Moms, dads and the teen-buddy trap

I read with a smile Hank Stuever’s review of the Fox show “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” [“On Fox, ‘Hate’ runs shallow,” Style, Nov. 30], especially the part about the peculiar, codependent arrangement typical these days between moms and young daughters. The same is certainly true for many dads and young sons.

Out here in the burbs, plenty of weekend alarm clocks go off at 4 a.m. so Dad can load Son into the minivan for the trip to Pennsylvania or New Jersey for some distant sports tournament. As Mr. Stuever suggested, Mom may have taken a wrong turn when she desperately strives to be Daughter’s best friend forever, or “BFF.” But many Dads of this generation find themselves in an equally weird arrangement. Describe it this way: He Eventually Loses Perspective — or “HELP.”

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Craig Colgan, Leesburg

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While I agree with Hank Stuever’s review of “I Hate My Teenage Daughter,” and I would never watch it, I wonder if Mr. Stuever is living in an alternate universe. To suggest that most teenage girls have their mothers wrapped around their fingers and that most mothers want to be their daughters’ best friend is ridiculous. Maybe he has been hanging out too much at the mall. A great many mothers do not fit that category. Or at least that’s what our daughters tell us in lovely little texts.

Lauren F. Cardillo, Alexandria