Dear Scott,
Good to hear you think yourself capable of rambling a bit too - at our age (I'm fifty three by the way) maybe that's permissable isn't it!
We are very much singing from the same hymn sheet on all these matters aren't we, and I for one find that satisfying (as I've said I've found it difficult to find people able to highlights kids bad behaviour on these father's sites or forums).
I must confess something here too - I did try to be my daughter's friend as well as her parent, probably more than I should have. In her case it didn't make her unruly or anything like that, she had tough rules to follow when she got home to her mother I'm sure, and her behaviour was generally impecable. I excused myself for trying to be my daughter's friend on a number of grounds:-
1). Her mother's effective enforcement of rules as I've said. They did so many things in their mother's and stepfather's house I wouldn't have bothered about or liked to see. For example my daughter's siblings from the mother's new relationship - all of them having to knock on each other's bedroom doors before entering (- at five or six years of age I'm talking), asking to leave the table (alright maybe that was okay, just a bit over done if you know what I mean). My daughter got sent from the table for speaking too much when she was about three and a half - she didn't really understand the punishment of having to stay in her room but the result of all this was that she somehow erased her mother's new partner from her life for a time, or never spoke of him anyway (certainly to me). Sorry ramble there!
2). I tried to be my daughter's friend because I wanted her to know closeness - that didn't mean I was afraid of telling her off, certainly not, and I wouldn't let her over rule me or rule me if I thought it mattered, but I would tend to give in to her otherwise. I remember one of my sisters once trying to stop carrying my daughter on my shoulders when we were on a walk near her house. I allowed my daughter to stay where she was, as she wanted, thus ignoring my sisters "adult" request. My justification for this was that I was trying to make up for the week or two weeks absence we faced before every contact visit - that makes it a somewhat special circumstance doesn't it. In fact I think my daughter had a wonderful way of dealing with the separation - she just carried on as though we hadn't been apart generally, and I did the same. Thus conversations you'd left off on the previos vist were just started up again where you left off.
3). I think I had to accept a lesser role as a parent in so many ways, including discipline - if you're not there to make sure your rules are obeyed why make them, and if you were not careful your whole seven hours of contact a fortnight would be taken up by disciplining your child.
Maybe I've said enough already as explanation of myself for you.
I did have one or two thoughts I wanted to throw in somewhere though.
One being that it is "so easy" to destroy people's relationships, especially with their children (albeit kids sometimes move mountains to find lost parents). Still, my point remains that our relationships are fragile (- I liked your analogy of walking on egg shells very much too by the way). That is why I believe it is not good enough for those in authority to allow children to denigrate a loving parent without trying to correct them - not to correct them is to encourage the behaviour and fail to support the parent in my view.
I can't remember the last point I wanted to make now, but maybe it was something on Anna Freud's influence again. She said children only have one "psychological parent" - I think that was the basis of her argument.
Whether or not that is true, what is true is that the way we think, or the way we think about ourselves maybe, governs our actions. By fulfilling the role of a parent, even in the limited way I've described, my confidence and belief in myself grew. I thought I was important to my child, I found I had feelings I could never have known existed (I actually believe they are unique to biological parents regardless of anything Freud might say on that subject). An example of my uniqueness as a parent is that I found I had a degree of tolerance within me for my own child I could never have had for anyone else's child.
In the church where my daughter was christened the minister once said "that if you say God exists then he exists or if you say God doesn't exist then he doesn't"! I'm not sure whether I agree with the minister, or whether I've recollected his opinions and preaching accurately, but the point is that if something as significant as the concept or reality of God can be brought down to a matter of simple belief or people saying to themselves something, then concepts such as the importance of parents is obviously far more easily manipulable.
We have to believe in ourselves as parents don't we or else how can we be parents? Anything challenging the view of parents being important, and therefore in need of protections from those who might wish to usurp us for no good reason is automatically going to damage us isn't it.
All the best, Graham