My closest friends from high school and college all went on to way more impressive careers than I did and married much later in life than I did or not at all. Go figure.
From the opposite side…it’s a LOT easier to PARENT when your kid has a good peer group.
What about those who don’t fit in? Most of you are talking about the mainstream socially acceptable kids. What about the one who is too intense (perhaps gifted) or other factors. The ones on the outside of cliques. So much easier for those with common views, intelligence… Outliers have trouble finding a peer group. I needed to be in college to find like minded people. Decades later I know I don’t do the church crowd and many others…
I think it’s the other way around. You pick friends because of who you are. If you pick loser friends you may have a reason for it in you. If you pick accomplished friends, you may be an ambitious person, etc.
Agree and the same family can turn out vastly different kids . … . who choose their own peer groups (or who are chosen by those groups).
Sooooo agree @wis75.
I think we validate ourselves too much or too little based on our friends (or our kids’ friends).
Some people really do grow and evolve, and are late bloomers. Some of us never get there. Compassion and empathy are important qualities imho. It’s good to move out of your comfort zone from time to time.
Some siblings are best friends- others are vastly different from each other. It was harder when the year older sister absolutely did not want me with her- couldn’t be friends with kids her grade et al. The tales I could tell… Also harder to be a girl into science… not have funds for clothes et al, be tall and not wear same sizes…
My father and I moved around a lot so I got to sample numerous peer groups both good and bad. One high school summer, his friends talked him into moving us away from the bad influences in the small town we were living in (We kids liked to drink beer in the woods behind the supermarket).
So we moved to the inner city where I had to start all over in grade 11 getting to meet new people and learning the ropes. Pretty soon I was playing pickup basketball in a school playground with future leaders of the Cosa Nostra crime organization in Massachusetts. They wore black leather jackets and boots and always acted like Wiseguys, and walked around in a pack. They never bothered me and I never bothered them. We were from two different worlds. I never told my father how much I hated living there for two years of my life. I chose to stay friendless until going off to college.