Friendship
I was being bored in the office today; my boss wasn't in so I had nothing to do, legitimately!!! So, me being me, I decided to flip through a couple of blogs. Some of the kids, some of no one you would know, some total strangers. The more I read, the more I figured that kids these days seem to be having more and more problems with simple friendships. Like, what happened to social skills, man?!
How hard is it to be a friend? Let's take a look.
Firstly, a definition of friend. (This where all that Uni education is supposed to kick in.)
Check this out.
Okay... So what does this all mean?
As per the first definition from Dictionary.com, friendship implies 3 components, knowledge, liking, and trust. As such, with regard to another person, having one without the other two is useless, and is no longer a friendship. For example, I can know all about someone else, his/her background, likes & dislikes, and whatever else, I can even like the person, but if I don't trust him/her with the same information about myself, or trust in his/her allegiance, I cannot call the person my friend.
We have all kinds of different levels of friendship, don't we? We have best friends, normal friends, okay friends, acquaintences, the list goes on. Often it is even difficult to define the level of friendship that we feel.
Guys and girls do things differently too. As far as I can tell, guys have all of 2 categories. Friend, and not friend. Girls have anywhere from 2 to a dozen different categories of friends, all of which have valid descriptions. So, when a girl says that she's your friend, you better ask which category. Each category of friendship has a different level of commitment attached to it; in a situation, the amount of support a girl/friend gives you depends on the category you're in
Friendship is all about give and take. Like a family, friends take turns supporting each other; when one is in a situation, his/her friends with support him/her through it, and vice versa. However, more and more often I see situations where people demand to be supported, but refuse to be the bearing wall. They seem to assume that people were created to serve them, to give way to them, to support them. Whatever happened to give and take? Whatever happened to decent friendship?
Such refusal to support others, to me, simply indicates an amazing level of self-centredness and selfishness. But such behaviour is a developed schema of the world, not an intrinsic one. It is learned, and thus can be unlearned.
But where would they learn such schema? I believe that it begins in the home. Previously, families were larger, consisted of more children, and often extended families lived together. Children were rarely indulged, and often put to work at an early age to help the family support itself. Infant and child mortality was high, and a such, not much store was placed in them till they reached puberty.
As countries have become more developed, child mortality has dropped, nuclear families have shrunk dramatically, incomes have risen, and extended families living under one roof has become more and more rare. Somewhere along the way, the concept of childhood was created. Childhood is thus a very recent phenomenon.
The idea is that children need time to grow up before they are ready to handle the pressures of adulthood. This idea has been supported and substantiated by psychology. Piaget's developmental theory provides a strong basis for the idea that children's cognition needs time to develop. They are not capable of high level functions such as conservation, logic, empathy, compassion, and resoning till they are a certain age.
This information has had some unwanted side-effects. Incomplete education for parents has led to the creation of the myth of delicate children. Parents assume that children should not be subjected to corporal punishment as it would 'warp their personalities' or some such. Discipline is close to unheard of in the early years, as parents attribute it to 'oh, he's just a child, he doesn't understand'. They take the child's side at all costs, often shearing the child of any responsibilities for his/her actions. The child is indulged, all his needs and wants catered to, nothing is denied him. All the child hears from his/her parents is that he/she is perfect, can do anything, be anything, achieve anything, that he/she wants. The sky is the limit, the world your oyster! Go forth and conquer the world! Right.
With all of this, what does the child learn? With parents that forgive him/her everything, the child learns that it's never his/her fault. Without punishment, there is no way the child learns consequences. With all the 'positive reinforcement', the child learns that things MUST ALWAYS go his way. Indulgence of the precious child simply leads to the child's ego-centric belief; The world revolves around ME! The child thus never learns limits, tolerance, discipline, selflessness, altruism, all the characteristics that make a mature adult.
Now combine this with teenage angst, hormones, stress from school, and what do you have? An incredibly horrendous teen. Is it then any surprise that many are incapable of holding on to a friendship? There can be no one-way friendship, where one person always caters to the other. It is in no way natural or self-sustaining, and the various parties cannot grow from such a relationship.
This is not to say that it is all the parent's fault. Parents can but lay the foundation. The rest of it is up to the individual and society's reaction to them. Do we put up with them endlessly, or do we caringly, lovingly, explain how things are done?
