To ask if school mum cliques upset you, or how do you deal with cliques?

Theres alot of gaslighting going on in this thread and I do feel sorry for OP. Mean mummy school gate cliques are a thing and it’s a form of bullying. I think 2 -4 mums who get on well and chat regularly is a harmless group of friends. But a huge gang of 10 - 15 mums with their own separate WhatsApp group, all standing with their backs turned giving you the stink eye as you walk past, is a clique. Organising big nights out for a large group of 10+ mums and not putting it on the main group so as to include everyone is a clique. Organising play dates with half the kids in the class and leaving out one or two others is a clique. Its horrible and it’s real. I think a lot of the people commenting so harshly on here must been queen bees bitches themselves with a rather guilty conscience.

Love a zombie thread resurrection.

OP, did you join a clique?

Yes there can be and probably will be at some point. Ignore them, chat to them and be friends with whoever you want. Eventually many cliques get weaker, it can be isolating sometimes.

Motherland is funny precisely because it is so recognisable to many people. Exaggerated yes, but instantly recognisable.
I’m a Grandma now and well remember the playground clique at my children’s primary school, headed up by a Queen Bee. The gathered mums used to part like the Red Sea when she swept into the playground, rattling the keys to her 4 wheel drive. My (adult) daughter still does a great impression of her, 30 years later!
Hang on, that sounds like a tv script🤔

Cliques forming with the kids or parents? If it’s with the kids then this isn’t a clique it’s a 5 year old developing friendships, if it’s the parents then what’s the issue? Do you want to be part of the clique? I’ve never been a ‘school mum’ seeing them all gossiping in the playground and at the gates then going to each others houses after the school run is my idea of hell, I’ve always stayed well clear, helped massively that I’ve always had a full time job and no time for standing around in my leggings talking shit about the PTA……but each to their own

The best zombie I saw was asking for a recommendation for a pram, years later the the thread was reanimated when the op replied to the thread with a recommendation for the pram she bought without realizing that she started it. 😁 So it could be worse.

Oh Lordy! Another resurrected Zombie thread - and it had me this time. Why on earth don't MN disable responses after a certain amount of time has elapsed?

Oh my, I hated the dreaded school run. My oldest DD is now 11 and makes her own way there, phew.

I have 20 month old DD too so I be right back to it in a few years eurgh.

I found arriving early in the morning and late for pick up was the best way to avoid the cliques.

I have to accept that I’m not going to be everyone’s best friend as I’m hardly ever at the school due to work.

I sometimes feel like I’m missing out but it is what it is!

My kid is Y4.

I'll talk to anyone, or not, and have no problems either way. The parents are friendly enough, and if one ignored me I'd dismiss it as their not having seen me, preoccupied with something else, etc. It's highly unlikely to be about me personally and even if it is, I can't pretend to care overmuch.

Doubtless some cliques do exist: if they do, I'm not aware of them. If other parents are friends and meet up outside of school drop-off and pick-up, I haven't noticed and am busy as most of us are, so it would be an overinvestment to make time for transitory, school-gate friendships in addition.

That's not to say parents bullying other parents doesn't happen, just because it happens to be outside my experience. But there's a limit to what they can do. Drop-off is easy, you drop and go. Pick-up, if you do that too, is 5-10 mins wait per day.

It should take up precisely that much of your time and attention.

Sorry this is making you feel rotten OP. I know on these threads a dismissive attitude is inevitable, and I've no desire to add to that, but hope this is something you can deal with in proportion. Call a lovely friend who does have time for you and invite them for coffee, and (as far as possible) only make room for what is positive in your life. Works for me 🌹

Makes me wish I could fast forward them for a peek at their future, when their children are grown, are doing just fine with the mates they made for themselves, and they can barely remember the names of these people, much less why they mattered.

Reading yet another thread like this makes me eternally grateful that I never did a school run, maybe walked to the end of the road to put one onto the school bus when they were small.

I know. The question of why these people I find awful and hateful aren't seeking me out for friendship is one for the ages.

@VBrzonk - thank God for you coming along 7 months after the event to tell that person off.

Whilst I try not to buy in to the whole clique thing, this comment is just horrible. This person is obviously struggling and there is no need to be so rude. Have a bit of compassion please and try to be constructive. Your attitude is just depressing.

I think the above post is very astute. During my first few weeks doing the school run it never occurred to me to look out for cliques etc. I just didn't give it much thought. I made several friends easily (we're still close 15 years later) and, yes, we tended to stand chatting together most days.

I honestly don't believe any us thought others in the playground were observing us unfavourably and deciding we were a clique? We were just friends chatting and busy getting on with life - there was never any malicious intent. Life really is far too short to indulge in that sort of shit.

@Mardyface
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you for posting that!

Excellent post. Thanks for taking the trouble to write this out.

Also this
I think a lot of feelings come in for some people, and not good feelings. They want to make friends, they feel lonely. They want to feel included, they feel envious of those who can make friendships and it leads to a fuck ton of drama in the outsiders head, where as the people being watched are just cracking on and have no idea a small minority are watching on
yes isolated incidents occur but what most folks see as just a group of folks being friendly some folks see it as something to attack

I still don’t understand how insisting the OP is in the thrall of established, nefarious cliques - when none of us knows that, and it is such early days for her at this school - is in any way helpful?

But then again - given then OP has come back to say ‘here’ once and then hasn’t engaged again at all - I’m not really sure why any of us are bothering….

Telling people that their perspective is skewed is not gaslighting. It's reality.

How do you know that someone’s perspective is ‘skewed’ when you weren’t even there??

I think most adult women are able to read non verbal communication well enough to assess if they are being deliberately sidelined as oppose to inadvertently overlooked. Yes, sometimes we can be over sensitive and misinterpret things, but time and again women speak about being excluded by cliques. Are we to suppose that all of them have misconstrued innocent behaviour? Because that seems about as likely to me as suggesting that all women who feel uncomfortable around certain male behaviour are imagining it, and the men are just being friendly. We read signals, we pick up on expressions. If someone says they are being excluded, there's every chance they're right.

@CallTheMobWife right, but people desperately trying to make clearly unreasonable behaviour - like that of the woman who told someone to move, for example - into misunderstanding/misinterpretation are telling people their own experiences are wrong. In my own case I have plenty of friends, I like to see the best in people & I don't begrudge friendships that others have without me . I think the advice about staying positive and friendly is spot on. But I am also able to recognise rudeness from people doing it because they want to cement a group and their place in it and your place out of it. That is my experience. It didn't bother me much at the time because I was in a strong situation and not vulnerable - I just thought 'wow that was rude' - but telling me I did not experience that rudeness is indeed gaslighting. When you do that to someone who IS bothered and IS feeling vulnerable it can make them feel like the fault is all theirs when it isn't (necessarily). Otherwise known as gaslighting.

But many of the people bemoaning cliques on this thread have been anything but ‘kind’. The derogatory language is a sight to behold.