Let Them be Friends

No one asked if they were getting married.

I hated it when I was a kid. You probably did too.

It made me squirm a little, I could feel the heat rising up in my ears. I grew silent and stared straight ahead. My brain suddenly felt thick, not knowing how to respond, searching for an answer that would be both cutting and safe, but feeling strongly that the best approach was probably to say nothing at all. It was the same feeling I'd get when I was being bullied and knew, without any doubt, that help would not be coming. I was cornered, no matter what I said or did next, I would be punished in some way. In this instance the suffering would be limited to mental and/or emotional trauma. It would pass soon enough, but the sediment of this, and every moment like it would build up into a reef of seething resentment and distrust.

The thing is, it was probably usually an innocent query from most people. It was never innocent coming from my dad. Though it wasn't malicious, he had a way of taking things too far. Most of the adults, and even some of the kids who engaged the topic, likely thought it was all in jest. Just a little fun. They didn't know what it was doing to me, and I imagine, many boys and girls around the country.

What is it? (I know, I'm doing the click bait long mysterious intro thing. Sorry.) What's the one question that caused so much anxiety in young Berto? It's this:

"Do you have a crush on anyone?"

Why?!!! Why do we ask kids these things at such a young age? Especially if they're not offering up the information on their own? And when we ask, why don't we take it seriously? Why is it a joke, a way to tease? Don't kids have enough to deal with socially that they don't need adults piling on to what is already a fraught social navigation?

"OK. Take a breath, Berto. You're over reacting a little bit."

Am I? AM I?!

I don't think I am. Think about it, how many friendships have you seen in young kids, hell how many can you remember from your own life, that ended because of outside questions about a crush? It happens, and it's not OK.

When kids are little they play with whoever is around. As they get just a little older, pre-school according to this article from Psychology Today, they start to gravitate towards same-sex friendships. Having read a few articles about this, I wonder at how matter of fact they are about this pull towards same-sex friendships. Most of them describe it as being totally normal and natural, and not at all due to societal factors like parents who consciously or not, push their children into this division. I don't wonder this in a vacuum. I see it every day. I remember it from my own childhood. Parents who nudge their children into whatever gender roles they themselves were nudged into. It's pervasive, and when it comes to the "crush question," it's largely unacknowledged.

Pink Chicken Footies

Sure, maybe you're sitting there thinking about the new-age parents and the recent tidal wave of gender neutral parenting. I think back to a yard sale we had in 2010 when we were moving to D.C. We were selling a bunch of baby clothes. A hip young couple came by, the woman was visibly pregnant. I listened to them as they picked through our assorted onesies and other newborn size offerings. "Ugh, turtles" she said. "Hmm...footballs and basketballs," he remarked disapprovingly. "I like this one, but the chicken with the bow is just so normative." she said about a pink footie PJ that Buddy had rocked like a straight up boss. "Yeah," her partner remarked as they turned away, "it's a shame people just can't do gender neutral."

"Thanks for coming." I offered cheerfully as they walked back down the driveway, too good for our 25-cent/piece infant clothes. Inside I screamed, "You idiots! Gender neutral doesn't mean only giving your kid green and yellow! It doesn't mean avoiding footballs. It doesn't mean any of that! It means just putting clothes on your kid without giving a shit about what's on it. My son wore a pink striped footie featuring a chicken with a bow. HE LOOKED AWESOME! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! GIVE YOUR DAUGHTER A BASKETBALL! IT HAS NO GENDER!!"

My man looks good in pink.

Lou provided an example of this just last night. I don't remember how it came up, but she was talking about coming out as someone who prefers the color blue. I know, maybe that's an extreme way of describing it, and yes, it's supposed to be funny. I'm sorry, I hope it's not offensive, but the way she talked about it, that's how it seemed to be for her. At the ripe old age of almost-seven, she talked about how she had always liked blue, but for some reason when she got to day care she just let everyone tell her to like pink. "So I just went along with it. I don't know why, I wanted to tell them I really liked blue, but I felt like I couldn't. Then I started telling everyone that I liked pink. I don't know why. But now I tell people about what I really I like, and I don't care what they think."

OK, I know I'm straying a little off topic here, but I'm coming around to it.

Just friends

When you press kids about crushes or tease them about who they "like," you're simply highlighting and emphasizing societally contrived differences between boys and girls. You're teaching children that they should only see the opposite gender as a potential romantic partner, rather than as another person in the world. When you do this before children are ready for those kinds of relationships, especially if you tease, you also introduce the idea that they should feel ashamed or uncomfortable about their relationships with the opposite gender. There are many reasons why our country is going through its current and long overdue awakening over how men treat women at work (and in general). One of these reasons is how we adults socialize little boys when we turn their platonic friendships into something they're not.

This often starts when kids are inappropriately young. I've heard parents of toddlers, or babies who are still crawling joke about how kids from the playgroup, or at the park are sweethearts. Really? Ew. Can you do me a favor and not sexualize my 20-month-old? Thanks. Beyond that, this line of questioning and teasing is almost exclusively heteronormative. When I hear parents engage in this behavior they're never saying "Hey Timmy, is that your boyfriend?" I've never heard anyone predict that little Jane and Samantha are going to get married based on their enjoyment of playing in the front yards together. Statistically your kid probably isn't homosexual, but do you really want to chance nudging them towards the closet before they can even walk?

