The Best Friend Files: What would you do?
My daughter has a bestie who is truly the best. This pair are forever exchanging art and gifts which proclaim their eternal friendship. They create and record skits together, swap clothes, play sports, sing, dance and otherwise maximize their joy potential with each other whenever possible.
My daughter’s bestie is the kind of kid I wish I could keep.
This is hard because the pair of them will matriculate to different high schools. In fact, they may be parted next year. This girl has been a part of my daughter’s life since kindergarten. I hate the idea of them being separated, of the possibility that location may pry them apart.
I can’t control for everything. It’s possible I could register and transport my girl to the same school district as her friend, but it would be a hardship on our family. There is a chance this pair will drift apart anyway just as there is a chance they will remain the best of friends even through high school. It would be hard for them, but hard is not the same as impossible.
I try very hard not to borrow trouble. There is no way to know what the future will bring. Still, I can’t help weighing the odds of ensuring they stay in the same school system versus play dates and sleepovers. My daughter will be devastated when they are separated. She is already asking me to enroll her in her friend’s school district. Life has hard lumps. The end of this school year approaches. I ask myself, does this have to be one of them? Won’t my daughter experience plenty of hardship in other areas of life?
You don’t know her, but she will. She is resilient, strong, persistent, intelligent, compassionate and beautiful. But she struggles at age 9 with anxiety in a way I imagine far more suitable for adults who are hiding illegal income and under audit.
Mother fear is real. It stems from what we witness in our children and the world in which we are raising them. This is the fear everyone who loves anyone experiences—the “I would take this on for you if I could.” Then there is reality. I can’t take this on. You have to survive your own struggles. It is how you will grow.
I had a friend who went to a different high school freshman year, and then tranferred to join the rest of us from sophomore on. It’s not a permanent situation—transfers can happen.
In this case, he was an ADHD Black kid, and the school full of rich white kids was a bad fit. I am glad he joined us, and I’m glad his parents supported him to do so. Maybe something like that will happen here. Maybe it won’t. School fit is important, and high school is hard already. But if it will strain your family’s resources to transfer her, that matters, too. I don’t know what my choice would be, honestly.
There are two options for you.
° Believe that money will come for you to put her in the same school as her friend.
° If the money does not eventually come then explain to your daughter the situation of things.
Separating them might be a hard tear for your daughter who has found a friend and from what you explain they have become too close to the point of exchanging cloths.
Just do your best
When I was in seventh grade, my best friend from age six moved across town. And it sucked. Yeah, we missed each other, wrote letters and talked on the phone. But we both lived.
The following year, my mom sold our house as part of her divorce agreement with my dad, and I lobbied hard to move where I could attend school with my best friend. And, since we had to move somewhere, we did.
We had our ups and downs, as all friends do, I moved across town to attend college, and eventually across the country, but in the end . . . we are still good friends. We don't have contact as often as we'd like, but when we do speak, it's as though no time has passed. We are still close.
And when I was called on to take care of some things after my sister's death, it was my best friend and her family that Marek and I stayed with, and we had a blast. Almost an unexpected week-long slumber party. Hard to beat.
So in the end, follow your gut, and it won't steer you wrong. Your daughter and her friend will survive either way, and, hopefully, their friendship will as well.
And, in my case, both my friend and I made new friends that we might not have made had we still been together, so that is another positive. I do hope they can be together in high school, but whatever happens will be for the best, so take comfort in that.