Do you remain friends with someone who thinks differently?

The world is changing at a faster rate than it was a few years ago. After my daughter finished updating me on her new friend, this thought found its way into my head. My daughter is in the first year of high-school and recently joined a cross-country training group. As she moved into the country a few weeks before the pandemic thwarted our ways of life, she hasn’t made any new friends. So I was excited when she started with this group as soon as Arizona began returning to normalcy! She has just found out her friend had a different ideology.

My daughter was suddenly taken aback by this new revelation. Although our conversation didn’t touch her inner conflict, I could see that she struggled with this fact. She continued to keep the outer appearances while her mind was playing a thousand different questions. This conflict is something adults go through every day, and hence we might have mastered how to hide our inner emotions. On the contrary, it is difficult for a teenager. Even adults struggled when ideologies clashes.

I remember my teenage years. I don’t recollect such significant conflicts. My conflicts were more straightforward, and it was usually about the choices for events starting in the next few hours. My friends’ circle liked similar kinds of foods, similar types of books, and similar genres of movies. As for ideologies, we inherited these from our parents. It may sound odd, but they also had similar kinds of ideologies. It is not the same anymore. We exit social media platforms as we can’t stand some of our friend’s beliefs.

It was easy to grow up a few years back. The conflicts were minimal, as was polarization. Today, we are all polarized. What do we teach our kids? Tolerance for a different viewpoint or block the friendship. I don’t have an answer. At the same time, I will observe if my daughter is going to remain friends with her new friend.