friends and benefits...

M has a friend who tries to give her things.  This friend is 10, M is 5.  Apparently this friend made her first friends in life (and this I find strange) when she bought them ice cream at school.  What was up the first 5 years of her life.  Why did she have money to buy them things at school.  Weird.

I had a friend once who was often given candy and gifts by another girl.  I wasn't willing to compete for her friendship and always felt sort of annoyed that her friendship was perhaps for sale.  Or that she accepted the gifts and reciprocated with attention.  Or maybe I just wished she'd like me better.  Bummer.

One time in HS a girl that at best I would have described as antagonistic to me, handed me a JCrew catalog and invited me to get her something from that catalog for Christmas.  Weird.  We were in a lot of classes together, and even did a project together for Spanish once.  But she also told me I wasn't a Christian because I'm a Mormon.


But I think it's really toxic for kids to exchange favors.  The cycle of "I gave you this... what are you going to give me..." is so bad.  It leads to people feeling owed.  It leads to people feeling like they have do do things, that they don't have to do.

I think it's ok to give people things.  I hope I can raise my kids with a healthy sense of boundaries.  They can give and receive gifts, but they don't have to.

I even told M that mom and dad don't have to be nice to each other.  We like to be nice to each other, but nobody is making us be nice to each other.