One aspect that isn't talked about much here is the social/media pressure to have a best friend. I have a friend who is an only child and so disappointed that she doesn't seem to have a BFF like the ones she's sees on TV. I'm not sure why we have that expectation for ourselves or our children. Like it is akin to being single if you don't have a best friend, or someone doesn't think you're their best friend.
On a broader level, I feel like this is a way to rank friends, and I also don't understand our obsession with ranking. I have great friends. But which one is the best?! One must be the best! I've tried to de-emphasize favourites with my kids. You don't have to have a favourite colour (why are my kids asked this so much?) or one favourite food. Every time you're presented with multiple options, it doesn't have to be a quest to figure out which one is the best, or which one is your favourite. We can like different things at different times for different reasons and don't have to constantly rank them!
As always, you've written eloquently about a topic that feels hard to fully express in a concise way. I 100% agree. I live in a mixed middle/upper class area and I have a 10-year-old, 9-year-old and a 4-year-old. I work from home and have always found the pressures of setting up playdates to be another thing to add to my list. I haven't shunned them completely; I've done my best. But when I look at the tight-knit kid groups at school, it's obvious that they're fully orchestrated by the parents. So much so that I think it'd be impossible for my kids to be a part of them without me first breaching the group by developing some sort of new, close friendship. I'm hoping this evolves over the next few years. That agency for kids to build and maintain their own relationships is something I am so looking forward to as they get older!
Also, I devoured The Great Believers. Have you read The Heart's Invisible Furies? Highly recommend!!
I absolutely loved The Great Believers, just found it so vibrant and evocative and basically wept in the final chapters of the book. I didn't think Makkai's newest one was as accomplished, though the story was compelling. Hundred Year House is the one I send people to if they tell me they need another Makkai to read.
Thank you for writing this- this topic has been something I’ve struggled with for years! My 13 year old recently came to me and said that she really wanted a best friend. I asked what a best friend means to her and she said, “someone who always picks you first to do stuff with”. I love how you suggested that a best friend is a kind of protection. She sees other kids in her friend circle who have known each other since kindergarten and who do everything together and feels left out for not having the same kind of relationship with someone.
I will say that in almost all of these best friend pairings, their mothers play a huge role in maintaining those relationships by signing the kids up for the same activities, including the kids in family vacations, and doing things together as families. I’ve often felt guilty for “not doing my part” to cultivate a best friend situation for my kids but at this point in my life, I do not have the mental energy to build a new friendship with another parent with whom the only connection we have is kids of the same age. Is it selfish of me to be so protective of my own time and social battery life? Maybe, but I justify it by reasoning that the truest friendships in my daughter’s life will be the ones that grow organically and where she is the one who puts in the hard work of maintaining them.
Gah! You beautifully articulated something I've long thought, but never put words to. I've always bristled at the term "best friend", perhaps in part because I've never had any obvious ones. I have several friends who show up for me in different ways. Does there need to be a best?
There's also some strange responsibility implied in it, too, that's always made me uncomfortable, ie, "Since you're my best friend, you must always return my calls quickly and come over when I need you." It seems really forced and strange.
I have a six year old son - not long ago, he was invited to a friend's birthday party that he was going to have to miss. When I told the child's mom, she said, "Oh, (blank) is going to be so sad that his bestie isn't there!"
I was immediately struck at how random that seemed to me. My son certainly liked her kid, but never spoke about him in any way that that suggest that there was a deeper connection there (oh, and they are six. They talk about soccer and farts most of the time... there's not a lot to really connect deeply on!). It made me realize that the best friend label was something that she wanted and needed, not her son.
I agree that much of this seems orchestrated by the parents (moms) at a young age. I can see that my son is social (enough) and can navigate on his own. I trust that as he gets older, he'll find the people that he naturally connects with and gravitates towards.
When my kids first got phones, parents 'friended' all their kids' good friends (in my social circle at the time at least). Several have dropped me along the way, but those that remain I look at their posts and never 'like' or comment, but enjoy seeing what they are doing now.
They are all in college now, and I am struck by one girl who has a million BFFs and besties. It's always someone birthday, there are cute pictures through the years for old friends, recent pics for the newer friends. But I can't help feeling if everyone is your bestie, that no one's really your bestie. It's a term of endearment, but doesn't mean what adults think it means.
