Parenting changes friendships—wine playdates turn into coffee chats over kid drama. Prioritize meaningful connections and adapt to evolving relationships.
“I started off picking my child’s friends by which moms would drink wine with me on a playdate. I ended up with friends who would drink coffee with me while we worried our kids were drinking wine.” -Anonymous on Pinterest
Key Concepts
- Parental friendships, much like any other relationships, undergo significant transformations over time. These changes are influenced by various life stages, experiences, and personal growth.
- Parenting years represent a period of friendship decline
- Early parenting friendships are based on shared experiences and emotional support. In the toddler years, this transitions to regular interactions and shared activities. In the elementary years, school involvement may help support friendships, but cracks begin to emerge. By adolescence, parental friendships are strained by evolving interests and time constraints, but parents feel a new need for connection and advice around the challenges of raising a teenager.
- The main challenges for parental friendships are differences in parenting styles, values, or life choices, AND time constraints of busy adult and child schedules.
What to do?
- Think through the most meaningful friendships you have and prioritize them
- Take stock of the friendships that feel like they aren’t serving you, and make changes
- Setting aside regular time for social interactions, whether through planned outings or spontaneous get-togethers, to help keep friendships strong.
- Practice empathy and open communication with friends to help and support evolving friendships and keep them alive.
How to handle maintaining adult friendships separately from the relationships of your kids.
- Avoid litigating the kids' issues with friends. If you must reach out to another parent - making sure you have the permission of your child - start by setting intentions for the conversation, like “I know that I only have one side of the story and I know that things are probably very complicated, but I wanted us to try and connect about this to help the kids or at least for us to discuss it so we can stay friends.”
- Remember that you DO NOT know the whole story, or have a good perspective on your own child’s behavior. Ask your child, “Is there anything you’re doing that may be contributing to this,” or “Can you think of how you may be making this situation harder or worse,” while you also support them in how they are feeling (excluded, etc). Be open to the possibility that things are not ONLY the way you see them.
- When things are rocky or distant between the kids, spend time together as adults.
- Scheduling time together can ensure that you have enough positive interactions to keep things alive!
- Don’t force things for the sake of nostalgia. If you and your friend grow apart related to your children’s drama, it is OK to also let things go.