Mommyfriends

I had this sitting around waiting to go, and then yesterday my friend Lauren said pretty much the same thing, much more succinctly, in a comment. Which just goes to show that I really did pick the right friends. (But also, I wanted you to know that I thought of it all on my own.)

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What sort of parent are you? But what sort of a parent do your friends think you are? And how can you ever find out for sure while keeping your friends your friends?

I've noted before that differences in parenting styles can make or break a friendship. But what if, despite having a similar attitude and being on the same page philosophy-wise, you vaguely suspect that your friend thinks you're too easygoing on your kids, and that your kids are some way to being undisciplined tearaways as a result?

Your friend is your friend, and as such is unlikely to tell you, if that's her candid opinion of your beloved offspring. You can passive-aggressively blog about it.* You can ask her outright. But, unless you have unusually blunt and outspoken friends, or friends who are looking to get out of being your friends, such approaches will only garner reassurances that you're a great parent and your kid is going through a particularly tough phase right now and it was also partly their child's fault for presenting such a delicious-looking body part right in front of your kid's bared teeth.

But then you remember that sometimes you might look less than favourably on some other people's kids too, but when those people are your friends, you don't hold it against them because you know they're good parents who are doing their best to battle against the forces of chaos as presented in the bodily incarnation of preschoolers. Because friends are people who still like you even when your kids are being horrible.



* I'm not doing that. This was inspired by real-life events, but I ran the blog post by my friends before hitting Publish.