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Talking with Teens & Children
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| Mother | 77% | 192 votes | Total: 248 votes | |
| Father | 23% | 56 votes |
Mother
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Add to FavoritesI've known women who even after they married would still talk things over with their fathers. They enjoyed a special bond throughout life with their parent. I've also known women who were just the opposite. They would always seek their mothers out for advice and companionship.
In my opinion, it depends on the individual. How approachable a parent is. If a they had a secure relationship with their parents it's likely they will produce the same atmosphere within their family unit.
However, for the most part, I believe mothers are easier to communicate with. Mothers are often known as the peace keepers of the home. Children are more apt to present a problem, or a request to their mothers to get her view on it before approaching the father.
Growing up, I would always ask my mother for permission to do such and such before asking my father. If it was something she couldn't decide on at that moment, she would promise to get back with me on it. Or, if it required further investigation, she would consult my father.
I think mothers are more understanding and even a little gullible. It's a bit easier to bluff mothers than fathers. I remember a time when I was arguing with my mother. "It's not fair," I whined, "I just don't understand." My father came into the room and stated, "You don't have to understand, I understand." That ended the debate.
I had four boys. When they were younger, I was the one they came to in order to settle an argument or to ask permission or a favor. However, as they matured, they turned to their father for advice, usually under the hood of a car they were working on.
During their dating years neither myself or their father were asked questions relating to relationships, which I think is pretty normal.
Today, they are all married with children of their own. Now, I get all kinds of questions and usually a comment like, "I don't know how you did it, Mom."
I believe it's more beneficial for a child if he/she can approach both parents. They each can add a demention not considered by the other. It also demishes the friction in the home.
As children leave the home they take with them not only what you have taught them in words, but mostly in actions. There's a good chance that how you related to them is how they will relate to their own children. When my youngest son was leaving for college, I was giving him last minute instructions on what he might face. He looked at me and said, "Don't you trust what you've put in me, Mom?"
I once saw a bumper sticker that said, "If Mom says, No, ask Grandma." Now that's a whole other topic.
Learn more about this author, Carol Gustke.
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Father
Though it is generally felt that sons interact better and easier with mothers and daughters with fathers, I have found, as a male, that I bonded better with my father. Because I could always talk to him man to man without feeling shy and also due to the fact that I knew he would understand and see it from a male point of view.
I know this might be challenged, but that is the way I was brought up in my family in Chennai in India. But over the years, work pressure, being stationed in a different town, nearly 350 kilometers away started to take a toll on our relationship so much so that a time came when my father and I were practically not on speaking terms and that too without reason. As a father he always expected me to take the initiative to call him on the phone and he would never, ever call me come what may. This was an attitude I found difficult to understand because he was after all my father.
But the situation deteriorated further because I was undergoing financial troubles which I did not want my parents to know mainly because I did not want to become a burden to them and also to avoid their acerbic tongues. So to them, because they did not know the reason, I was a wayward son and the result was seen when my father who died on November 2, last year cut me out of his will.
However, the situation in my own family is now reversed. I have a daughter who jells with me maybe because I as a father did not want to make the same mistakes my dad did. So she and I are close, though now as a post graduate in plant biotechnology, she talks more freely with her mom. This I understand because they relate to each other as women. But in her younger days, my wife would be jealous of the way my little brat would stick to me.
So that is why at the start of my I article was slightly ambivalent. But yes, it is always easier for a boy to interact with his mother when he is young, but he wants and needs his father's touch when he enters teenage and later adulthood. While a mother can cherish and love a son, a father's attitude is always slightly different because he does not feel for you as your mother will. A mother will always feel more for her ward because you are flesh of her flesh. You have lived within her for ten months and so the bond she has with you is and will always be special.
Though my daughter is attached to her mother, there are times when she feels that she can talk more freely to me. I do not know how or why or whether it is because it is the way she is made, but I just revel in the fact that she trusts me enough to talk to me. And that she had a relationship with me became obvious on my forty eighth birthday when she called up from her college hostel at midnight and sang 'happy birthday' to me. My cell phone rang and when I picked it up she just started singing. I was really moved, because she had stayed up till midnight to wish me the moment my birth day started. Nobody had ever done this for me and so it is etched in my memory. Maybe that is the way God made us and if we try to change this we usually end up with egg on our collective faces.
Learn more about this author, Tharian Mathew.
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