It's tough because even if you refrain from this kind of behavior, it's still out there. Lou has been coming home telling us who she's going to marry since she was in daycare. I don't know if she got it from teachers, or parents, or kids, or Disney movies, or from having married parents. It's been about a 60/40 female/male split on who she's said she's getting hitched to, and I don't know if that means she's gay, or didn't really understand what being married meant. I'm fine with either explanation. I don't need my 3-year-old (now 7-year-old) to fully understand any of that yet. Though, she's known the biological facts of reproduction since she was about three, and she knows that men and women can marry anyone they want, I don't need her to feel pressured to declare herself until she decides.

I recently broached the topic with Buddy. He's been having some trouble with rough play at school. It's been mutually agreed upon rough play, and for the most part no one has been hurt by it. But the teachers don't like it. A couple of times he's mentioned verbal spats that grew physical. I wanted to know what the issues were. Buddy has a lot of girl friends that he plays with at school. At age 9, I know the kinds of things kids tease about. For all the reasons above, I didn't ask him about any crush he might have. I asked "What kinds of things do people tease about?" He was non-committal. "Do they tease about crushes? Like, who likes who?" They do, but for him that's not what any of his altercations were about. It seems that most of teasing at school starts not with boys and girls being friends, but with someone telling a friend who they themselves like. Being nine-year-olds, the secret never keeps and someone tells the object of the crush, and sometimes problems arise. From there we talked about the nature of crushes. How it's OK to have them, or not have them. How if someone accuses you of a crush (what a terrible concept "accused" of a crush) it's OK to brush it off, because ultimately it's not something to be ashamed of. It's either true or it's not, and either way it's between you and the other person. Relationships, in any form, aren't subject to public approval.

You can fight crime together without other entanglements.

I hope my kids have a good sense of this stuff. I hope they know they can come talk to us when they do start to venture beyond feelings of normal friendship. I hope I can foster an environment where they know they won't be made to feel ashamed of their feelings. I also hope they continue along their current trajectories, having friends of the opposite gender who remain just friends. My goal is for them to form and maintain comfortable relationships with people in general at school, at work, and socially, that are devoid of "will they won't they" complications.

I want my son and my daughters to move through their lives seeing the person in front of them, not a bunch of external complications and societal noise. It starts with helping them cultivate normal friendships with members of the other gender. It starts early. It starts at home.

Just let your kids be friends.

The Unrequited Best Friend

Lou and her new BFF

Lou has had the same best friend for almost her entire life. She's been talking about this kid since the time she was able to talk and engage in cooperative play. She has gone as far as to declare that she will marry this other little girl, "if I can still find her when we're grown ups." The thing is, the few times I've seen them together at daycare this girl looks like she wants nothing to do with Lou. The people at daycare have told my wife that the two kids play together all the time. I wonder if what they're seeing is Lou following this girl around and assuming that's a friendship.

We've tried to nurture the relationship. We've left our contact information for the girl's parents, but they've never called. We met them once at pick up after Parent's Night Out and they kind of blew us off. Lou hasn't been to daycare in a few months now, and now that she's not full time she's not always in the same room as the other girl. Still, my wife and Lou made special trip down to the center just to drop off a birthday party invitation for her.

The invitation was somehow misplaced. We got an email from a parent saying that a kid we'd never heard of would be attending and thanking us for the invitation. This happened despite the invitation being addressed to Lou's best friend by name. T called the daycare to ask if they could leave a note for the best friend's parents explaining what happened and hoping the kid could come to the party. We never heard back. This was the only friend Lou had invited.

The day of the party, as the guests arrived and the kids played Lou wandered around the house looking bummed. She kept saying she was fine, but after some prodding she finally asked, "When will she get here?" I had to explain again that we hadn't heard back from the kid's parents and that we didn't know if she was coming. Lou eventually came around but the first hour and a half of the party was a dud for her. It sucked. But it was the next few days that have been heart breaking.

It seems like Lou may have finally given up on this kid, which is fine. But she's been replacing her in the role of "best friend" with an assortment of characters that makes me want to scoop her up and hold her and tell her she's too young to be turning into Miss Havisham.

Her first replacement was Lentil, the cleft lip dog who has been sending her gifts as part of being in Lentil's fan club. She started talking about Lentil just like she had been talking about this girl from daycare. So yeah, Lentil is on the list for next year's birthday party. In some ways this mirrors her obsession with her previous "best friend," in that there's some relationship established, but it's not a real friendship. At least she had actually interacted with the little girl, she's only ever gotten letters from Lentil.

Her second declaration is the one that really got me. We were eating dinner on the deck when she declared that carpenter bees were her best friend because they would never sting her. She has continued with the bees for the last week. She also likes them because there are a lot of them so they're always around.

Oh honey sweetie baby. Oh my darling Lou Bean. You will start pre-K next year and hopefully you will meet some actual friends. Until then I hope that space in your heart will be filled by someone or something other than some bees.

