Note: I am making available my last Romanian language (and previously paid) article Descurcă-te singur!, as I feel that the present one is somehow related to that one…
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“Our relationship is very good and goes really deep; we’re not only mother and son, but also good friends. Actually, I am my son’s best friend.”
And the mother looked triumphantly in the eyes of the son’s girlfriend, perhaps waiting some praise, perhaps expecting some form of acknowledgement. All she got was silence, as the girlfriend refrained from commenting. The entire situation was rather awkward, the statement of the mother looked a bit out of place, but it was left that way, in a forgotten corner of the son’s memory.
It is true that, the fact that she was a single mother and the son’s father was long gone, has helped them have a rather deep relationship. They spent a lot of time together during the son’s childhood and teenage years, they travelled a lot together and shared a lot of private information; having secrets was something rare and, in general, the members of the extended family used to be very open and discuss everything and everyone. The “friendship” was a “way of life” and the “style of the family”; everyone knew almost everything about the others. That was then what they called “normal”.
Years have passed and the son remained in his couple, spending more and more time with his partner. The mother became increasingly alone, especially after her retirement, when the professional routine abruptly collapsed. The secrets of the past were known but not the ones of the present, “the latest gossip”. Space got between the “old friends”. Then, as it happens, the son’s personality – a grown-up man now – became more and more original and therefore divergent from what he used to be in his teenage years; his life experience was different, his perceptions were different, his conclusions were different as well. While the mother remained pretty much the same, the son was finding his own path and his own style.
And this was no longer “normal”.
Friends remain friends because they like each other. They are friends because they play well together. They are also friends because their personalities are compatible. They are like-minded, they have similar values, they feel the same about specific issues. We are not friends with everyone, we are friends with only a minority, that minority which we choose ourselves.
As they say… friends are our chosen family.
Emphasis on “chosen”.
The passing of time has brought conflicts between the “old friends”; the mother saw reality in her way and the son saw everything differently. The conflicts have given birth to cracks in the relationship, then gaps, then rifts. Play was no longer possible. Understanding was no longer possible.
One day they ceased to talk to each other.
The restrained silence has given place to prolonged silence and then to indifference.
The friendship was over. After many beautiful years of friendship, the differences were irreconcilable. One last attempt for a compromise has turned fruitless.
The son had someday remembered the old days and that discussion – the one from long time ago – in which the mother suggested, in a confident manner, that their relationship was strong, based on both motherly love and friendship. What went wrong? How could it be that something rock-solid can turn into something so bad?
Friendship and love don’t go well together. They don’t go well in couples and they don’t go well in families. And they don’t go well because sometimes people change.
Friendship is chosen; it is conditional, much more conditional than love. We “fall in love” but we don’t “fall in friendship”. We “make” friends. We “do” and we “undo” relationships.
Family remains in the background and, if the parents are wise enough, they don’t become friends with their children; they remain parents and the kids remain kids. They don’t change roles. They don’t shift and they do not switch.
Friendships are defined by a period of time when the friends travel together through life. This period varies: sometimes it’s a matter of years, sometimes it’s the whole life. Parenthood however lasts typically a lifetime. We do not choose our parents. The quality of the relationship is different and the expectations are different. And one expectation is to let the children be and do what they want, grant them the freedom they need, and allow them to be the way they choose to be, even if their ways might be different and a friendship with them wouldn’t be possible if it were for a different relationship type.
When the friendship between the son and the mother has ended, the entire relationship collapsed. And it collapsed because the loudly-declared parental-friendship turned to be just friendship and nothing else. And some friendships, sadly, do end.
Are you friends with your child?
What happens if your friendship ends?
