I think I get it now.  I never understood it before, but I think I do now.  When I was a child, I would cry and cry to my mother about how one of my friends wouldn't sit with me on the bus, and my mother would try to give me advice.  She would say things like, "I'm sure she doesn't hate you, she probably wants to be alone".  My personal favorite was when she would say "If they make fun of you, then they aren't worth your time".  She would also sometimes say "They wouldn't tease you if they didn't really like you".  Of course, I would cry and scream at my mother that she wasn't making any sense and she didn't know what the heck she was talking about.

I get it now.  My daughter is now doing the same exact thing to me.  She just cried to her father that her friend Sarah hates her because she won't sit with her on the bus anymore.  I found myself saying the same thing to my daughter that my mother said to me.  "Sarah can be friends with more than one person, just like you can be friends with more than one person"  Of course, my 5 year old daughter thinks I am out of my mind.  Just like I thought my mother was.  After all, how could I possibly understand the problems of elementary school society?

It's the generation gap.  I am sitting here with 36 years of experience and wisdom that my daughter doesn't yet possess.  I have been through a journey that she can't even imagine.  I have the knowledge in me that Sarah and my daugher will probably be back to best friend status by next weekend.  However, from my daughter's experience, I am on a different planet from her, separated by time and space. 

I am also confident in my knowledge that 31 years from now, a similar conversation will take place, between my daughter and her daughter.  And it will be my daugher's turn to sit on the alien planet, trying to console a frantic 5 year old that her friend hasn't abandoned her.  And so on, and so forth, until the end of time itself.