What My Mother Did Right: Authoritative Parenting Before It Was Cool

Mother's Day always makes me reflective about the complicated relationship between the parent I had and the parent I've become.

My mother raised me alone in a two-person, all-female household. For much of my childhood—especially between the ages of 9 and 13—she was sporadically present physically, but mostly emotionally absent, pulled under by grief and depression. I was a latchkey kid who came home to an empty house, made my own dinners, and went long stretches with no one to talk to.

Now I'm a married mother of three boys who have never known what it's like to not have at least one parent home. They've never turned a key in an empty house, never microwaved their own dinner at age 10, never spent an entire weekend with only the TV for company.

Every Gen X parent I know is trying to give our kids what we never had. We want to do better than our parents did, while breaking cycles of generational trauma where we can.

It’s easy to focus on all the things we want to do better. In our memories, those places where we felt lost, forgotten, worthless, and unimportant are highlighted in flashing neon. But while we’re working through those layers of pain, regret, and sadness, we have to acknowledge that despite all of that, there were some things that our parents did right.

Like all of us, my mother was an imperfect, flawed human being who was doing the best she could in playing the hand she was dealt. The childhood lens I saw her through has since experienced some of what she dealt with then, when I couldn’t wrap my head around what it was like for her. With experience comes maturity, and with maturity comes wisdom.

I’m at a point in my life now where I can forgive her for all the things she did that hurt me because I know she loved me, and she was doing her best, even if it didn’t look for feel that way for me at the time. In letting that pain and resentment go, I’m now starting to focus on what I love about how she raised me.

Beyond the happy childhood memories (when she had the support my older childhood years lacked) and deeper than how she tried to make lost time up for me in funding my college-aged wanderlust adventures, in the big picture, she got one critical thing right that shaped everything about who I became—and how I parent my own kids.

Before it became something discussed beyond the boundaries of academic psychology theory, my mother was exemplifying how an authoritative parent approaches raising children.

The Difference Between Authoritarian and Authoritative

There's a concept in developmental psychology that distinguishes between two parenting styles that sound similar but couldn't be more different: authoritarian and authoritative.

Authoritarian parents operate on control and obedience. Rules are rigid. "Because I said so" is the final word. Children are expected to comply without question. Mistakes are met with punishment. Emotions are dismissed or seen as weakness. The parent's authority is absolute, and the child's job is to submit.

Authoritative parents operate on respect and reasoning. Rules exist, but they're explained. Boundaries are firm but flexible when appropriate. Children are expected to follow guidelines, but they're also taught why those guidelines matter. Mistakes are learning opportunities. Emotions are validated. The parent's authority comes from trust, not fear.

My mother was authoritative before it was trendy. Before "gentle parenting" was a hashtag. Before anyone was talking about emotional regulation or respectful communication with children.

She just... treated me like a person.

What That Looked Like in Practice

When I was upset, she didn't tell me to stop crying or calm down. She asked what was wrong. She listened. She validated my feelings even when she couldn't fix the problem.

When I made mistakes—and I made plenty—she didn't yell or punish me. She asked me what I learned, and what I'd do differently next time. She cared how I felt about what happened.

Her approach to rules is always a source of amusement when I tell people: “There are no rules, until you break one” was how she put it. I was free to do as I pleased, but if I crossed a line, we’d talk about it. On the rare occasion when a rule needed to be put in place, she explained why it existed. Not in a "justify myself to a child" way, but in a "you're part of this family and you deserve to understand how we make decisions" way.

She respected my opinions, even when they differed from hers. She didn't demand agreement—she modeled how to disagree respectfully. We had several conversations on religion when I was starting to question the faith I had been raised with, and she was trying to insist on the validity of “the mystery of faith,” advocating for blind obedience in spite of all logic and reason dictating otherwise. It never got nasty between us; we always wrapped up with an agreement to disagree.

The foundation of our relationship was always mutual respect, not control.

Why Authoritative Parenting Works

Research consistently shows that authoritative parenting produces the best outcomes for children: higher self-esteem, better emotional regulation, stronger social skills, greater independence, and more resilience in the face of challenges.

Why? Because authoritative parenting teaches children how to think, not just what to think.

It builds internal motivation rather than relying on external control. Kids raised this way don't behave because they're afraid of punishment—they behave because they understand why certain behaviors matter and they've internalized those values.

They learn to regulate their own emotions because their emotions were validated, not dismissed. They develop critical thinking skills because they were encouraged to ask questions and challenge assumptions. They build confidence because they were trusted with responsibility and allowed to fail safely.

They learn respect by being respected.

The Parent I Want to Be

When I think about the parent I want to be for my three boys, I start with what my mother gave me: that foundational respect.

My kids have things I never had—two parents in the house, financial stability, full bellies, consistent heat throughout harsh New England winters, someone always home when they get back from school. They'll never know the particular loneliness of latchkey kid life, and I'm grateful for that.

But I'm also trying to give them what I did have: a parent who treats them like their thoughts and feelings matter; who explains the "why" behind the rules; who validates their emotions even when I can't give them what they want; who lets them make age-appropriate mistakes and then talks through what they learned.

I'm trying to build their internal compasses, not just control their external behavior.

Autumn's Different Path

In The Strangest of Places, Autumn's mother struggles with many of the same challenges my mother faced—single parenthood, financial stress, depression, grief. Like my mother, she, too, had periods where she was emotionally absent, checked out, unavailable.

Autumn's story, like mine, has an added layer of abandonment that shaped everything: her father's complete absence.

He wasn't just uninvolved—he was an unknown question mark that defined her entire childhood. And when that foundational abandonment gets compounded by a mother who's physically present but emotionally gone during critical developmental years, the damage runs deep.

Autumn grows up not trusting her own judgment, struggling to set boundaries, unable to believe she deserves respect or stability from others. She doesn't just fear abandonment—she expects it. She's learned that even the people who are supposed to stay can disappear, whether physically or emotionally.

The periods when her mother was checked out didn't create Autumn's wounds, but they reinforced what her father's absence had already taught her: that she's on her own. That people leave. That love isn't reliable.

It's a reminder that even when we're doing our best under impossible circumstances, the impact of our unavailability—especially when it echoes earlier abandonment—can shape our children in ways we never intended.

The Best Thing She Did

My mother wasn't perfect. The years when she was struggling with her own demons left unintentional scars. I learned self-reliance out of necessity, not choice. I know what it's like to feel invisible in your own home.

But when she came back to me, when she pulled herself out of that depression spiral, the foundation was still there: respect.

She never talked down to me or dismissed my feelings. She never demanded obedience without explanation. She treated me like a whole person, even when I was just a kid.

That's the gift I'm trying to pass on to my boys. Not perfection—I'll never achieve that for myself and would never expect it of them—but respect. Always respect.

Authoritative parenting isn't about being the perfect parent. It's about treating your kids like people who are learning to be people.

And sometimes, that's the best thing we can do.