I'd never seen a bee tongue before

Yesterday we found a carpenter bee limping around the basement play room. Lou's first reaction was to run upstairs screaming and crying. "But honey," I said, "that's your best friend." She replied that her brother's exclamation upon finding the bee was what scared her. My normal inclination is to kill things that enter my home. But I just read a meme the day before about nursing tired bees back to health using sugar water. And bees are important so I took the bee outside and gave it a spoon of sugar water.

When I showed Lou she was thrilled to see her best friend eating. It was pretty cool. I'd never seen a bee's tongue before. Both kids got to have one of those cool at home educational experiences, and I got to be cool hero dad for ten minutes.

In the end the bee took some time to recoup, then it flew away. I learned later that it's probably rejoined its hive and that the lot of them are probably chewing through my floor joists. Now I'll have to Fredo the bees and hope my daughter can find a human friend, and that she never ever finds out what I've done.

Friends Again

A while back I penned some thoughts on friendship. It turns out that like the relationships themselves my view on friendship continues to evolve. If you look at my facebook page it will tell you that I have 398 “friends.” Of these I have met all but three of them in real life. There is a group of these that I have not seen since high school. That group is further divided into people I did and didn’t really know very well in high school. There is another group of people I talk to regularly on facebook but never see. Corollary to that is the people I see all the time in real life but who are never on their facebook pages. I’m not the first to comment on how social networking sites have changed and possibly diminished the quality of friendship. I’m not here to hammer that point. I recently realized that all this “friending” had worked a subconscious change on me. I became very cautious about referring to people as “friends.”

I didn’t notice this change for a while though I did notice a little more precision in describing my relationships with people. For example when the topic of Andy Samberg comes up it usually comes up that we went to Berkeley High at the same time. For some reason I always feel compelled to emphasize that I didn’t really know him. I remember him being around but that’s about it. It’s a little weird for me because I’m a big fan of his work on SNL and I’m proud that he’s a BHS grad the same way I’m proud of my mom or Raymond Burr. In fact the first part of the Raymond Burr conversation goes pretty much the same as the Andy Samburg conversation:

Person: “Raymond Burr for some reason.”
SR: “Oh, he went to Berkeley High.”
Person: “Oh, neat.”

The difference is this:

Person: “Ha ha, I’m on a Boat. I love that guy.”
SR: “Oh, he went to Berkeley High.”
Person: “Really? What’s he like? Is he funny? Was he in the yacht club?”
SR: “I didn’t really know him.
Person: “…”

This is usually followed a few weeks later with Person telling someone “Oh, yeah Berto knows that guy.” Followed by me having to correct them. So what’s the point? Well I bet if I were to go on facebook and send a friend request to one of Andy’s (see we’re on a first name basis) buddies from The Lonely Island who I used to skate with, that guy would accept it. Then, if I sent a friend request to Andy he’d see we have that guy in common and he’d probably accept it. Heck, he might even remember me. Then, in the context of facebook we’d be “friends.” But in reality our relationship wouldn’t be any different than it is right now. By contrast, when the topic comes up, I readily tell people that my friend Malik was on the Real World. Because Malik and I really are friends. We hang out. We BBQ. I know his family and he knows mine. He has my WiFi password.

These distinctions don’t just apply to the semi-famous. I break all the people in my life into these categories. The thing is, it feels like a very antiquated and formal thing to do. Five years ago I would have just called anyone I knew, even a little bit, in high school a “friend.” Now they are “acquaintances,” or “classmates,” or “we were in a play together.” I didn’t really realize what I was doing until I wrote this for my other blog.

“I recently came across a former classmate of mine from Berkeley High on the internet. If she ever reads this I hope she’s not offended by my use of “classmate” and “Ms. Welch.” I still have a hard time using the title “friend” for people I haven’t heard from in 15 years. Besides, though we were friendly and spent a lot of time together one semester while working on a play I don’t know if we she would consider us old friends. Though we may become friends again now that we’re in touch. Or at least that version of friendship you can have between busy adults who live on opposite sides of the country.”

Oops. I used another example with a “public figure”. So maybe this whole article is really about my comfort level with name dropping or the appearance of name dropping. The thing is, the more “friends” I have online the fewer people I call friends in real life. There is some balance however. There are a few people I hardly knew in high school who I communicate with all the time on facebook. If not for social networking I would never have known how interesting they are. Of course, I never see them out in the world. I’ve thought about setting up some kind of happy hour for all of my facebook “friends” so we can all say we’ve seen each other at least once in the last fifteen years but after watching The Guild I don’t know how well that would go over.

I feel like I’m getting sidetracked. Where was I going? I think if we really analyze the issue we see that “friendship” isn’t necessarily diluted by social networking. Sure you end up being “friends” with a bunch of people you would otherwise just lose track of but is that so bad? It’s nice to be able to keep an eye and an ear on the comings and goings of people who were once a bigger part of your life. It’s also nice to get better acquainted with people who slipped by on the first run. And hey, if we all become a little more precise with our language that’s not a bad side effect either.