The friendships we make, we keep, run from or endure, life happens.

I often smile when I see a new mother exploring the new relationship she now has with the new little person she gave birth to.  I, being a mother myself, know the instantaneous love of a child.  I can't describe it and don't really know how to try.  One minute you are a woman trying to figure out life and in many ways you are the center of your world, or your man is really close to being the center of your world and then they hand you a little wrinkled bundle of red to purple crying flesh and your world has a new center.  Really? be honest new borns are only beautiful to the people who love them, they get really cute in a few days when they pink up and fill out.  Becoming a mother changes your world and if it doesn't something in wrong.  One of the things I see in a lot of new mommas is the belief that someone taught that naughtiness to their perfect child.  Really?  Did someone have to teach them to roll over?  Did they have to be taught to find their toes and fingers?  Did someone teach them to smile?  Did someone teach them to cry when they were hunger or needed their diaper changed?  Most moms would say no, that is different.  Is it really?  I believe that all children progress through the stages of being a human and those stages include being naughty.  They are testing their boundaries.  They tell lies, if you think they don't you are lying to yourself.  No, some other persons bad kid didn't teach your good kid how to do that, they figured it out all on their own.  If they have ever heard a naughty word, from an adult, a tv, a child or any other place they will  repeat it as it was something new they heard, it was different and they wanted to try it out.  They continue to do it because they got such a great reaction from you!  They find it fun to get mom or dad to react to that word, it is definitely stuck in their little brains to be used again, say at church? They are innately mean to other children, they are the center of their world, and yours, so why oh why would they have to share, shouldn't they be able to grab it back, pull hair to get it, and sticking their fingers in another child's eye always makes the other child let go.  Did someone really teach them that or did trial and error work just like when they learned to crawl or walk?  I think that so many parents never learn that simple lesson. They will tell you their child's whole life, someone else got them into doing that it was never their child's fault. They never make their child take responsibility and their child is always naughty, and in adult hood something much worse.  I digress. 

One of the many things we learn as children is how to make friendships, our siblings are our first friends, if you don't have siblings maybe you get to have that relationship with a cousin.  Those very first relationships will be the strongest and the longest of your life.  You are blessed to have them and if you don't have them someone else gets to be your first friendship and share that special time with you.  We learn how to fight, forgive, forget, dispute, debate, love and really care about our fellow man as young children in our play houses, our back yards, in our tree houses or on our bikes, in our secure little worlds.  Later we go to school and learn to befriend the world outside of our homes and families.  We learn that not all people will like us and no matter how hard we try we can't make everyone like us, those who don't learn that get stuck in bad cycles of forever trying to make people like them, they end up giving up their self,  their self respect and self worth trying which is never healthy.  We as parents need to help them understand that not every one is a good fit for them, that they are a great kid and if someone doesn't like them it takes nothing away from them.  We need to help them not be bullied and not let them become door mats to someone else's whims.  Children in grade school can be, and are mean, they aren't doing it to hurt others they are just as lost and scared as your child.  They are still young enough that they are still close to being the most important person in their world, they really should maintain self love all of their lives but not at the pain and expense of other. This is their time to learn self control, kindness of others and begin to make those other life time relationships.  They are learning that some friendship will come and go, they are learning how to make friendships, healthy ones, and to not give up themselves do so.  Now is when moms  and dads need to help them become better people, that is if they know how to themselves, they may not, as we all are a work in progress doing the best we can and unfortunately some parents aren't there when their child needs that from them.



In the end life is about the growing process through which we travel, we befriend, are befriend, we unfriend, we walk away, we return, we love, we hate, we grow and become...... The what we become makes us different from day to day, week to week, and year to year.  We aren't our pasts and no where near what we will become, we are only the we we are today.  We make mistakes and grow from them.  NO someone did not make us be how we are we became how we are along the way, taking pieces from here and there.  We had support, caring, neglect, sorrow, happiness, love, hate, and the great they to guide our way... tomorrow.