It must be something we all eventually grow out of, because as an adult I'd never refer to someone as my best friend. A good friend from high school/college, an old work buddy, sure. And I think the status can also be inferred by how often or how fondly you refer to them.
My son is three, and not in school/daycare, so his main friends right now are the children of adults we like. He talks about them a lot but when the kids come over or we meet at a park, he only plays with them half the time. But he loves meeting a random kid, playing with them for 20 minutes, and then talking about "his friend" for the next few months. He played with a little British girl at a park in Lisbon two weeks ago for five minutes and he can't stop talking about her. If this is him showing that he wants to make his own friends, I am all for it!
Oh my gosh! If you’re reading The Great Believers you MUST listen to the season of the podcast Fiasco that details the AIDS epidemic. I learned so much by pairing the two, and it felt like such a immersive experience that lit my brain on fire.
I feel guilty that I haven’t done enough to cultivate this girl BFF group for my daughter (10) as although she seems to have some friends, not that core group (and she laments this). I feel like I didn’t do enough earlier to schedule play dates, etc. even though I can’t remember my mom doing anything like that in the 80s
Thought season 1 of the podcast “Beyond all Repair” was pretty fantastic- not a true crime whodunit but goes deeply into one story and makes you consider big questions related to guilt, incarceration and the idea of reformibility, mental illness, and of course highlights how FUBAR the criminal justice system is.
My son is 6 and has two close pals who I’d refer to as his “besties”, but the friendship dynamics are tough. One is a girl and this year, the kids really split by gender, so he was excluded from the girl activities. The pressure to find those close friends feels much more pronounced than I expected it to feel. His other pal is a year older and the school splits playtime after this year, so he won’t have his playground friend.
Our school does this wild thing where they don’t shuffle classes from year to year, so the class he’s in now is his class for the next 5 years… I had hoped for a shuffle to mix up some of the classroom dynamics and give him an opportunity to find other kids he really connects with.
The parents really play a role, we really like my son’s pals parents and we are all without local family so will exchange favours, so probably help facilitate a closer friendship then if they were just school pals.
Sometimes your excellent posts trigger something (not that it is your fault!). As a parent of older kids let me just say some of the toxic moms (of girls...I know there are toxic moms of boys but I don't know them as well) actually get worse as they get invested in their kids boyfriends, best friend on the soccer team, friend group who all do x together. You can see it in carpools and stuff like that! (yes I live in a suburb but it is not a super fancy one though with gentrification who knows anymore) Obviously not everyone is like this but I was really surprised. I do think in the elementary years the whole bff thing is sort of embraced by parents because then making plans outside of school is easier and honestly, the jackpot is if the kids love each other and you like the parents: then you can all get along! So people really love that and want to keep that going. But compared to my experience in two different daycares in two different parts of the country (where I generally found parents supportive, inclusive, and looking out for everyone) I find the elementary parents and up really shockingly weird/clique-y/protective/striving. It honestly gets a little better when the kids have more agency and the kids make and drop friends through middle school and then parents look stupid being all invested.
Amanda mull shopping episode of you’re wrong about! And would love to see you in LA if you’re available! I do have a best friend and the kids have a revolving door of them. Who knows.
This is such an interesting topic! I have boys, and I think that the concept of "besties" is not such a big deal with them as it is with girls, from what I see among the daughters of our friends. My twelve year old I don't think would claim to have a best friend at school but does have a tight little group of friends that I would classify as his best friends - he hangs out in a larger group of maybe eight kids, but always invites the same three of them to spend the night, and go to the movies. My nine year old has a rotating cast of best friends that seems to change every month or so as far as the one kid he wants to spend the most time with outside of school, but has definitely had tightest connection/best friend status with one little boy since they were both babies together at daycare and are still always happiest together in fourth grade. It doesn't matter to me whether or not they have a "best friend", I'm just happy they have friends! We do emphasize that both kids should always be each other's best friends as brothers (luckily, they really are very close and love each other tons) because they will always be the person who they can most connect to in terms of their shared upbringing and will hopefully always be around for each other for support. On a personal note, like you, I just had fleeting moments of best friends status as a child. Maybe part of it was moving schools in second and in fifth grade, because I feel like a lot of those friendships are really set at the younger ages. I do have one very close friend who I guess I would classify as my best friend because we have known each other since we were babies as our moms were very good friends, and we still talk weekly and always get together when we are in town at the same time, she's godmother to one of my kids and I am to one of hers. But as far as having a friend that I talk to daily or multiple times a week, that's not something that exists for me. And that's fine! I still have lots of friends that I talk to several times a month, and honestly I'm not sure that it is sustainable to have a friendship more intense than that in this stage of parenting and life.
