Thursday 10 November 2011

If you had your friends

around to play and your mother insisted on you having another child as well and that child insisted on you playing all the games according to their rules you would surely feel pretty annoyed about it. After all, it is your house and the other kids are your friends and you all want to play the games according to your rules.
If the other child then says, "I'll be your best friend" and you are weak and give in then you can find yourself trapped and unpopular with your friends.
I am sure this has happened to all children at one time or another. As children we sometimes need to do what our parents tell us. They think they know best - although I believe they often have very little idea about what is really going on with respect to relationships between children.
My mother interfered constantly in our relationships with other children. She thought she knew best. Some of it had to do with the fact that she did not want us to have other children to play at our house and she was reluctant to let us go to theirs because it meant returning the favour. I know part of the problem was that she was working, that she was a teacher in various small rural communities but there was also a reluctance to allow us to get involved. She never became involved herself. My father, as school principal, could not become involved. His job involved not just teaching but being the local "marriage counsellor", "financial adviser", "psychologist", "preacher" and numerous other roles that rural school principals were then called on to be because people simply went to "the teacher" with their problems. (My father would listen and generally find a professional person to help if the matter was serious enough.)
Adults however should know better than to fall for the "best friend" trick. Our politicians did it out of convenience and a desire for power. Our current Federal government has any number of "best friends" - made up of members of the Greens and various "independents". Keeping them all happy is difficult.
It is now causing problems at state level. There is a planned expansion to the Olympic Dam project in the north of the state. The site mines uranium. It will be the biggest mine in the world if it gets the go ahead. I have doubts about the uranium bit but the elected government wants it to go ahead. The opposition has, with strong reservations, given its reluctant support.
The project is now being held up by the Greens. They are opposed. They have questions. They want to change the rules. This would be all very well except that the negotiating period for the rules of the game was held some time ago. They had their chance. Some things were changed because of their demands. Now they are arguing again. They really do not want to play the game although they are pretending that they might. They think if they delay it long enough it will get dark and everyone will get sent home. They say that their big brother has had his way and they should be allowed theirs.
It is not wise to be "best friends" with someone who bullies you.

1 comment:

Miriam said...

Agreed! Here, in Israel, that's the reason why the religious parties wield so much power.