Thursday 21 July 2011

Friends, as good as Family?


What do you think, are friends’ family? Do you consider your closet friends more like family than friends?

Well if like me you live 13,000 miles from your family then the answer is, Yes. Of course they are never going to replace your family, how could they? But they can and do fill the gap that exists when you have no immediate family to hand. This really hit home for us last week when we had to take Son No 1 in at 6.30 am for his operation. What would we do with our younger son? No problem, our good friend K, said she would take him the night before so we could just get up and go without having to sort him out. Then when the day didn’t go to plan and the operation was scheduled later than we anticipated, she stepped in again by taking him for another night, so Mr P could stay later, and be there when Son No 1 woke up from his surgery. The whole time we never had to worry that he wasn’t being looked after or that one of us had to rush back to collect him.

Of course I am not talking about fair weather friends or transitional friends, those friends that come in and out of your life at different stages like work colleagues or people in parenting groups. I am talking about your close friends, the ones that will always be there for you, the ones where you can agree to have different points of views, tell you that your arse does in fact look big in that, hold your hair back for you when being sick, the ones where you can feel comfortable enough to sit in your PJs all day eating cold take away from the night before, with. Those are the friends I am talking about.

Yes, your family are the ones that know you warts and all. They know all about your good and bad points, the teenage angst and crushes, crying when watching old Lassie movies! Whereas your closest friends know you as you are now, with none of that family baggage or resentment. They are less likely to judge you especially when it comes to raising children, hands up who hasn’t had an argument with their mother over something that you are apparently doing wrong? They tend to be more supportive of your decisions and actions as they have either been there done that, or going thru the same thing as you.

Our boys will not only grow up with their immediate family but also an extended family of uncles, aunties and cousins that may not be tied to them by blood but family they will be.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very true and I can relate to your post particularly as my immediate family live 200 miles away, nothing compared to yours of course but it's a distance. However, even though my mum, sister and brother knew me then, they really don't know me now. Not on a day to day personal way at any rate.

Great post.
CJ xx

Frankie Parker said...

Hey CJ, thanks for the comment.. Agree about immediate family not nothing who you are, i have been away 10 years... that is a lot of growing up time...

Jacq said...

Too, too true. I have very little to do with my family anymore so my friends are my family now.
There is a peculiar freedom that comes with moving to the other side of the world, you get to totally reinvent yourself!

Frankie Parker said...

Jacq, God so agree about the freedom of reinventing yourself, no one needs to know what baggage you may have..

Fox in the City said...

I have family close by, my parents are just over an hour away, but I still have close friends that I pretty much consider family.

I truly believe that children benefit from lots of love, and my friends love them to bits. I can call these friends at any time of day and they will be there to help, no questions asked and we are the same for them. They are my emergency call people at my kid's daycare. They are family.
Jenn

Emma said...

I am really lucky with my immediate family, we are all really close and I miss them very much (sob), but I also have some very fantastic friends that I class as family and we have been through thick and thin together... Moving around and meeting new people is great fun, but you can't beat seeing people that you have that shared history with can you? Emma :)

Sarah said...

I agree. I love my family and I don't live too far from them, but my prop ups are my friends. They understand life today, and as you say don't hold on to the past. In saying that, I have great relies on my dads side who are an important part of my life!! x

Frankie Parker said...

Emma, yeah the shared history is a good thing, looking back and laughing or in some cases crying over things..

Sarah, you are so lucky to have you family near by, i am at the stage where that is what i need now.. Funny thing we have relies on my mums side that are quite close to... Hope to see you some time soon xx

Mari's World said...

I have moved around so much that I have found myself making new friends time over but there are two people who live in Italy that I class Top friends, if I bump into them tomorrow we pick up as if only a night has passed and not the year that has in reality.
Cheers to good friends x