Friends with Kids and Differences

I read an article in a parenting magazine I get about how a lot of women’s friendships don’t survive having kids.

Not in the “you don’t have a kid but I do so I’m mad you can go drinks shots of Patron until you think you are Beyonce so I’m just not going to talk to you again because now I think you drink too much” type of friendships dissolving.

This was about women who each have kids, and who still find themselves on the outs with their former BFF’s.

Why?

Differing parenting styles.

This baffled me. Really? Women lose friends over this?

I started to think about my circle of friends, and I am very very lucky to have a large group of spectacular women I get to call friends. Most of them have babies or toddlers or young kids.

And every single one of them has a different parenting style.

Some have a nanny.

Some do daycare.

Some have family watching the baby.

Some make their own baby food.

Some buy packaged baby food.

Some are all organic and natural

Some don’t fuss over the organic debate

Some breast feed.

Some don’t breast feed.

Some co-sleep.

Some had their babies in their own room from practically day 1.

Some have their babies on schedules

Some have no schedule

Some trust Western medicine

Some want only homeopathic medicine

Some couldn’t fathom leaving their child for a weekend

Some can’t wait for a weekend away and itch for that time away from their child

Some can’t imagine working and leaving their baby with someone else

Some can’t imagine staying home all day with a baby

Some freak out over every little germ

Some let their babies chew on dog toys

Some make home-made blankets and clothes

Some buy clearance from Wal-Mart

Some are Attachment parents

Some don’t know what Attachment parenting even is

Some cherish every second with their baby and never want to put them down

Some hand the baby over to Dad and go get a glass of wine

See? All different. 

But what is silly, when you think about it… is that we are all doing the SAME THING. We are all raising and loving our children.

We ALL want them to be happy, healthy, fulfilled and successful.

We all want them to dream and explore and play and laugh.

I can’t imagine losing a good friend over something as trivial as what type of food we feed our babies, or whether out babies co-sleep or not. Friendships should run deeper than that.

Women (especially Moms) need to band together and support each other, not pick apart different parenting styles. Parenting is hard enough. Being responsible for the life of an innocent is no easy task, and any mother can tell you that there is panic on a daily basis over whether or not we know what the hell we are doing.

I respect all of my friends and the differences in their parenting styles. Sometimes I wonder how they do what they do… but their style is what works for them, and for their family. And my style works for us.

Whoever these women are that the magazine article was referring to really should have tried being open-minded, because really… you can learn a lot from parent-friends who do things differently than you.