Should I choose my son’s friends?

Or, My Son’s Good Friend Hates Me.

To some extent you always think how you don’t want your kids to fall in with reckless drivers/ drug dealers. Not….. That I think there are many in Rockstar’s Kindy class, but you know what I mean… And then there are the mums who are actively looking to set up playdates with interview-mates this upcoming holiday season…

I feel the need to point out not all my son's friends hate me.

 While that hasn’t been my preoccupation, I did note that most of Rockstar’s current favorites at school don’t share the same catchment area and would therefore be applying to different ESF primary schools. (Yes, like every living, breathing mum in Hk I’m nervous about interview season. But I’m also nervous about first term next year when Rockstar loses virtually his entire green-poop-for-snacks/mums-are-sad-when-they-have-periods bunch of partners in crime.)

So at the last birthday party we attended over the weekend, I was hoping to see if maybe Rockstar could be friends with other kids too. Things did not go according to plan.

Rockstar goes to sit with his regular friends expecting me to follow behind and that’s fine, the truth is I do like them and their mums (the ones I know, anyway), except when we sit down I discover a few of them are strict vegetarian for religious purposes, and Rockstar has slipped their boys his salmon toasties <awkward>.

Then as we all mingle, Rockstar gets into a fight over a chair. It is not too loud and ugly, but it is public and neither boy will relinquish. I’m furious. Though no one knows who started it, in this case it doesn’t matter as much because I specifically elicited Rockstar’s word he would not get into any fights this day. (Another mummy friend will later tell me the other boy is known to be argumentative, but as I said, Rockstar won’t always meet other little boys who aren’t. I do want him to learn not be totally anal retentive about everything and he’s not complying.)

Rockstar’s fight is public enough to leave me mortified and unwilling to meet any other new parents. But here’s where it gets interesting – Kings had been parking the car, during which time I leave Rockstar on “his” chair which his adversary has vacated to join everyone else in the birthday singing and cake cutting festivities, and while narrating to Kings just how furious I am when he’s back, a passing classmate of Rockstar’s gives me the evil eye. Beautiful wide hazel eyes fringed with the long lashes, flickering with serious angry ‘tude as I relay to Kings what has happened.

It’s one Rockstar’s partners-in-crime. Who is being raised strict vegan, whom Rockstar has slipped a salmon sandwich to, not to mention living really far from us and therefore going for an ESF primary school in Siberia. (Fine, to me, Siberia.) Trying to organize playdates next year, wherever we are, would be A… Joy.

Except… Am I the only one who caught how much my son’s friend cared about him getting in trouble that I am now Public Enemy Number One for “telling” on my son to his dad?

It doesn’t stop. Rockstar’s loyal friend now has a problem with me, refuses to cooperate for pictures I take, and btw – even today on school run I got a little scowl. Usually, this little boy runs up to Rockstar and is neutral with me, today I can see him waiting til I’m gone. (And btw, this 4.5yr-old being pissy with me is getting under my skin far more than any mums being pissy with me.)

Anyway. While I’m thinking about the Sometimes-Wonderful Innocence Of 4yr-olds’ Friendships at the party, another of Rockstar’s schoolmates is stuck up a slide. This boy is shy in class, and belatedly as I watch Rockstar and Loyal Friend cheering the other boy on and trying to get him to take the plunge, I remember something else – Rockstar used to tell me how he sometimes got the idea to keep an eye out for his shy schoolmate on the playground from Loyal Friend (who is a half year older than Rockstar, and one of the kids Rockstar describes as “smartest” in class – I realize later that when I mention how kind his friend is, Rockstar says “I said he was smart”; it would seem Rockstar uses the word “smart” to describe more than I realized).

I never gave much thought about Rockstar hanging with the “smartest” kids in class, but…. watching the two of them (joined later by another Partner In Crime) encouraging their shy schoolmate (and at one point getting dragged along the carpet on the upper deck when they try to get the boy to go down between the two of them and he gallops off with tiny Rockstar still attached to his wrist which they find hilarious)….. suddenly it occurs to me I’d love for my son to be friends with the kindest child(ren) in class. 

If all things are a package and we have laundry lists of what’s higher up on our Wants For Our Kids’ Friends, I’d go for the “nice” child, over the one who lives next door/ is his classmate/ has lotsa stuff/ is smart/ shares the same faith and culture/ other – any day. 

One of whom now thinks I’m Villainous Evil Mum Who Tells On His Friend. Wait! I want to say… Your mum told you off about sharing and not getting into fights at the school Beach Fun Day recently, I heard her… At least….. I’m almost sure that’s what she said in the Indian dialect she was warning you against being naughty in when you looked like you were getting in a dispute over sandcastle building…! Except I guess she didn’t tell on him to his dad… Uh, whatever. (You’ve gone round the bend, Aileen, are you obsessing over whether your son’s friend likes you??) 

So… it would seem Rockstar’s already picked his friends. And he’s done it with little regard for catchment areas, cool stuff – or for that matter skin color, faith, and – Who knew my son would be better at this friends-picking thing than I?

Except what the hell am I going to do about playdates someday, with the giant continent that separates these boys?