Claim. Parents are meant to be the child’s closest friends and primary teachers because they stand at the center of the child’s first loves.
Elaboration. SMM says that, before maturity, “your parents are your best friends and your best teachers” (CSG 4.9 §4, 83-196, 1976.2.8). The child grows through three object-partner loves: parents, brothers and sisters, and finally husband or wife. For this reason, parental guidance is not merely supervision; it protects the direction of love as the child’s heart expands. The source also warns that one wrong friend can repeat the archangelic pattern of the fall. Parents therefore educate by friendship, teaching, and protection at once.