Can we all look at ourselves in the mirror and like what we see?  I don't mean your nose, or your eyes or your skin.  I mean, do we like the person we see staring back at us?

Sometimes I wonder if it's just the fact that I live in L.A. now, but didn't it used be we had friends for 20 years?  Didn't we go through good times and bad, marriages, babies, deaths?  Didn't we hold each other up in bad times, not bring each other down?

When did friends become so transient that people could justify throwing them under the bus when it suited their purposes?

When did it become okay to say, "Oh, I don't like hospitals," and not visit someone who is sitting sick and alone and just needs someone to hold their hand or be their advocate to get the attention of the overworked nurses and doctors?

When did it become acceptable to say, "I don't do funerals.  They're depressing," and that was reason enough to abandon your friends at a time in their life when they need you the most?

When did parents start condoning their children pointing and laughing at people that have a weight problem, or weakness, or any kind of difference?

I first started thinking about these things about a week ago when I became infuriated about a position my daughter had been placed in.  It all started when two friends were warring and she was caught in the middle.  Both parties said things about the other to her, and when things got their most tense, they decided it would be easiest to throw Katie under the bus instead of 'fess up to what they'd actually done and said.

It was just so easy.  All they had to do was point at her and disavow any responsibility for their actions.  Their parents and other adults involved would be none the wiser, their halos would remain intact, and Katie would be the bad one. 

Now you have to realize, there is still a huge problem to be gotten past.  These girls know EXACTLY what they did, so this does present still another very delicate issue.  It's rather difficult to look Katie in the eye since they know the lies they told and quite obviously, Katie knows the lies they told.  Hmmm, what to do.

They're stuck with a situation where they can't really bring Katie back into the group because, well, how awkward would that be after lying and throwing her under the bus to pick her up, dust her off, apologize, put themselves at jeopardy and right this wrong.  Now of course this certainly could be done, and would be the right thing to do.  But that would involve a certain amount of effort and integrity, and if you're the kind of person that throws a friend under the bus, it's unlikely you'll then suddenly decide to do the decent thing.

So the end result, of course, was these warring factions banded back together and everybody was happy -- everybody, of course, except me, the big grouch. 

Katie says she's put it behind her and wants to go on, continue this endeavor that she loves. I'm not over it, and I also want to show my daughter that she doesn't have to accept this kind of treatment from others, and that the kind of people that do things like this are most definitely NOT her friends.

I thought she would have figured that one out when last weekend the three "friends" decided to gang up on her and call her a particular name all day. Oh, what fun!  Who wouldn't want to join in that kind of fun -- besides maybe decent people that had been brought up to have compassion and caring.

There is one fact that these "friends" are unaware of, I KNOW.  I am an involved parent.  I have each and every one of my daughter's internet accounts and passwords.  I've seen what happened in black and white through their messages.

I am a parent who has never put a halo on my daughter's head. She's flesh and blood, she's real.  She does plenty of wrong, but she rarely sneaks and rarely hides for the simple reason that the poor child has me for a mother and she's not good at it.  What you see is what you get. 

Still, my intrepid little daughter insists on continuing on, as she has been the past few years, hoping against hope that she can be accepted, and belong.  And it breaks my heart to sit on the sidelines and see her knocked down again and again and again.

This certainly isn't the first problem with this same group.  This group never welcomed her into their environment.  They had been together for years.  Katie walked into their group a beginner, and went to advanced classes quickly.  For this, she must be punished? 

There were many parties where she was not invited, and they just had to let her know it.  There were remarks made at their high school to friends that Katie should not be allowed into certain advanced classes because she would ruin them. 

Oh, Katie hasn't been the only one they've picked on.  I personally know of at least one that left because her mother didn't want to pay that much money for her daughter to be treated that badly.  That child wasn't willing to put up with it.

But for some reason, I can't convince Katie to give up.  She still just desperately wants to belong.  So apparently, this is a lesson, for both of us.  I was so hoping that she learned the lesson that their behavior is not acceptable and she doesn't have to put up with it, realizes she is soooo much better than this and leaves.  And that not everyone is nice and decent and not everyone will be your friend.

Instead, she is learning a different lesson, one of her own choosing, perseverance.  Hang in there, keep trying.  Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't.  If you fall, get up quickly and try again.  If you're quick enough, maybe noone will notice you even stumbled.  No, it's not the lesson of my choosing, but perhaps an even more important one. 

When something happens to us, it's one thing.  When it happens to our child, it's quite another.  This has been very very painful to me.  I have been her advocate and spoken up for her a couple times, but there is so much I have stayed silent on.

Like this issue.  I tried to speak up, but was ignored.  Now I ignore them.  The only one that truly concerns me is my child anyway.  They don't really matter.

So we'll all learn a lesson, adults and children alike.  The other children, oh, they will learn.  They will learn that they can never have true friendship, the kind that lasts 20 years. 

Even if these particular friendships last, what really is their value?  Will they have someone who will sit silently with them in pain, love them if they're fat or skinny, visit them in the hospital, hold their hand, assure them that life is still worth living when they're walking through the fire of heartbreak?  Will they roll up their sleeves and get down in the mud with them and stand behind them in adversity?  Will they pack boxes of memories with them and help them say a painful goodbye to the past and let them know that despite what the future brings, there is always hope, because they will always be there to save them from drowning in life? 

I don't think so.  They don't know how.  Perhaps they'll learn their lesson by being thrown under the bus themselves.  Perhaps somehow they'll learn that life isn't about competition, and that you have to be a friend to have a friend. I do hope and pray they learn sooner than later.

So what is my lesson?  My lesson is that sometimes I have to stand back and let my daughter fall, and get up, and fall again.  I have to learn that although it is painful to me, it's not my pain.  I can't kiss every boo-boo and make it better anymore.

And the biggest lesson is, despite the path she chooses to take to get where she's going, I can truly look at her and say the words, "You are a good person, you are a good friend, you are true to yourself, and I am very very proud of you."

Please contribute your experiences, lessons and expressions of friendship.