Dilemma: 'Do I tell my best friend the truth about her daughter's drinking?'

I’m struggling with a dilemma and I need some advice. Because I need to know if what I’m about to tell my best friend is really just me being selfish, or is it – like I think it is – completely necessary.

More importantly, is proving my point worth destroying a 30 year friendship?

My best friend and I had our first daughters six months apart; mine came first and is about to turn 16. When it comes to parenting, we haven’t always been on the same page, but we've always been respectful of each other's choices.

She kept her children out of daycare, opting to stay home and be a full-time mother. I went back to work on a part-time basis and continued to do so through all of my children’s early lives. She breastfed her children until they decided they were done and I breast fed mine until I decided I was done. She used cloth nappies, I used disposables. I think you get the gist: we parented differently but didn't judge each another along the way.

Well, at least I didn't think we did.

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That all changed the other day, when had a huge argument - our first and only major disagreement in almost 20 years.

It was sparked by a seemingly fun and innocuous conversation. We were on our once-a-month catch-up via Skype and started to talk about our teenagers drinking at parties. Both our girls were being invited to the kind of house parties where adults were conspicuously absent. Off the cuff, I remarked "Well, I expect they will have a drink, just like we did when we were their age".

"Well Louisa bloody won’t be! She knows she’s banned until she turns 18." My friend actually said this, her wide eyes looking at me through the computer screen.

At this point, I didn’t realise how serious was about the topic. I mean, this was the friend who stole her parent's gin and, underage, went to dubious nightclubs. That's exactly why, when she told me that her own daughter wouldn’t be doing the same thing, it almost made laugh out loud. That was until her next sentence: "Not if she wants to continue living under my roof she won't."

That's when I understood that as friends, we were suddenly in very dangerous and unfamiliar territory - we were judging one another's parenting styles.

It was my turn to stare at her wide-eyed. "So, you mean to tell me that you don’t think Louisa will taste a sip of alcohol before she turns 18?."

"Yes. I’ve already told her that if she drinks underage, she’ll need to go find somewhere else to live, that it is unacceptable behaviour while she’s under our roof."

Whoa.

But instead of leaving it there and letting her live her life and parent how she chooses, for some inexplicable reason I went for her. And in a way I never usually would. I just couldn’t believe she was being so close minded and and worse, would actually consider locking her teenage daughter out of her house for being, well, a teenager.

"So," I said, ‘you aren’t willing to let her experiment, or give her some limits? Because what I learned when you and I used to get pissed back in the day is that because our parents made it taboo, we went absolutely stupid with it. Maybe if you let her taste it, or take one to a party, it won’t be such a big deal anymore and she won’t go silly."

I swear to god, I saw the hairs on the back of her neck rise and she launched into a diatribe, and a vicious one. It was personal, outlining how, because I’m a “loose” parent who is rarely around to see what her kids are up to, I'm no expert. She was also quick to tell me that, unlike me, she wasn't trying to be her daughter’s friend, but her mother.

That’s when she hung up on me.

Two days later my daughter brought her phone to me and showed me a picture of Louisa, my friend's daughter, on a Snapchat story, Bacardi Breezer in one hand, cigarette in the other, kissing two different boys.

This is where my dilemma kicks in. If I tell my friend about this, even if she does believe me, will she just think I'm doing it to prove my point? That's not my motivation - I just want to alert her to the fact her daughter is not only partying, she’s doing it really dangerously?

Or should I just stay quiet and hope our friendship will repair?

I'd love to hear your advice or experiences with this kind of situation.

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