Honestly-- parents are way too invested in their kids' friendships from every aspect. And yes, including the label too! I hear from lots of readers/listeners who stop being friends because their kids aren't getting along. This is so short sighted and the focus is just on these kids' friendships from the get go.
This is a really interesting topic! The parental effort piece fascinates.
I had a rule that I said “yes” to as many birthday party invitations as possible when the kids were young (pre-k and K years), mostly so I could see my child’s interactions with other kids and see if there were any parents I gelled with (mostly not).
Both of my kids (son & daughter) came home in their kindergarten year declaring they had besties. I never taught them this concept. It was only when I heard the friends name enough that I would make the effort to try to get parent info and set some things up. But they both bugged me so much about it, and I mostly it did it to appease them.
My 5th grade son’s friend group has gotten a bit larger over the years. He also migrates well between groups. He’s made it a point to connect himself in with certain friend groups because he thinks they’re funny, have similar interests etc. I am so impressed with his abilities because I had no social skills as a kid. I have become friends with some of the kids’ parents, but that has happened organically and not necessarily through my efforts or theirs.
My 1st grade daughter only has her BFF and they’re very attached to each other. It feels precarious because this girl attends the same school as my kids because her mom is a teacher there. She lives too far away to play together on the weekends or join an activity they both like. I suspect there will come a difficult time sooner than later when this friend leaves the school and my child will have to adjust. So my role there will be to support her and hopefully build confidence to find a new person or group.
I had a therapist once say that it’s best to spread your friend groups and social connections far and wide. This can include school friends, extracurricular activity friends, religious institution friends, extended family, etc. That way, when you’re on the outs with one or more groups, which happens a lot!, you still have others you can turn to. I like this idea a lot. It has helped me because, like you, I haven’t had a single BFF most of my life. And my friend group from high school/college, with whom I am the closest, can sometimes feel alienating to me.
My son has cultivated different groups largely on his own. I do wonder if my daughter will need more support here, but I haven’t really made any extra efforts yet. I think it just takes time.
One aspect that isn't talked about much here is the social/media pressure to have a best friend. I have a friend who is an only child and so disappointed that she doesn't seem to have a BFF like the ones she's sees on TV. I'm not sure why we have that expectation for ourselves or our children. Like it is akin to being single if you don't have a best friend, or someone doesn't think you're their best friend.
On a broader level, I feel like this is a way to rank friends, and I also don't understand our obsession with ranking. I have great friends. But which one is the best?! One must be the best! I've tried to de-emphasize favourites with my kids. You don't have to have a favourite colour (why are my kids asked this so much?) or one favourite food. Every time you're presented with multiple options, it doesn't have to be a quest to figure out which one is the best, or which one is your favourite. We can like different things at different times for different reasons and don't have to constantly rank them!
As always, you've written eloquently about a topic that feels hard to fully express in a concise way. I 100% agree. I live in a mixed middle/upper class area and I have a 10-year-old, 9-year-old and a 4-year-old. I work from home and have always found the pressures of setting up playdates to be another thing to add to my list. I haven't shunned them completely; I've done my best. But when I look at the tight-knit kid groups at school, it's obvious that they're fully orchestrated by the parents. So much so that I think it'd be impossible for my kids to be a part of them without me first breaching the group by developing some sort of new, close friendship. I'm hoping this evolves over the next few years. That agency for kids to build and maintain their own relationships is something I am so looking forward to as they get older!
Also, I devoured The Great Believers. Have you read The Heart's Invisible Furies? Highly recommend!!
I absolutely loved The Great Believers, just found it so vibrant and evocative and basically wept in the final chapters of the book. I didn't think Makkai's newest one was as accomplished, though the story was compelling. Hundred Year House is the one I send people to if they tell me they need another Makkai to read.
Thank you for writing this- this topic has been something I’ve struggled with for years! My 13 year old recently came to me and said that she really wanted a best friend. I asked what a best friend means to her and she said, “someone who always picks you first to do stuff with”. I love how you suggested that a best friend is a kind of protection. She sees other kids in her friend circle who have known each other since kindergarten and who do everything together and feels left out for not having the same kind of relationship with someone.
