I’ve had a lot of friends over the years. Some have stayed in my life and others have disappeared only to pop back a few years (or decades) later. For the most part I’m pretty easy-going and no matter how long you’ve been my friend, I’m pretty lenient. It takes a LOT to make it on my permanent enemies list, and even then, I’m willing to give you another chance if you’re truly committed to change.

This post isn’t for my close friends who are still very much part of my circle and know who they are, though. This post is for the people (specifically other moms, but it can apply to anything, really) who have been in my life at one point who may or may not think I hate them now or that we can’t hang, or that I’d purposely freeze them out if they were to call and ask for a playdate.

To be honest, when I say I’m busy, I really AM busy. “Busy” to me is code for “I have a lot of crap to do, that may or may not be at home, and I can’t get it all done if I have you over” or else “I just finished a lot of crap that had to be done and/or stressed me out and really I just NEED to take a breather”. In both cases I DO want to see you, but just not that particular day. I’m not fun to be around when I’ve got a million things on my mind and being an introvert, I NEED to have that down time away from people or I will go crazy.

But being “busy” still has more to do with what’s going on in my brain and very little to do with how I feel about you. Because if I don’t like you, chances are I blocked your number. If you’re still on my friends list, then I don’t hate you.

So that being said, here are the 15 guidelines I have come up with to indicate whether or not a playdate could be in our future:

1) If you were my friend before we had kids, we can hang

2) If you feed your kid formula, we can still hang

3) If you don’t cosleep, we can still hang

4) If you would never ever want an unmedicated birth, we can still hang

5) If you have different political/religious views, we can still hang

6) If you have different tastes in music/movies but we have other things in common, we can hang

7) If you are totally cool if I have to cancel our date because something came up, and you don’t take it personally because life totally happens and you get it, we can hang

8) If you forget that we had a play date but apologize when you remember, it’s okay. We can still hang

9) If your kid smacks my kid and you then say “hey, kid, not okay!” Or something to that effect, we can still hang

10) If my kid hits your kid and then your kid hits back in retaliation and you don’t freak out, we can hang

11) If you don’t flip out because I let my kid watch TV/eat McDonald’s/ climb on furniture/insert other controversial parenting issue, we can hang

12) If you don’t take my choices in how I raise MY kids or give birth to said kids personally just because you do the opposite, we can hang

13) If you don’t berate me for choosing the opposite thing you did and don’t try to make me feel bad or wrong for those choices (see my don’t be an asshole posts) then we can hang

14) If you are willing to discuss disagreeing viewpoints in a constructive and informative way, without judgment and without expectations that I will somehow decide you “win” the debate, then we can hang

15) If you can’t make a strong effort not to be an asshole, then we can’t hang.

There you have it! I don’t care if you don’t breastfeed if you don’t mind that I still nurse my toddler. I don’t care if you fed on a schedule if you don’t get all offended when I feed my son on-demand. If you come to me for advice I will give you information that may or may not be what you want to hear, but I’m NOT expecting you to follow it, just be aware of it. And if YOU let your kid Cry it Out I expect that you respect that it’s not for me the same as I will respect that some things don’t work for you. And that’s OKAY! I’m not going to get all upset with you over formula or crying it out or medicated childbirth if you make it clear that you’re HAPPY with your choices and weren’t forced into them as long as YOU don’t turn around and tell me that MY choices are wrong. Because the fastest way to piss me off is to tell me that my choice to co-sleep with my son or nurse him when he asks for it is “wrong” and that I should be doing what YOU are doing with YOUR kid. See my “Mean Girls” post on how I feel about that.
But if you’re willing to hear what I have to say, realize that I say it with love, not judgement, and understand that what I’m saying is simply “this might work for you, might not, but if you want to try it, here’s the info you need” and not “do this because it totally worked for me”, then we can absolutely hang! If not, well then feel free to look me up when you stop being an asshole. ❤