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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think most “mum friendship groups” are just thinly veiled cliques?

213 replies

SharpMintReader · 04/08/2025 08:44

The school-gate groups and WhatsApp chats often look less like support networks and more like exclusive cliques. AIBU to think “mum friendships” are too often politics in disguise?

OP posts:
Original poster
SharpMintReader · 04/08/2025 08:56

NancyJoan · 04/08/2025 08:50

Wh can’t they just be a group of friends? Not a support network, or a clique. Just some women who met each other at the school gate, make each other laugh, then meet for coffee.

They can be that and that’s great when it happens. But I’ve also seen situations where the group becomes exclusionary - even subtly. It’s not always about laughter and lattes; sometimes it’s about social hierarchy, even among mums.

OP posts:
5128gap · 04/08/2025 08:55

The very nature of a friendship group is that it only includes people who see each other as friends. And that when a friendship group is formed it will have a variety of functions beyond 'support', exchange of news, advantaging each other in various ways, exercising influence on each other, and on the wider context. If you see those things as cliquey and political, then I suppose you're right. But what's the viable alternative? That no one ever forms friendship groups? If you're on the outside of a group you want to join and your efforts to join have been rejected, you need to either form another group from people in a similar position, or get perspective and learn not to care. There's a big long life away from and after the school gate, and one day you'll look back and wonder why on earth you were so bothered about people you can barely remember the names of.

Helpmeplease2025 · 04/08/2025 08:55

Some people meet due to circumstances, make friends and then hang out together. This happens in every walk of life; work, neighbours, clubs, groups. But only when it happens at school it is a VERY BAD THING

THisbackwithavengeance · 04/08/2025 08:53

I think if you dismiss cliques as non existent and irrelevant then you’ve clearly never been the victim of exclusion from one and you’re likely in the school gate Queen Bee Clique already.

They do exist as they exist everywhere. Work. School. Uni. Hobby clubs.

If you’re lucky enough to be “popular” and included then obviously you don’t reflect or care how it’s like for others who aren’t.

StrawberryCranberry · 04/08/2025 08:52

So OP are you saying that all the school gate mums have to be friends with all the other mums? You can't have a group of closer friends, who get on well and maybe even - shock horror - start a WhatsApp group, because that would be a "clique"?

Badgersandfoxes · 04/08/2025 08:52

fgs Most of these “cliques” are just people passing the time of day with people they see twice a day for years. People read way too much into everything.

Onmywayhometonight · 04/08/2025 08:51

Women hanging out together just to exclude you? Ever considered It’s not all about you…maybe they just get on with each other!

NancyJoan · 04/08/2025 08:50

Wh can’t they just be a group of friends? Not a support network, or a clique. Just some women who met each other at the school gate, make each other laugh, then meet for coffee.

CoolBath · 04/08/2025 08:49

CommissarySushi · 04/08/2025 08:46

God, I'm sick of these stupid posts. They seemed to stop for a little while, but now they're back.

Yes. Grow up, OP. ‘Mums’ are jist women who have children. ‘School gate mums’ are just women with children at the same school as yours. Not some hostile subsection of humanity with an axe to grind.

If you have a child at school and are a woman, you’re a ‘school gate mum’. If you regard your friendships as a series of venomous political manoeuvrings, that is on you.

saraclara · 04/08/2025 08:49

My friends and I are a friendship group.

Those other women are in a clique.

🙄

CharlotteRumpling · 04/08/2025 08:48

CommissarySushi · 04/08/2025 08:46

God, I'm sick of these stupid posts. They seemed to stop for a little while, but now they're back.

Indeed.

MellowPinkDeer · 04/08/2025 08:48

There is nothing worse than the playground mafia. End of. I was so glad when all that toxic childlike bitching was out of my life!

CommissarySushi · 04/08/2025 08:46

God, I'm sick of these stupid posts. They seemed to stop for a little while, but now they're back.