Dear children

Let me begin by telling you, I love you, I would move mountains for you and I will give you every opportunity I can, but we will never be friends.
As your PARENT, I will be there to help you up when you are down. I will laugh with you (or more likely, at you) I will cry with you. I will share in your heartache and in your victory and achievement. Those are all things that parents and friends do, however, thats pretty much where our alliance will end. I will not look the other way, encourage bad behavior, or utter the phrase "kids will be kids, so..."
I will let you fail.
I will not interfere in your relationships.
I will not fight your battles.
HOWEVER, I will do my best to help you work through your failures and make sure you don't repeat them. I will fight along side you and help you through what ever you are battling, but I will not make your battles my own, as someday you will need to learn to fight for yourself.
I will never, EVER, buy you and your buddies beer, cigarettes or anything of the like so you can celebrate a special occasion, unless that occasion is your 21st birthday and even then, I will not feel old enough to have a 21 year old, so you can buy your own damn beer.
You are my child and while I will strive to have the very best relationship I can with you, I will never want, or need to be your friend. I do not want or need to have YOUR friends as my friends either. I don't give a rat's ass if your friends think I am cool or not, or if your friends say your party is lame because I didn't buy you any beer...We can be lame together, cuz that shit ain't happening...not as long as I am your parent. And THAT is what I am. I am here to support you, in every sense of the word, but I am not here to be your BFF.
Love, MOM

You may be scratching your head a little at the point of this open letter..it should be relatively easy to figure out my reasoning for writing it. I am sick to death of parents refusing to be parents and instead thinking they need to just be their child's BFF. Newsflash...if you continue that behavior, your little darling has a terrific chance of someday living in your basement.
I hate to break it to you, but buying your teenager beer because "kids will be kids" is against the law, for one, and secondly, is fucking retarded...I am not naive enough to think that teens, when really feeling the need, won't find their own beer, but to encourage their behavior is...I don't even have a word for it. Along the same lines, if you give your three year old a mountain dew at 8 p.m. and then expect her not to be an asshole, you my friend are a douchecanoe who needs to learn the word "no" and repeat it often.
Now, this is not to say that you should not have an open, honest, fun loving relationship with your child, that's not at all the point I am trying to make. The point is, if you are not going to act like a parent and set boundaries and ground rules, and follow through with them and GASP (oh the horror) not be their friend, don't be surprised when a parole officer has to your parenting for you.