Recommending Linux is good; forcing it down someone's throat is not.

If parents are just comfy using Windows, it'll get them super frustrated when they'll face new issues coming from Linux use, as you just can't turn Linux into Windows and they never asked for it.

Now, if they complain about all the shit Windows throws at them, you can offer an alternative.

Congrats. I did that several years ago and they had no issues. even have my grandmother using it as well. As longs as the internet icon was in the same spot she's good.

Nice. Take that, adware installers! Web exploits and phishing are still (minor) risks though, since they're mostly platform agnostic.

tried to do that but mom wanted some esoteric bookkeeping software to function - so back to windows for her

I'm about to do this for my mother as well. I just switched back myself and found Mint has come a very long way. The last time I ran it as my main OS 10 years ago it was pretty demanding from the user, but mint now is probably more user friendly than Windows.