Heh, it’s amazing how the process of being a parent myself makes all the trivial resentments I once felt towards my own parents for various failings fall away. 
[It helps that they , very usefully, love having my son visit when my wife and I need a break … :D]
Seriously though - I can see now that they were, and still are, wonderful people. I hope my own kid will be able to say the same of us, when he’s old enough to be disillusioned.
Mom by a landslide. Dad isn’t a bad guy, just an emotionally absent father. He’s a good husband though, so I respect him for that.
I guess I’ll throw my hat in along with many others and echo this statement. I can’t pick. Both my parents are awesome.
Another vote here for “no vote” – I don’t think I can pick the better of my parents.
This is a really hard question for me. Let the Dopers decide.
My bio Dad was a drunk and a pothead who I saw only on the weekends. He doesn’t drive because of too many DWIs. He was never abusive, but by the time I was six I felt like I had more common sense than he did. He dragged me to bars and put me in all sorts of dangerous situations because he had so much hubris he thought he could protect me from anything. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just a failure of a parent, and he knows it. He was out of my life for a decade by my own choice, and now that we talk again, nothing has changed. He talks as if I am his entire universe, his only reason for living, but he has never tried to be the parent I needed. I love him, but there is a chasm between us that I don’t think can be bridged. I’ll never feel for him the way a daughter is ‘‘supposed’’ to feel for a father.
My Mom is a whole different ball of wax. She’s mentally ill, and fucked me up as a kid more ways than I can count. But she also took responsibility for me from day one. She got a degree in mechanical engineering while raising me as a single parent. She was actively involved in my life, my school, my world. She advocated for me and with few exceptions I felt I could talk to her about anything. She never pressured me academically, just told me that all she wanted me to be was happy. She instilled some important values in me. We’re close is what I’m saying. Through all the men she dated and divorced, I had my Mom. The fact that she periodically lost her shit and rained hellfire down upon me and anyone within spitting distance just means the abuse hurt more deeply. In addition to all the good stuff she gave me, she also gave me severe PTSD and crippling anxiety which has taken years to overcome. I love her more than words can say, but there is no question that she is the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.
This is a difficult question. They are both a little insane, my mom in a very t-2000 kind of way and my dad in a very chicken little kind of way.
Technically, my mother was the “better” parent in that she made sure that the house was clean enough to live in and that we ate food that wasn’t frozen pizza on occasion. She was the one who did the things that needed to be done to make sure the family ran smoothly. She worked full time and ran the household full time. However, my mom is a little emotionally flat. She is kind of like a robot, really, in that she doesn’t EVER show emotion about anything. When I called her and told her I was getting married her response was, “That’s nice. mr.pbbth called and asked our permission so we already know.” When I told her I was pregnant I decided to be sneaky about it and see if I could shock some emotion out of her so instead of calling her I ordered a t-shirt that said, “World’s Best Grandma” and had it sent to her at home. In response I got a call where she said, “Did you send me this shirt? Oh, okay. I don’t think I’m old enough to be a grandma.”
My dad is kind of the opposite. He worked full time and we certainly wouldn’t have starved to death or anything if my mom wasn’t around but we would have lived in a pigsty of a house and we would have had a lot less direction. He was really emotionally supportive though. He gets excited about happy events and sad about things that people are generally sad about. He really feels connected to family in a way my mother never has (or at least she has never shown) and comments pretty regularly about how he wishes his dad were still alive to see all the wonderful stuff going on with my life. If it had been up to him my brother and I would have spent our lives wearing RUSH concert t-shirts and living on chef boyardee though.
I didn’t include that poll option because I was afraid people would use it as an easy way out.
Anyone want to guess as to why mothers are winning by a 4 to 1 margin? Is it because they are traditionally expected to do all the child raising, so most fathers just stay out?
I voted for my mother because my dad practiced the fine art of “hands off” parenting. If mom was within walking distance, all problems would be deflected to her. I can’t blame him too much because that was the norm in Russia where he grew up. His dad was the same way, and so was my mother’s dad.
That’s a toughie. Dad was abusive, but Mom didn’t put a stop to it. Well, she asked him to stop, but didn’t feel there was anything else she could do. But I do believe she really wished it would stop, so I’ll say she gets the edge.
I’m very sorry for your loss. That’s a terrible time (as if there was ever a non-terrible time?) to lose a parent. Being a 13 year old is rough enough as is.
For me, I believe my mom was a better parent as I was growing up, but they’re even now. What my dad lacked in monetary support, he has mostly made up for in the way of not passing on so much emotional neurosis and by not judging me for my (lack of) religion in adulthood.
I love them both equally and both very, very much.
I also do not know why there is not a “equally effective” option.