episode of To Catch A Predator.
Maddy Phillipps is a barrister, freelance writer and clinical psychology student.
EMAIL your life problems to dearmaddy@tvnz.co.nz.
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