Kids are my Friendship Role Models

Admiring the ease and joy of childhood friendships and trying to bring a little of that into adult life.

When I was growing up, this was the (kind of trite) moral of every children’s movie, but I have to admit that it’s true: Being around kids really does remind you not to get too caught up in some of the dumber aspects of adulthood (namely being obsessed with money and status).

It’s refreshing being around people that aren’t preoccupied with those things (or sex). One thing I really admire about children is the importance they place on friendship.

My daughter for a while had a very tight group of friends in school. I know for a fact that they were driving their teacher nuts, this group of about five boys and girls. But nevertheless, they were pretty adorable. I would go up to school, and they would all be holding hands in a line. I used to joke with the parents that they were polyamorous.

They really loved each other. You could just tell by their interactions. They were constantly touching each other. When they talked, they would be right in the other’s face. The way they would greet each other, with such joy and excitement, like they hadn’t seen their friend in 13 years.

I don’t think you can match the childhood experience of friendship. I am still (sorta) close with a number of people I was friends with as a child. And I think it’s striking how much we still have in common, a few of them. And not in status/money ways, but in interests, in being able to relate to each other.

One of the things that makes me most jealous of children’s friendships is how they don’t have to schedule hangouts in advance. That’s the kind of friend I dream about now, who wants to just kind of mope around when there’s a window of a few hours here or there. (Sigh.) That kind of friend is hard to find. And with kids, the default mode is going to be silly. That’s another cool thing about kids, they are single minded almost about one thing: having fun.

My son has a couple friends right now that he is obsessed with. Every minute he is free he wants to be with these two boys. His plan for the whole summer is just to hang out with them every day. It is his favorite thing in the world. When he’s around them he’s just so happy. And when they aren’t around, a lot of times he just wants to mope and wait for them to come home and be available.

One of these boys, he was playing for his school’s basketball team and they were competing for some kind of title, I don’t know what. Here’s a cute story though. My son, he not only want to go and cheer on his friend, but also he modified one of his basketball jerseys with tape so it said the little guys last name 🥺 and wore it to the game. That is the level of support we should all be bringing to our close relationships.

I don’t know if other parents will be able to relate to this, but it’s very important for me to see my kids have this. More important, I would even say, than grades and school achievement. These childhood friendships are very important learning opportunities. The real world is social, and social skills are maybe the most important determinant of a good life. Not math skills or even reading. Maybe it’s pandemic fallout and general social weirdness in our society right now, but I feel like you can’t take for granted like you would have in the past that your kids will get these normal, wholesome experiences.

My kids friendships aren’t always perfect. They fight and get mad at each other all the time. Kids can also be jerky, and I try to encourage them to be inclusive etc. with mixed success.

I’ve definitely, with these long term friends I’ve had since childhood, done some things I’m not proud of. I think one of my biggest regrets in life, and one of the most difficult things in life, is to be loyal to the people you love and care about, I think. And I’m ashamed of a few times I haven’t done that. Sometimes it cuts both ways also. But I heard someone say once, in any long term relationship requires a lot of forgiveness. And I think that’s true.

This is going to make me sound weird and unrelatable, but maybe the coolest group of friends I’ve ever had was in middle school. There was this big group of girls. And so many of them were hysterically funny. Like they should have been professional comedians, I swear. We would crowd around one of those folding cafeteria tables at lunch, so many of us that we could only get on butt cheek on the table. And we would make up inside jokes and laugh till milk came out of our noses, etc. etc. I think that was a cool time because we were still sorta children but were embarking on this exciting new adventure (adolescence) together.

I know a group of women here in Cleveland that have really done a lot to keep close friendships with other people and I admire them so much. Some of them have even been friends since college and are now neighbors. And I just think to myself, GAH why didn’t I think of that? Isn’t that beautiful? You really can’t put a price on that. More and more, that kind of thing is what I admire in other people, what my version of success looks like.