I grew up in a family where I was the only girl and I had two brothers. I think because of this, I always thought my little family would work out the same. I always wanted one girl and the rest boys! I currently have three girls, a fourth baby on the way and we don’t know whether it’s a boy or girl. I LOVE my girls, but I have my reasons for the fear of girls. I was never your typical girl. To this day, I don’t feel I have ever experienced a girl best friend. My Mom is the closest this comes for me, but that is also different because we are at different places in our lives. She’s in Grandma mode, and I’m in Mom mode!
I’ve always found girls to be somewhat difficult. I have always preferred to have guys as friends. Guys speak their minds and don’t beat around the bush. Also, they do not thrive off of drama as many girls do. I never had a guy use me to get to a girl friend. I many times experienced the opposite. Now that I am married, having guys as friends doesn’t quite work. I was thrilled when I met my husband to find that he had five brothers. I felt sure that would make my life feel “normal” because I then would have five automatic friends that were safe! That hasn’t quite worked out how I hoped, and that doesn’t mean it never will…there’s still time for those relationships to grow, but as of right now, it didn’t work out how I’d hoped.
My reason for bringing all of this up is an experience I had the other day. For church I work with kids ages 3-11! It’s a LOT of fun and the kids are fantastic. There was a bicker between three little girls. Being the “leader”, it was my responsibility to step in and see what I could do to help resolve the situation. As I’m talking to these three little girls, ages 4, I come to find that apologies aren’t going to be made. So, I send one back to class. I took the other two aside and decided we needed to have a heart to heart. I asked them why they didn’t want to be friends with the other little girl and why they were picking on her. Their answer was simple. “We already have a friend at school. We don’t need another friend.” I have seen this happen to my own daughter at school and it seriously kills me how young all this starts between girls. My daughter is 5, going on 6. She would come home from school and tell me that girls were telling her who she could or could not be friends with. Often she would get a new girl in class and I’d ask if she was nice to her or made friends and my daughter would tell me that so and so had told her not to be the new girls friend. These many situations I saw as a Mom gave me the opportunity to teach my daughter. I am so grateful for teaching moments. Because they are just that. Moments. It sometimes feels like that might be my one chance to really make an impact and let it sink in. I’ve taught my daughter that you can have many friends. You might have one friend you feel especially close to, but you can still have many other friends. I have tried to teach her to be nice to everyone because that is what Jesus would want.
Back to my moment at church. I then took the opportunity to share with them the things I’ve shared with my own daughter. I tried to explain that Jesus wants us to love, be friends with, and especially kind to everyone.
I remember being in middle school and high school and thinking I couldn’t wait to grow up because I assumed it would all get easier. I was so wrong. If anything, it gets more difficult and more complicated. As I get older it’s just new things to face. There’s still competition/comparing, in the way of looks, weight, so on and so forth. Then there is the big one…how we parent. We all do it so differently and I’m of the opinion that it’s not a matter of right or wrong, it’s often a matter of what works for each family individually. What works for me and my family, may not be what works for other families. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just different. Then there are things like our spouses and who they are and how we treat them and the relationship each couple has. There’s just so much involved. Now, having said that. I must express my deep gratitude for the close women friends I do have. I have been truly blessed to have a hand full of women that I do care for and they are just easy to be around. I love our differences and I love the lack of drama that exists between us!
The other thing that I am completely unaware of how I will handle or the right way to handle is the whole sister thing. I didn’t have a sister. I never had to share clothes or see my clothes get worn by younger sisters. I already see that my girls compete over silly things….like who turns off the TV. If I ask one to do something, two go running to get there first and do what I’ve asked. I think all that is fairly typical and “normal”, especially for their ages. So, I’m not worried about it yet. I just am so not aware of how sister relationships work. I have sister-in-laws, but I don’t feel like that can even relate to being sisters raised in the same home by the same parents. Hopefully, I will figure things out as I go and most especially I hope that I turn to Heavenly Father for guidance. The best advice my Mom gave me about becoming a parent was, “Raise them as Heavenly Father’s children, not as your own.” I am so grateful for that advice and I really try to do that. I can see how easy it would be to become caught up in trying to make them what I want them to be, but I have seen that in action and believe with all my heart that that does not work.
My hope for someday is that all girls, young ladies, women could come to realize that we all are who we are. We need to accept that, embrace our differences. If there are people you just don’t click with, that’s okay. That’s bound to happen. You can still be kind to that person, you just may not go out of your way to be close to that person. I personally have people that I care about, but for whatever reasons am not super close to them. And for me, that’s okay. I’d rather do that, than force something that could be overwhelming and stressful.
Let’s all realize we can have many, many friends. Let’s all try and focus on the things we do have in common with one another versus only looking at the differences!
