SHOULD YOU BE BEST FRIENDS WITH YOUR CHILDREN? A CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE

 Should you be your child’s best friend? Are there any benefits to it? You might be wondering who cares about that. We are still young and only studying at university. We have better things to think about like our future career or just simply even making it through this semester. (I surely do think about the latter *ahem*.) But rest assured I am not planning to bore you guys with parenting tricks and tips in this post. Frankly, speaking I have no idea about that myself 😰. This is a more light-hearted blog about how amazing of a father my dad is and how much his best friend approach has helped me grow as a person. 

My parents were young when they had me, so I was what you call an experimental case. We pretty much grew up together. I remember the first video game I played with my dad; it was called Rise of the argonauts. I used to sit next to him and cheer him on even prior to that day so I observed the controls and mostly knew the basic play. Even though I was very bad (I was 6.5 years old so you can’t blame me) I remember my dad feeling so proud and impressed that it got me completely hooked on ever since. 

 We went on to play more games like Prince of Persia, God of war, The old call of duty series, metal gear just to name a few of our favorites. Last year I finally saved up enough to build my first ever gaming pc and he and I went exploring shops after another to find the perfect components and built it together once we gathered everything up. It was the best experience ever and something I’ll cherish forever. Although, as he had to do all the heavy lifting,  I am not too sure how he felt about that.

Another passion we both share is that of cooking. We used to watch cooking shows or videos until late at night and experiment with different ingredients and techniques when everyone had fallen asleep so that we wouldn't get scolded for messing up the kitchen. Sometimes it would turn out to be the best dish we ever made and sometimes it was well inedible.

 This was our first attempt at making Ramen. I oversaw the broth, and he took care of the toppings. It doesn’t look like much but boy was it tasty. My mom and sis also joined in after all the hard work was over, and we had an amazing dinner that night.

Speaking of shared interest, we love watching anime together. I know I know he sounds like the coolest dad ever at this point and he truly is (Sorry not sorry)✌. Dude had me when he was 21 so you can quite imagine how long we have been watching anime together. 

Thursdays was our binge watch night. Every Thursday we would stay up the whole night stacking up on chips, popcorn, beverages and have either a marvel or dc marathon or watch a series or finish a new anime. Me, dad and my sis are the biggest fans of the anime Bleach and have watched over 350 episodes together and always came up with theories of the next episodes/seasons together.

We three would talk about anything and everything before going to bed (no secrets between us) whether it was roasting family members, school drama, dad’s office drama, a show we have been watching, career plans, must read book lists, activities we wanted to learn next, future trips we wanted to take, restaurants we wanted to visit all that fun stuff. Believe it or not he never forced me to study ever and instead took a "learning is fun" approach. He would tell us interesting facts, external to our textbook topics and teach us new things.

 Now that I am all grown up, I actually enjoy studying instead of dreading it like most individuals. He also taught me how to manage my finances from early on and now I have a decent amount of money saved up for myself. These are just some of the ways he has shaped me to be a sincere and responsible person. He was never strict rather a friend, who told us how to get everything done, he also only gave us advice about right and wrong but always let us make our own decisions. 

This is a picture from our trip last year. We had the best time by the beach with amazing food and talked for hours while enjoying the sunset. I lost him 3 months ago, but he will always be my best friend and I will always cherish all the memories he has blessed me with. To come back to our topic whether you want to be a legend to your kids or not is now up to you 😎.