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iQuestions Faculty, Joe White 
 
 
Question: 
 
How do I deal with being a friend versus a parent to my child? 
 
Answer:  
 
Being your child’s friend and being their parent is probably two of the 
most difficult hats that a parent will wear.  
 
Boy, was I naïve as a parent. I thought going into this parenting thing 
was going to be some kind of a big party. I was so excited about it. 
And you know what? A lot of times it was a party. But there were a lot 
of times when it wasn’t a party. 
 
I remember when my oldest daughter was in seventh grade, and my 
second daughter was in fifth grade, and that little second daughter 
was the most honest person I had ever met. Daddy had really gone all 
out that year, and I thought I could open my shirt and see “Super 
Dad” on my chest or something like that.  
 
I’d taken those girls on vacations, spent time with them, taught them 
how to serve a volleyball, how to shoot a basketball. I was doing it all. 
And I was wanting some rewards, and I remember I wasn’t getting a 
lot.  
 
So, we were driving down the road one day, and I looked over at my 
daughters, looking for a little encouragement as a dad. And I said, 
“Hey, hasn’t this been a great year? Hasn’t this father-daughter year 
been just super, and we had a great time in vacations?” and I just 
kept throwing things out. I wasn’t hearing anything back. Dead 
silence. 
 
 
 
And finally, Courtney looked at me—my second daughter, who was 
sitting in the middle seat in the pick-up truck—and she said, “Dad, 
Jamie doesn’t like you very much.” 
 
And I said, “Really?” I said, “Peanut, tell me about that.” (I called 
Jamie “Peanut.”) 
 
And she said, “Daddy, I haven’t liked you since November.” 
 
Well, it was March. And that really hurt me. I looked over at her, and I 
said, “You know, Peanut, that really hurts my feelings.” I said, “Tell me 
about it.” 
 
She said, “Well, Dad, my friends go to these kinds of parties, and you 
don’t let me. My friends go to these kinds of movies, and you don’t let 
me. My friends do this, my friends pierce anything”—my friends, my 
friends, my friends—“and you don’t let me do those things.” 
 
I said, “Well, that hurts a little bit, Jamie. But you know what? 
Princess, my job is not to be your friend. You know what? My job is to 
be your daddy.” 
 
And I said, “You know, Jamie”—and I just pulled this number out of 
the sky—“someday, when you’re twenty-three years old, you’re going 
to be in some little chapel somewhere. You may be twenty-eight or 
twenty-one, but you’ll be in a little chapel somewhere, and you’re 
going to be putting on a little white gown and a little white veil, and 
out there in that chapel is going to be the boy that you’ll love more 
than any other boy that you’ve ever met in your life. And I’m going to 
humbly walk you down that aisle. And, Peanut, at the end of that aisle, 
I’m going to put your hand into his hand, and that’ll be one of the 
neatest things that I’ve ever done, to turn you over to the boy who will 
love you for a lifetime.” 
White -2- 
 
 
 
And I said, “Jamie, when you walk down that aisle, you’re not to be 
ashamed. You’re going to be a proud little girl, and you’re going to 
have a lot of regrets as you go down that aisle.” 
 
And I said, “Princess, my job, as your daddy, is to build an 
environment in our home as best I can to help you walk down that 
aisle with no regrets.” 
 
And I said, “Jamie, when I give your hand away to that boy that day, 
in marriage, that’s when I want you to turn around and look at your 
daddy and say, ‘Daddy, I want you to know that I like you today.’ And 
Peanut, you know what? If you don’t like me until then, that’s okay, 
because I am going to be your dad, and I’m going to do the best job I 
can, and if I ever get to be your friend, then that will be a privilege 
along the way.” 
 
You know what? That went on for about another five or six months, 
but then one day, I took her on a little trip together, and she went into 
the mall on that trip, and she came out of the mall with a little gift 
from me. We got back in the car, and she said, “Daddy, I have a 
present for you.” And I said, “Well, Peanut, thank you for thinking of 
me.” She said, “It’s a CD. Can I play it?” And I said, “Sure,” so she 
popped it into our little CD player in her car. And the CD said, as 
you’ve heard on the radio so many times: 
 
Have I ever told you you’re my hero?  
You’re everything I wish I could be  
Have I ever told you you’re my hero?  
You are the wind beneath my wings 
 
We had other hard times. There were other times when I wasn’t her 
friend. It was difficult. Honestly, it was a difficult trek. But if I had it all 
to do over again, I’d do it again in a second, because now we’re best 
White -3- 
 
 
friends today, and now I get to be best friends with her children as a 
granddaddy. 
 
You be their mommy, you be their daddy—and if you get to be their 
friend along the way, consider it a bonus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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