I try so much to be a buddy-buddy kind of mom to my kids especially with our small age gap. My kids are 2 & 4 and I'm 25.. We play,do fun stuffs,run errands,take baths together. I bring my eldest to accompany me to the salon and I even confide with them. There are certain issues in our house though that needs tighter belts like keeping the house(especially the bedroom) clean, accomplishing their worksheets, strict sugar consumption limit are such. It's important to make my children feel very comfortable with me but at the same time recognize my authority. I have a fear that they'll emotionally grow distant from me when they grow older that's why I'm putting a lot of work in establishing a good mom-daughter foundation. Being this way with them, i think, will help learn about them more and nurture them depending on their specific needs.
I'd rather be the strict kind of mom. I think that this generation, not that I am bashing, do not have that much respect to parents compared to the generation of my mom and dad. My parents' generation had strict parents and I want to implement that as well to instill the same values that I had.