What Does it Mean to be a Friend?

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

Apparently, the meaning of friendship is not the same for everyone. I mean in the broader sense.

I regularly post on a message board and yesterday, one of the people there asked a “what would you do” question. Her dilemma was whether to allow her 14-year-old daughter to attend the baby shower of her 15-year-old friend.

Admittedly, I’m biased towards saying yes, of course she should go. After all, I was in a similar situation as a teen and attending my baby shower doesn’t seem to have affected the lives of my friends in any negative way. However, had this poster chosen not to allow her daughter to go, I would have been OK with that.

The problem came when another poster stated that not only would she not allow her daughter to go, she would “encourage” her daughter to “cool off” the friendship. After all, she argued, having a baby is an adult responsibility and a teen girl is not mature enough to handle being supportive of a friend in such a situation. She said she encourages her daughter to make friends with people who share their values.

Apparently, those values do not include compassion or loyalty. They also don’t include learning to accept and understand those who are different.

If I dropped a friend every time we disagreed on something — be it life choices or politics or anything else — I would be a very lonely person. If I judged people based solely upon their mistakes, I would be a very lonely person.

So I agree with every decision my friends make? Of course not. Do I voice my opinion when I think a particular decision is detrimental to my friends? Yes. Do I drop those friends if they do it, anyway? Nope.

I also don’t drop a friend because “everyone else is doing it.” This is true even if my decision to remain loyal to one friend means I lose others. I figure if “friends” will stop speaking to me because I choose to make up my own mind, they were not truly my friends to begin with. And I’m better off without people like that in my life.

It makes me sad, though, to know that parents are teaching their children that it’s OK to drop a friend because that friend’s situation becomes inconvenient. It’s OK to be friends with people who don’t need your support at the moment, but as soon as life gets difficult, you just walk away. I hate that there are people out in the world who feel that way and I hate that those people pass that attitude down to their children.

I have several friends who have been in my life for 20 or 30 years. We’ve had our ups and downs. We’ve argued and made up. We’ve moved to all different parts of the country (and sometimes even the world). But in my times of need, they have always been there and I for them when they needed me. If one of them became homeless, I would welcome that person and his or her family into my home. If one of their spouses or children died, I would be on the next plane or in my car to get to that person as quickly as possible.

These are the values I have. These are the values I hope I’ve passed on to my daughter.