To think you can't hang around with people with different parenting styles happily?

[malificent7]

My dd is 12 and in secondary school. I have some good friends but we all have different parenting styles.
Actually i think they are better parents than me but we all have our own challenges.
I now realise that i dont feel comfortable around some of them due to little digs. I've had parents comment on the amount of pocket money, screen time, time allowed into town etc.
My attitude is live and let live. You won't allow your dd to go to town i let mine go but back before dark.
You think x amount of pocket money is too much ...i think it's fine as she buys clothes from it.
You think i'm too soft on my dd, i think i do what it takes to survive and i will make allowances for her if she's ill etc.

I get on better with the parents who dont comment on anything to do with parenting.

I think you can be friends with people who parent differently quite happily but you can’t be friends with people happily who comment on your parenting; whether you parent similarly or not it’s just not on to comment on other people’s parenting. The only person I’ll ever talk about someone else’s parenting with is DH.
I’ve got a pre school age child and recently made a few friends with the same age children and got a bit self conscious about my parenting compared to theirs but then I read on here that everyone is parenting their own individual child how they need to be parented and I’ve found that even my second DC needs slightly different parenting to my first so now whenever I compare myself I just think I’m parenting my child how she needs and so are they with theirs

People in the UK seem to think that kids have no agency whatsoever until they are 18 and then they are magically adults and parents should not help them with anything (actually, maybe that's more MN than the UK at large!)

It absolutely more MN than the uk at large

I think there are some differences that can be looked past and some that can't, and which differences fall into which category are quite personal.

For example I can tolerate things like different bed times, pocket money, choices of clothing, screen time and diet, but I cannot tolerate differences in manners, or allowing young children to refuse medicine or sunscreen.

I have dropped friends because they have allowed their children to refuse medication and their dc were quite frankly naughty little brats.

I am also still friends with some parents whose kids watch things I wouldn't let ds watch, eat more sweets than him and pre pandemic go to extra curricular things they didn't particularly enjoy (which I would not make ds do).

It really depends on your line in the sand.

I don't care how people parent their kids. But I also don't really like it when they want to talk about it as I either have to lie or go along with it.

My close friend has a son who is poorly behaved. Always has been. No boundaries, no consequences and the child has no respect. The parents often laugh about the rude things he's done and they don't step in if he's rude to others. It infuriates me and puts me off seeing them even though we were close before kids.

I don't care how they parent, but wish they wouldn't mention it.

@Pantheon

I think the issue is the digs, not the differences. If everyone adopted a live and let live attitude, there'd be no problem. They don't sound like particularly nice people Tbh or perhaps they're insecure about their parenting.

Exactly. I have zero interest in other people’s parenting, and am probably only likely to notice it in the most peripheral way unless they start vocally criticising mine. In which case I’ll be annoyed at the rudeness, not their philosophy on screens or pocket money.

I give my friend and her feral daughter a wide berth......love my friend to bits but her daughter can do no wrong so has always had a sense of entitlement which is getting worse as she gets older. Always been told by her mum and dad how cute she is so thinks she is untouchable. I tend to meet my friend when the kids are at school - pre covid anyway.

Yes, you can be friends with someone who parents differently, so long as there is no judgement about who is best. Its tye judgements, not the differences, that cause the problems.

I have this problem a little. My group of friends, who I've been friends with for years are very different to me. Generally they are good, nice people but for example they don't really do routine and I do. I don't have swearing around my children, they swear without thinking about it and laugh when their children do. Our children are all under seven.

I am the last one to have children so they always think they know better than me as they've been doing it longer and that I'm uptight. I'm not. Mine just react well to set routines, clear expectations of behaviour (I'm not super strict but I don't allow things like jumping on sofas or running around the house screaming for no reason) and we I do not tolerate hitting or being physical. They're all much more laid back, and only tend to get involved in a shovy squabble if someone is crying or bleeding. They think it's OTT that my two year old (two and a half so not a little two) is made to sit to the table and eat mostly with cutlery (a fork and spoon, I don't expect knife skills!).

