Practicing Motherhood

This past week, my youngest daughter brought up a problem that she faces at school with a classmate who wants a best friend -- which really means she wants to dominate my daughter's time and attention.  My daughter wishes to maintain friendships with other girls in the class, yet her efforts to be kind to this desperate friend have meant that she has been manipulated to cut off additional school relationships.  My daughter wondered aloud if she is obliged to continue showing kindness to the girl who often comes to the point of ridiculous rudeness in demanding her attention.

This is not a new problem; each of my daughters has faced a similar dilemma with friendships, and it usually starts by about fifth grade.  It is essential for my daughters to learn to handle such situations kindly but with direction and strength:  if a girl becomes accustomed to being prey to such manipulators in her girlhood relationships, she will be an easy target for controlling dating and marriage relationships later.  But how she learns to handle it goes even deeper.

Strength for my daughter means more than merely sticking up for herself; the experiences she is having now are real-life practice for motherhood -- with the potential for real development for her and for the people around her.  If my seventh-grader were a loving mother trying to teach her junior high-age daughter, what would she do?  Perhaps I should phrase it differently:  Because my seventh-grader is am emerging mother with real potential to nurture and help her classmates, what should she do?

There are many "effective parenthood" ways for my daughter to handle her challenge, and this article is not written to enumerate them.  After a discussion of several strategies, I am confident that my daughter will choose options that work for her situation -- and that this is valuable practice in motherhood.


This experience has served as a reminder that the way we view our roles helps us have greater access to the power we have been given to act for ourselves and to make positive changes in the world around us.