Maybe Slightly Controversial: Audience Participation Required

You all had some nuggets of great wisdom in the last post. I completely agree that if you go through life with just a couple (or even one) true friend, then you are lucky indeed. I know I am lucky to have a handful of true friends and I girlfriend who I would qualify as my best friend.

Walking away from toxic relationships, one-sided relationships or otherwise empty relationships…where is the how-to for that? Some people make it look so easy. My nature is very much never to end a relationship, no matter how bad it is. I am beyond tenacious when it comes to relationships. This stems in part from growing up with a really really small and disjointed and basically unhappy family. You cling to everyone you met when everyone you met is an understudy for family.

I have a maybe controversial view of female friendship that I would love to delve into. I think I would be able to explain this better in person, but I will try to write it out. This is all based on my own very unscientific study and my own experiences. I do not like to make sweeping generalizations, but I realize that that is exactly what a person says right before they make a sweeping generalization.

Let me preface this by saying I always wanted a sister. Of course, I envisioned the idealized version of sisterhood: Sharing clothes and makeup and doing each other’s hair and consoling each other through the hard times. We would talk every night before we went to bed, even years after we moved out of the same home. We would lend each other support, money, clothes and furniture. We would be best friends.

So my sweeping generalization, my perhaps unpopular theory, my half-baked idea, my thesis here is that I think women who don’t have sisters tend to cling more to friendships than women who DO have sisters. Again, this is just MY experience. But I think I so badly wanted a sister my entire life (again, because I idealized sisterhood) that almost every friend I had unwittingly auditioned for this role.

My friend with sisters would do anything for their sisters. My friends without sisters would do anything for their friends. I am not implying that women with sisters are not good friends and I am not implying that women with sisters wouldn’t do anything for their friends. Follow that? In other words, I am not dissing anyone here. But I do think that women without sisters (who always wanted one) tend to place a little more emphasis on their friendships. Maybe sisterless women tend to be relationship caretakers—or groundskeepers, as Malea put it. Think about your relationships with women with sisters and without: Are there any differences?

Again, let me clarify that I am not saying that sisterless women are desperate and women with sisters are aloof. . I am not saying one values friendships more than the other. I am just saying that there are nuances here.
I will add that I am very interested in this because as the mother of two daughters, I want so badly for them to grow up and to have a close, loving, impenetrable relationship. A couple of my friends with sisters do have just that, and I need to pick their brains about how it works. My mom and her sister: Not at all. So no role model there. Nicole and her sister are polar opposites but they have a great relationship now, but didn’t so much growing up: A five-year age difference, and sharing a room probably played a big role in this.

I also want them to grow up and have close friendships like I have. There are a handful of people that I have been friends with for two decades and more, and those relationships are a part of my foundation in life. We have a history and a present and a future. I have friends that I talk to on the phone every day. I have a few friends with whom contact is less frequent, but that doesn’t change a thing. I have friends who would be excited to hear from me spur-of-the-moment and vice versa, as CD an SP wrote in her comment. The rest? Those are the relationships I have a hard time abandoning. Toxic house cleaning is in order.
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I know I did a bad job explaining this, but I am curious if anyone else has thoughts on this? What is your experience like? Do you notice any similarities, differences, patterns, trends?

Hot off the presses: Avery is feeling the sister bond. Today, for the first time, Avery went over to Madeline and gave her a hug. Can you believe it? On her own! We went nuts, which prompted her to keep doing it. And that prompted Madeline to eventually run away from her and hide in a corner, she was that tired of hugs.

The girls are gaining speed and can run now. They can walk up and down the steps in the living room without holding on. When I tell them it is time for lunch, they run to their chairs. The babble like crazy but other than Mama (which they don’t understand means us) they don’t make much sense. When I ask them if they want to go for a walk, Madeline brings me the Bjorn. Avery hugs stuffed animals and plays peek-a-boo. Madeline collects flashcards, hiding them in stashes around our home. They love to try on our shoes and try to walk in them. They are becoming such little people and I am trying to record every little thing here, since I am doing such a crappy job keeping up their baby books.

Nicole talked about the need to get a babysitter/mother’s helper and it made me feel sick to my stomach. We have free day care at Nicole’s work, but neither of us feel comfortable with using it, even in an emergency situation. There are only a few people I would trust with the girls. But that’s also another post.

Pictured above, Avery giving Madeline her first hug. Then the second hug The third hug. The fourth hug. And Madeline hiding!