I wouldn't go on holiday with any of them for this reason. One friend of the lot I would, but she is much more like me than them. Incidentally she's a teacher so I expect she has a better grasp of what poor behaviour accepted from very young can translate to later on.

I can manage perfectly fine on an afternoon spent together and I just ignore any digs. A week though? No. I don't particularly want my four year old learning to tell me to fuck off when I tell her it's time for bed!

All in all I much prefer to see them without any of our children! I like to keep my friends for my own adult time, and have child time with the children friends and their mums (one or two of whom cross over to bring my friends too but mostly they're friendly acquaintances).

Its hard as the peer pressure at secondary is so strong....not saying what your doing is wrong but if your DD is having a lot more freedom/money than her peers then they could be giving their parents grief....you sound very sure that your choices are right and therefore the other parents are wrong...especially to the teenage mindset...

Who is making these comments that you are listening too...???
. I do quite a lot if that's their parents choices etc with my teens...but I can't give the money their friends get...can't afford it..they don't care about that they have to buy clothes from it they just hear £50 a month or whatever..... I do give limited time out (well none at the moment) because all the teens that went off the rails when I was a teen including me...were the ones that had all the freedom .. so yeah your choices have an impact on my dc and therefore me.... but I just rinse repeat on my position...not yours!

you sound very sure that your choices are right and therefore the other parents are wrong.

But don't we all think that @averythinline? We all think that what we're doing is right for us and our family. I do what I think is right for us, I do understand that it may not be right for others. The OP does actually say that she thinks that they are probably parents than her, which I'm sure isn't true. We all do what gets us through at the end of the day don't we.

I can tolerate things like different bed times, pocket money, choices of clothing, screen time and diet

what is there to tolerate? None of those are any of your business!

You need to start to chill if you ever become a MIL, you'll end up in all sorts of trouble with that attitude.

YANBU it's hard going. I've drawn a bit of a line about going on holiday with other families for this very reason it's all a bit fraught. I can't tolerate kids who shriek, with bad manners or who are ridiculously fussy eaters who who interrupt all the time. I also struggle with risk averse, fussy helicopter parents.

We like to eat meals with our DC's and all eat similar food and expect them to sit at the table and behave. A lot of our friends still cook separately for their kids traditional "kids food" and on holiday they have insisted on his. This isn't how our family works and my kids don't like it.

Yanbu. You can when your children are older and out of the way, but not when they are actually at ground level with your child and interacting with them.

I have a close circle of friends who all parent in different ways in terms of feeding/cosleeping etc those things don’t really impact on anyone else, and we do share the same values in terms of behaviour/discipline/manners, which DO impact on others and that is why our friendships work, and because we agree on the stuff that does impact on others there isn’t really anything to pass judgement on. Our kids are still quite little though so there’s still time!

@EssentialHummus

It's complicated! I broadly feel like I don't care unless it impacts me, except that that can happen quite quickly - if a friend's child breaks one of my child's toys or snatches something off her and the parent sits there gormlessly it becomes a choice between ignoring poor behaviour (to my child's detriment) or having to discipline someone else's child. Neither great.

But I also feel strongly around what I perceive as overly permissive parenting - i.e. parent tells child it's time to go home, child howls/ignores, parent says "OK then", and repeat - because those kinds of kids soon become the type I don't want to share the company of, so I tend to get my excuses in early.

On the other hand I don't care what your income or job is, whether your kid wears a tiger costume or a rugby outfit, whether you're talkative or a quiet type, whether you co-sleep, sleep train, BLW, feed your kid McDonald's, hothouse, unschool, whatever. I'm curious about difference but feel secure in what I'm doing.

Basically some differences are easier to tolerate than others.

100% agree! ⬆️

I can hang out with people with all sorts of parenting styles. I cannot, however, go on holiday with them.

