For many of us, our parenting styles go deeper than the rules we set and how we enforce them.
Parenting choices are about our relationships with our kids, the relationships we want them to build with the world, and often, about our own upbringing and how we feel that it affected us. For these and other reasons, some folks react viscerally to others making different choices, which can ruin friendships.
How do we maintain friendships despite different parenting choices, and when do we let them go?
When Parenting Differences Become Mommy Wars
The hardest part of remaining friends with someone with a different parenting style is when the situation becomes judgmental.
If you let your child have candy and your friend doesn’t allow her child of a similar age to eat sweets, or if her child goes to bed at eight and yours at nine, this doesn’t have to be a problem. However, if your friend constantly criticizes you for your choices, it may be time for a hard conversation.
Dria Benson shared her story of a similar situation. She says that her friend of 3 decades raises their child in an old-school authoritarian style, and her own is more managed chaos and responsiveness. At some point, she realized that her interactions with her friend were characterized heavily by the friend’s criticism. On Tiny Beans, she wrote:
“She questioned why I chose a certain school for my kids, why we didn’t reprimand them more, how we dealt with the pandemic; the list went on and on….She saw my decisions as moral judgments—that her way of parenting must be wrong. In reality, it was just me choosing what I felt was best for my family.”
She realized it was time to let the friendship go.
Is a friendship ever salvageable at this point? Possibly, if your friend is willing to listen and you can communicate the problem, or if you’re comfortable shutting out the judgment.
However, if you’re constantly on the spot to explain your choices and it’s making the friendship unpleasant, it’s entirely reasonable to break it off.
Ideals Clashing At Playdates & Events
You and your friend have your kids at the playground together when the ice cream truck rolls up. Your friend already has cashed out, but you know from experience that if you let your child have ice cream now, she won’t eat supper, and this invariably spirals into hunger at bedtime and a chain of events you’d like to avoid.
This might be any slight parenting difference, from desserts to bedtimes to screen time to whether or not the kids are allowed to play with water guns, but it comes up in a context where the two kids are together and subjected to different rules.
These are the times to choose between compromise (is there a popsicle or other smaller treat your child can have so she feels included but will still eat dinner?) or teaching your kid that different people have different needs, so different parents have different rules.
Thankfully, your child is probably already aware that rules can vary — she likely has different rules at school or daycare from home, and you enforce different rules in the grocery store than on the playground, so this isn’t an entirely new concept.
When The Other Parent’s Choices Violate Your Concept Of Right & Wrong
One concerned parent recently shared her experience on Reddit. She says that she and her husband had friends over who had a child close in age to their own. Unfortunately, when the child didn’t behave as her parents preferred, the scene became violent. She describes:
“She wasn’t listening as four year olds often do and after a third warning we watched my husband’s friend since elementary school, a best man at our wedding, grab his daughter, lay her over his lap and spank her aggressively three times. This was all done in front of our kids.”
What does one do about a parenting decision that’s still broadly legal but proven harmful by decades of scientific study and is being carried out in front of one’s own kids, potentially to their detriment?
In this case, the poster’s husband approached the other parent more privately and, according to the mom, told him that their family considers spanking to be abuse and that they can’t remain friends if they’re forced to witness it.
Another parent shared a similar dilemma, in which she answered a phone call that turned out to be a pocket-dial and accidentally bore witness to her friend calling a 9-year-old an awful slur.
“I haven’t been able to look at her the same since,” she says.
How Can You Handle These Most Extreme Cases?
When the issue rises to an extreme level, like physical punishment, abusive language, or other harmful treatment, parents are stuck with a choice.
Do we punish a child for their parent’s behavior by cutting off their friendship with and connection to our child? Do we try to educate an adult, particularly one who feels they’re in the right and is not likely to be receptive to interference? Do we keep witnessing this, or cut off a friendship?
And, how do we explain it to our kids?
Unfortunately, this comes down to individual judgment and a lot of gray areas.
One silver lining is that, as long as the other parents are willing, you can still allow a friendship between the children without spending time with the parents.
If you think your friends will be receptive, you can share information with them, such as scientific research on parenting styles with the best outcomes, but don’t hold your breath.
Beyond that, you’ll have to determine what you can and can’t tolerate and act accordingly.
Talking To Our Kids About Parenting Styles
Your child may be confused by seeing another parent strike their child, by hearing language not used in their home directed at another child, or by witnessing rules more authoritarian than yours. They may be confused, as well, about another child being allowed to do things you do not permit.
They need to be reassured that their world and the expectations you have for them are stable and that your rules are in place for the right reasons. You might say:
“I believe that my rules are the right way, and Katie’s parents believe their rules are the right way. Different people have different needs, so it’s okay to have different rules. My rules will always be the ones I think are best for you and for our family. I want you to be safe and to feel safe.”
Knowing what to expect is significant for kids’ sense of safety, so when they hear from their parents that they can expect your rules to stay the same, it’s a solid reassurance.