So. Consider your friendships. How are you managing them?
How hard is it to be a friend? Let's take a look.
Firstly, a definition of friend. (This where all that Uni education is supposed to kick in.)
Check this out.
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.
5. Friend A member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.
Okay... So what does this all mean?
As per the first definition from Dictionary.com, friendship implies 3 components, knowledge, liking, and trust. As such, with regard to another person, having one without the other two is useless, and is no longer a friendship. For example, I can know all about someone else, his/her background, likes & dislikes, and whatever else, I can even like the person, but if I don't trust him/her with the same information about myself, or trust in his/her allegiance, I cannot call the person my friend.
We have all kinds of different levels of friendship, don't we? We have best friends, normal friends, okay friends, acquaintences, the list goes on. Often it is even difficult to define the level of friendship that we feel.
Guys and girls do things differently too. As far as I can tell, guys have all of 2 categories. Friend, and not friend. Girls have anywhere from 2 to a dozen different categories of friends, all of which have valid descriptions. So, when a girl says that she's your friend, you better ask which category. Each category of friendship has a different level of commitment attached to it; in a situation, the amount of support a girl/friend gives you depends on the category you're in
Friendship is all about give and take. Like a family, friends take turns supporting each other; when one is in a situation, his/her friends with support him/her through it, and vice versa. However, more and more often I see situations where people demand to be supported, but refuse to be the bearing wall. They seem to assume that people were created to serve them, to give way to them, to support them. Whatever happened to give and take? Whatever happened to decent friendship?
Such refusal to support others, to me, simply indicates an amazing level of self-centredness and selfishness. But such behaviour is a developed schema of the world, not an intrinsic one. It is learned, and thus can be unlearned.
But where would they learn such schema? I believe that it begins in the home. Previously, families were larger, consisted of more children, and often extended families lived together. Children were rarely indulged, and often put to work at an early age to help the family support itself. Infant and child mortality was high, and a such, not much store was placed in them till they reached puberty.
As countries have become more developed, child mortality has dropped, nuclear families have shrunk dramatically, incomes have risen, and extended families living under one roof has become more and more rare. Somewhere along the way, the concept of childhood was created. Childhood is thus a very recent phenomenon.
The idea is that children need time to grow up before they are ready to handle the pressures of adulthood. This idea has been supported and substantiated by psychology. Piaget's developmental theory provides a strong basis for the idea that children's cognition needs time to develop. They are not capable of high level functions such as conservation, logic, empathy, compassion, and resoning till they are a certain age.
This information has had some unwanted side-effects. Incomplete education for parents has led to the creation of the myth of delicate children. Parents assume that children should not be subjected to corporal punishment as it would 'warp their personalities' or some such. Discipline is close to unheard of in the early years, as parents attribute it to 'oh, he's just a child, he doesn't understand'. They take the child's side at all costs, often shearing the child of any responsibilities for his/her actions. The child is indulged, all his needs and wants catered to, nothing is denied him. All the child hears from his/her parents is that he/she is perfect, can do anything, be anything, achieve anything, that he/she wants. The sky is the limit, the world your oyster! Go forth and conquer the world! Right.
With all of this, what does the child learn? With parents that forgive him/her everything, the child learns that it's never his/her fault. Without punishment, there is no way the child learns consequences. With all the 'positive reinforcement', the child learns that things MUST ALWAYS go his way. Indulgence of the precious child simply leads to the child's ego-centric belief; The world revolves around ME! The child thus never learns limits, tolerance, discipline, selflessness, altruism, all the characteristics that make a mature adult.
Now combine this with teenage angst, hormones, stress from school, and what do you have? An incredibly horrendous teen. Is it then any surprise that many are incapable of holding on to a friendship? There can be no one-way friendship, where one person always caters to the other. It is in no way natural or self-sustaining, and the various parties cannot grow from such a relationship.
This is not to say that it is all the parent's fault. Parents can but lay the foundation. The rest of it is up to the individual and society's reaction to them. Do we put up with them endlessly, or do we caringly, lovingly, explain how things are done?
So. Consider your friendships. How are you managing them?
posted by butterflyblade at 12:53 AM
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