Screen time, bed time, pocket money, amount of presents and clothes you buy? why would you even discuss that

I agree, I think you need some different friends with better chat. I can't imagine anything more fucking boring to talk about.

I think it comes down to attitude. People who parent differently and need to talk about their theories endlessly are difficult to be around. People who parent differently but have a live and let live attitude to others are much easier to spend time with.

We lost contact with a couple who had been close friends for years over our different parenting styles. But as others have said, it was more about their attitude to us really. Well hers actually, he went aling with it but was fairly passive.
They were devotees of a certain baby "guru" who used to be unmentionable here. ( I am not sure if that's still the case but I won't risk it!) If I had to give our parenting a name I would say we are AP, though we never read any books or anything, just did what seemed natural to us. But they treated The Routine as if it were sacred and if we wanted to meet up or do anything with them it had to be scheduled like a military operation. I found that frustrating but could have put up with it were it not for the continual digs at our parenting that occurred whenever we did meet up. I'm not proud of it, but eventually I had enough and started to give as good as I got. We didn't have one final big row or anything but meeting up became a chore rather than something we enjoyed and it just petered out. We haven't seen them for about 15 years now which is a shame as we used to have loads of other stuff in common, but our differences in this respect were just too big.

The beauty of having children at secondary school though is that you very much don't have to socialise with, or hang round with, their parents unless you want to. It's not like primary school when you are far more likely to bump into them.

I may sometimes silently judge some parents with regard to decisions they have made, but it's their child, their decision and their business. And only know their child best. I would never, ever say anything to them.

It's not a difference in styles, it's them being rude and snide. I'd cool off the friendships TBH.

I stopped being friends with a family due to different parenting styles. Their children had no consequences for their behaviour, so did whatever they wanted. One girl hit my son, hard, on the head with a toy. She wasn’t punished, wouldn’t say sorry and was allowed to get away with it. That was the last time I saw them.

Some of my friends’ children I like and others I don’t. I’m happy to spend time with my friends whose children I don’t like without their children around. I will put up with the whole package once in a while. But I’ve reached the conclusion now our kids are older, that if I invite a child to my home and they act entitled, try to make fun of my children or seem to want to get me to turn on my kids I will not let that child visit again alone.

I wouldn’t say anything to my friend. But I have noticed that one of my friendship group’s child doesn’t get invited out to as many school holiday group meet ups. This is because the child is truly horrible to the rest, and it is IMO because they are very spoilt only child who has every material thing they could desire but absolutely no idea how to interact with their peers.

I don’t think this child has been taught that no ones likes a bragger. So when they say, “I get more pocket money than you,” or “I get to do x, y, z...” the child is trying to assert some kind of power over their peers. It’s the sort of behaviour that gets them friends at 5, but by the time they reach secondary these sorts of kids are mostly tolerated and perceived as shallow. Some of their so called friends are only friends with them because they have the material possessions and the freedoms and get used. Which kind of feeds into a negative cycle. I do work with teens so I can see it. A lot of the kids who have everything they want are often a little bit insecure because perhaps they’ve really only wanted is firmer boundaries.

I have no idea where your child fits into this. But maybe if your child is overtly bragging in a game of one-upmanship it might be worth getting them to tone it down a bit.

I have a close friend's kids who are excellent kids and super smart but the parents don't really mind about the kids saying sorry when they have done something wrong and saying please and thank you. I dont particularly mind, not my circus not not monkeys but it's probably the only thing I am very strict about. After seeing them quite a lot my boys do mirror their behaviour which I do find frustrating and I do get "but x doesnt have to say sorry, that's not fair". So I literally dont care what other parents do (I was certainly a lot more permissive as babies) but I do get frustrated when it affects my child's behaviour. Wouldn't in any way stop me seeing them, just might have a bitch with DH afterwards.

Another close friend doesnt bother with bedtimes and the kids are often up until 11pm. It has no effect on my life what time she puts her kids to bed but I am much less likely to watch them in the evening for her!