Who should be my friends?

Dear 小tz,

Now that you are into the next phrase of your life, it sort of gets me worried.

With less than an hour with you each weekday and 2 full day of weekends each week, after taking away time I needed to work late, time I needed to work over the weekends, time you spend on travelling, school, swimming, dancing, enrichment class and sleeping. You likely spend more time with your friends than with me. 

If I guess what you may be thinking, based on what I was thinking when I am at your age, friends are likely more cool than daddy and mummy added together. Right? For one critical consideration, while both parents and friends can be fun to be with, friends at your age will hardly tell you off when you did the wrong things. How then can friends not be cool? It's fun, fun and still fun! 

I thought it would be good at this phrase of your life that I share with you, my definition of a friend. 

A friend is someone that enjoys your company. A friend will treats you well. A friend will share the good things with you. A friend will care for you. A friend will want you to be good. A friend will help you when you call for help.

A friend will not only come to you when they needed something from you. A friend will not take things from you without asking for your permission. A friend will not steal your things. A friend will not lie to you. A friend will not keep asking things from you without sharing what she has. A friend will not tell you to do the wrong things. 

Having said that, I am not telling you that whoever that doesn't meet the criteria of your friend become your enemy. It is not meant to be that way. Anyway, it is not good to have enemy. They are not helpful and contribute to your worries, anger and frustration. Remind me to talk about it the next time when we wait for your bus in the morning. 

I have friends and enemies. I have enemies who I tried not to be bothered or forget. I also have classmates when I was studying, teammates when I was volunteering and colleagues that I work with while I am at work. Not all of those people are my friends as they did not meet my criteria of a friend. However, I don't call them my enemies as they did not hurt me in anyway.

So you see, not everybody that I know and knows me are my friends, and it's totally fine with me. People my age no longer threaten to not friend me if I do not do what they wanted me to do. However, that happens frequently while I am your age, just like what you may be experiencing now or you will likely to experience soon. I have very few friends since young till now, as I have strict criteria in selecting friends. I only have a few but good and trusted friends that I can depend on in needs. Do I feel bad for having fewer friends? Nope, in fact I feel better as I don't need to struggle whether to make a friend happy or do the right things in life.

Please remember my sweet princess; if a so call friend asks you to do a wrong thing and you get into trouble, he or she is unlikely to come to your help. You will have to face the punishment for doing the wrong things. Do you still want this type of friend?

Love,

Your crazy and caring daddy.