Kris Jenner's parenting confession reveals the biggest mistake modern parents are making

Unlike Kris Jenner, Susie O’Brien does not want to be best friends with her kids, the coolest parent at parties or the wittiest mum on WhatsApp. Here’s why.

Kardashian clan matriarch Kris Jenner happily admits to breaking one of the unwritten rules of parenting: she sees herself as both friend and mother to her six children.

Such self-centred people who rave about being the greatest, closest friends to their children fail to appreciate that the last thing a 15-year-old wants is a 50-year-old best friend.

Speaking this week on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Jenner said her friend “used to say, ‘You’re too nice. You know, you’re not their friend. You’re their mother.’ And I looked at her and I said, ‘Oh, no. I’m their friend’.”

Jenner went on to explain that she didn’t want to be “left out of this big beautiful life that I want to have with them”.

This is one of the biggest problems with parents today.

They’re too busy being their kids’ best friends to properly parent them.

They’re trying to be the coolest mum at sleepovers, the wittiest dad on WhatsApp and the most popular parent at parties that they forget to tell their kids off, keep them in line and set important boundaries.

Oh yes, these hyper bestie parents also forget to have lives of their own.

Such parents are also often intimately involved in their children’s social lives. They come to school to talk to their child’s friends, confront other parents about their child missing out on party invitations and message their children’s friends on social media.

My daughter would never let me do the latter – no siree. She’s outraged when I use abbreviations in texts like GR8 and BTW, and would never let me take over her Instagram account.

A photo from an Instagram post by Kris Jenner from her 70th birthday party. Jenner wants to be a friend as well as a mother to her children.

Jenner even takes it one step further: in her eyes, it’s not just about being friends with your kids, but “the time you spend and what you focus on and the way that you spend time with your kids”.

The bar is now set so high that just spending time with kids is not enough; now we have to worry about the way we’re spending that time too.

As a result of all this pressure and guilt, parents feel compelled to be more invested in their kids’ lives than ever before.

It’s not about protecting them from unseen and often non-existent dangers, but caring about every grade, interaction, friendship and conversation.

It’s hyper parenting. It’s parenting on steroids. It’s parenting on crack. This means attending every sporting match, manipulating every friendship and orchestrating all aspects of school life.

Susie O’Brien does not want to be besties with her kids. She’s never asked them, but doubts they would want it either. Photo: Nicole Cleary

I’ll bet you know parents who drive their kids everywhere they need to go, organise every activity and document every footy kick, ballet spin and amateur artwork on their phones.

They also often claim credit – as Jenner does – for their children’s successes.

It’s no wonder that such hyper parents come unravelled when their kids get older and no longer like them, listen to them or care what they say or do.

Psychologist Judith Locke has written about these hyper hands-on style of parents, concluding that those “who attempt to increase childhood intelligence and accomplishment through intensive effort and increased time spent with children may be at risk of exhaustion, stress, anxiety, and guilt”.

They’re often boring as batshit as well.

Kris Jenner (L) with daughters (L-R) Khloe, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian celebrating Kim's 30th birthday at the Tao Nightclub at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2010.

It’s amazing how much the expectations of parents have changed in just one generation.

One Mother’s Day recently I was sitting chatting with some of the basketball mums, cradling a sneaky champagne in a plastic mug and watching the kids lose by a hefty margin.

“I don’t remember my parents ever watching me play sport,” my friend said.

“It wasn’t ever really on their radar. They’d drop me off and I’d walk or get a lift home. That was it.”

Same for me. My father sat in our family’s Holden Kingswood on the side of the road listening to the Goon Show on radio while I played sport.

Spending weekends watching me exhibit my dire lack of athletic skills wasn’t high on Mick O’Brien’s weekend agenda.

He had better things to do, like wearing budgie-smugglers as daywear and cementing things into the ground.

I didn’t care. It didn’t occur to me to be offended or anxious about his spectacular lack of interest in my sporting endeavours.

I can’t imagine my dad – or even mum – putting love notes in my lunch box, capturing every sporting move on camera, organising their work hours around my after-school commitments or giving me veggies fanned out like a rainbow for dinner like parents are expected to do today.

And yes, they would run a mile from any suggestion they needed to be my friend rather than my parents.

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Originally published as Kris Jenner's parenting confession reveals the biggest mistake modern parents are making