I will say that in almost all of these best friend pairings, their mothers play a huge role in maintaining those relationships by signing the kids up for the same activities, including the kids in family vacations, and doing things together as families. I’ve often felt guilty for “not doing my part” to cultivate a best friend situation for my kids but at this point in my life, I do not have the mental energy to build a new friendship with another parent with whom the only connection we have is kids of the same age. Is it selfish of me to be so protective of my own time and social battery life? Maybe, but I justify it by reasoning that the truest friendships in my daughter’s life will be the ones that grow organically and where she is the one who puts in the hard work of maintaining them.
Gah! You beautifully articulated something I've long thought, but never put words to. I've always bristled at the term "best friend", perhaps in part because I've never had any obvious ones. I have several friends who show up for me in different ways. Does there need to be a best?
There's also some strange responsibility implied in it, too, that's always made me uncomfortable, ie, "Since you're my best friend, you must always return my calls quickly and come over when I need you." It seems really forced and strange.
I have a six year old son - not long ago, he was invited to a friend's birthday party that he was going to have to miss. When I told the child's mom, she said, "Oh, (blank) is going to be so sad that his bestie isn't there!"
I was immediately struck at how random that seemed to me. My son certainly liked her kid, but never spoke about him in any way that that suggest that there was a deeper connection there (oh, and they are six. They talk about soccer and farts most of the time... there's not a lot to really connect deeply on!). It made me realize that the best friend label was something that she wanted and needed, not her son.
I agree that much of this seems orchestrated by the parents (moms) at a young age. I can see that my son is social (enough) and can navigate on his own. I trust that as he gets older, he'll find the people that he naturally connects with and gravitates towards.
When my kids first got phones, parents 'friended' all their kids' good friends (in my social circle at the time at least). Several have dropped me along the way, but those that remain I look at their posts and never 'like' or comment, but enjoy seeing what they are doing now.
They are all in college now, and I am struck by one girl who has a million BFFs and besties. It's always someone birthday, there are cute pictures through the years for old friends, recent pics for the newer friends. But I can't help feeling if everyone is your bestie, that no one's really your bestie. It's a term of endearment, but doesn't mean what adults think it means.
It must be something we all eventually grow out of, because as an adult I'd never refer to someone as my best friend. A good friend from high school/college, an old work buddy, sure. And I think the status can also be inferred by how often or how fondly you refer to them.
My son is three, and not in school/daycare, so his main friends right now are the children of adults we like. He talks about them a lot but when the kids come over or we meet at a park, he only plays with them half the time. But he loves meeting a random kid, playing with them for 20 minutes, and then talking about "his friend" for the next few months. He played with a little British girl at a park in Lisbon two weeks ago for five minutes and he can't stop talking about her. If this is him showing that he wants to make his own friends, I am all for it!
Oh my gosh! If you’re reading The Great Believers you MUST listen to the season of the podcast Fiasco that details the AIDS epidemic. I learned so much by pairing the two, and it felt like such a immersive experience that lit my brain on fire.
I feel guilty that I haven’t done enough to cultivate this girl BFF group for my daughter (10) as although she seems to have some friends, not that core group (and she laments this). I feel like I didn’t do enough earlier to schedule play dates, etc. even though I can’t remember my mom doing anything like that in the 80s
Thought season 1 of the podcast “Beyond all Repair” was pretty fantastic- not a true crime whodunit but goes deeply into one story and makes you consider big questions related to guilt, incarceration and the idea of reformibility, mental illness, and of course highlights how FUBAR the criminal justice system is.
My son is 6 and has two close pals who I’d refer to as his “besties”, but the friendship dynamics are tough. One is a girl and this year, the kids really split by gender, so he was excluded from the girl activities. The pressure to find those close friends feels much more pronounced than I expected it to feel. His other pal is a year older and the school splits playtime after this year, so he won’t have his playground friend.
Our school does this wild thing where they don’t shuffle classes from year to year, so the class he’s in now is his class for the next 5 years… I had hoped for a shuffle to mix up some of the classroom dynamics and give him an opportunity to find other kids he really connects with.
The parents really play a role, we really like my son’s pals parents and we are all without local family so will exchange favours, so probably help facilitate a closer friendship then if they were just school pals.
Sometimes your excellent posts trigger something (not that it is your fault!). As a parent of older kids let me just say some of the toxic moms (of girls...I know there are toxic moms of boys but I don't know them as well) actually get worse as they get invested in their kids boyfriends, best friend on the soccer team, friend group who all do x together. You can see it in carpools and stuff like that! (yes I live in a suburb but it is not a super fancy one though with gentrification who knows anymore) Obviously not everyone is like this but I was really surprised. I do think in the elementary years the whole bff thing is sort of embraced by parents because then making plans outside of school is easier and honestly, the jackpot is if the kids love each other and you like the parents: then you can all get along! So people really love that and want to keep that going. But compared to my experience in two different daycares in two different parts of the country (where I generally found parents supportive, inclusive, and looking out for everyone) I find the elementary parents and up really shockingly weird/clique-y/protective/striving. It honestly gets a little better when the kids have more agency and the kids make and drop friends through middle school and then parents look stupid being all invested.
Amanda mull shopping episode of you’re wrong about! And would love to see you in LA if you’re available! I do have a best friend and the kids have a revolving door of them. Who knows.
This is such an interesting topic! I have boys, and I think that the concept of "besties" is not such a big deal with them as it is with girls, from what I see among the daughters of our friends. My twelve year old I don't think would claim to have a best friend at school but does have a tight little group of friends that I would classify as his best friends - he hangs out in a larger group of maybe eight kids, but always invites the same three of them to spend the night, and go to the movies. My nine year old has a rotating cast of best friends that seems to change every month or so as far as the one kid he wants to spend the most time with outside of school, but has definitely had tightest connection/best friend status with one little boy since they were both babies together at daycare and are still always happiest together in fourth grade. It doesn't matter to me whether or not they have a "best friend", I'm just happy they have friends! We do emphasize that both kids should always be each other's best friends as brothers (luckily, they really are very close and love each other tons) because they will always be the person who they can most connect to in terms of their shared upbringing and will hopefully always be around for each other for support. On a personal note, like you, I just had fleeting moments of best friends status as a child. Maybe part of it was moving schools in second and in fifth grade, because I feel like a lot of those friendships are really set at the younger ages. I do have one very close friend who I guess I would classify as my best friend because we have known each other since we were babies as our moms were very good friends, and we still talk weekly and always get together when we are in town at the same time, she's godmother to one of my kids and I am to one of hers. But as far as having a friend that I talk to daily or multiple times a week, that's not something that exists for me. And that's fine! I still have lots of friends that I talk to several times a month, and honestly I'm not sure that it is sustainable to have a friendship more intense than that in this stage of parenting and life.
Honestly-- parents are way too invested in their kids' friendships from every aspect. And yes, including the label too! I hear from lots of readers/listeners who stop being friends because their kids aren't getting along. This is so short sighted and the focus is just on these kids' friendships from the get go.
This is a really interesting topic! The parental effort piece fascinates.
I had a rule that I said “yes” to as many birthday party invitations as possible when the kids were young (pre-k and K years), mostly so I could see my child’s interactions with other kids and see if there were any parents I gelled with (mostly not).
Both of my kids (son & daughter) came home in their kindergarten year declaring they had besties. I never taught them this concept. It was only when I heard the friends name enough that I would make the effort to try to get parent info and set some things up. But they both bugged me so much about it, and I mostly it did it to appease them.
My 5th grade son’s friend group has gotten a bit larger over the years. He also migrates well between groups. He’s made it a point to connect himself in with certain friend groups because he thinks they’re funny, have similar interests etc. I am so impressed with his abilities because I had no social skills as a kid. I have become friends with some of the kids’ parents, but that has happened organically and not necessarily through my efforts or theirs.
My 1st grade daughter only has her BFF and they’re very attached to each other. It feels precarious because this girl attends the same school as my kids because her mom is a teacher there. She lives too far away to play together on the weekends or join an activity they both like. I suspect there will come a difficult time sooner than later when this friend leaves the school and my child will have to adjust. So my role there will be to support her and hopefully build confidence to find a new person or group.
I had a therapist once say that it’s best to spread your friend groups and social connections far and wide. This can include school friends, extracurricular activity friends, religious institution friends, extended family, etc. That way, when you’re on the outs with one or more groups, which happens a lot!, you still have others you can turn to. I like this idea a lot. It has helped me because, like you, I haven’t had a single BFF most of my life. And my friend group from high school/college, with whom I am the closest, can sometimes feel alienating to me.
My son has cultivated different groups largely on his own. I do wonder if my daughter will need more support here, but I haven’t really made any extra efforts yet. I think it just takes time.