Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Tell me about the mum's you have to put up with in your child's year

88 replies

LegalllyBrunette · 03/08/2025 20:45

I was watching Motherland today and couldn't help but think about the mums and dads I encounter on the school run and their idiosyncrasies. I wouldn't say there are any clear Julias or Amandas but there are definitely characters, some I try to avoid, and I'm just wondering what the dynamics are near you

I'll have to find a colourful way the ones I know

OP posts:
Cliffedge25 · 03/08/2025 20:47

I didn’t.
Drop off then piss off. No time nor energy to speak to any of them. No idea who’s mother or father is who’s.

Zero interest, zero time, zero energy.

LegalllyBrunette · 04/08/2025 20:58

Cliffedge25 · 03/08/2025 20:47

I didn’t.
Drop off then piss off. No time nor energy to speak to any of them. No idea who’s mother or father is who’s.

Zero interest, zero time, zero energy.

It's not so much drop off but it's seeing them at the parties, the local park or cafe at the weekend, plus quite a few live very close by!

OP posts:
SomeLikeitSnot · 04/08/2025 21:00

One of my DDs friends mum is the most unbearable woman. Arrogant, takes over every conversation, makes everything about her. Openly slags off her husband, other mums, hers and others kids (!!). Dresses ‘kooky’ and weird for attention. She’s literally unbearable and she’s always bloody there!

LegalllyBrunette · 04/08/2025 21:01

SomeLikeitSnot · 04/08/2025 21:00

One of my DDs friends mum is the most unbearable woman. Arrogant, takes over every conversation, makes everything about her. Openly slags off her husband, other mums, hers and others kids (!!). Dresses ‘kooky’ and weird for attention. She’s literally unbearable and she’s always bloody there!

She sounds awful!

OP posts:
ilovepixie · 04/08/2025 21:04

Thankfully parties were drop and leave when mine were small and play dates weren’t a thing. You just played out with friends where you lived. Didn’t enter into conversation at the school gate either. Life’s too short for that shite

Isitreallysohard · 04/08/2025 21:05

Cliffedge25 · 03/08/2025 20:47

I didn’t.
Drop off then piss off. No time nor energy to speak to any of them. No idea who’s mother or father is who’s.

Zero interest, zero time, zero energy.

What about for your kids? The only reason I bother is for my children so I can get to know their friends and their parents

LegalllyBrunette · 04/08/2025 21:09

Isitreallysohard · 04/08/2025 21:05

What about for your kids? The only reason I bother is for my children so I can get to know their friends and their parents

Yes this is it. Ours are too young for drop off parties or to play alone so we are often together at parties or at the park or the local play area.

OP posts:
LegalllyBrunette · 04/08/2025 21:11

We went to two kids' parties last week. One there wasn't anyone I knew. The other one, I was reminded of the mums I cannot bear to be around. One of them either has no self awareness or is just mean thinking it makes her queen bee, another is so socially awkward it's painful to talk to her (and I'm no social butterfly) and another just talks about herself constantly and seems to tell me the same stories every time I see her yet have no recollection of what I've told her. There's one I quite like but her children are complete PITAs and constantly ask to come and play so I have to keep some distance.

OP posts:
Hattieandcake · 04/08/2025 21:12

Really annoying chavs whose kids have taught mine every swear word / signal under the sun, over share “I love my boys soooo much they are my world” (even though they are bastard little shits) and look how hard we work / how rich post we are types - no middle ground !

itsmeafterall · 04/08/2025 21:13

A long time ago since mine were at school. There was one mum who decided to challenge me to a fight in the playground. I had complained to the school after her DD had punched mine. A delightful specimen and I have no Des why her child was so violent 😂

20 years on and she still scowls at me anytime I see her on the street.

LBFseBrom · 04/08/2025 21:17

I didn't get involved as far as possible.

Motherofalittledragon · 04/08/2025 21:19

No interest in playground politics drop and go!

OrchardDoor · 04/08/2025 21:24

I liked Motherland and Amandaland but didn't recognise the characters in my own area.
Most were fine but there was one who was a hard, school bully type. A couple were bossy types.

Phoebesparrow · 04/08/2025 21:25

itsmeafterall · 04/08/2025 21:13

A long time ago since mine were at school. There was one mum who decided to challenge me to a fight in the playground. I had complained to the school after her DD had punched mine. A delightful specimen and I have no Des why her child was so violent 😂

20 years on and she still scowls at me anytime I see her on the street.

I had one like this

She stopped me in the street to scream in my face that my dd was a bully and I was to stop her or she'd smash my face in

I went and had a word with the teacher,if my child was a bully I wanted to know about it

She told me it wasn't my child who was a bully-it was the other child and that she was on a one way ticket to prison

20 years on,the child (now adult) is in prison for manslaughter,her brother is in other prison for murder and another brother is in the same prison for attacking an old man so badly he almost died

Only one out of the 4 kids is out at the moment but she's always getting arrested for shoplifting or mugging people for drug money

Can't for the life of me think where her kids got it from

(I actually feel for her kids,they never stood a chance and one has admitted prison is much nicer than home,the school did their best for them but all the professionals where shit scared of the mother)

OrchardDoor · 04/08/2025 21:26

I like the "I have never seen any parent from my child's school" answers 😁

Sometimeswinning · 04/08/2025 21:29

I have always loved the different characters at the school gates. But then I’m a sociable, friendly person who uses any opportunity to chat!

MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned · 04/08/2025 21:32

I can't think of any of the mums from school that I especially dislike - a few are hard work to make conversation with, but I'm reasonably sure they're shy rather than standoffish.

Some of the dads are absolute twats, though.

Meltyourpopsicle · 04/08/2025 21:34

I like my bunch. They’re a hippie sort of community of parents, but they’re all nice and not too out there. I think because many are from other countries or parts of the UK there’s a willingness to chat and make connections. It’s beautiful actually, if I forget my kids coat, one parent who lives close will bring my kid one in, likewise I’ll take other kids to party’s or pick up if someone is running late. It’s very easy found and natural. Worth putting up with a bit of sage talk and vegan buffets. I’d hate to deal with parents who don’t want to chat, play dates have to be scheduled two years in advance, single parents are scowled at and everyone just gets into their land rovers and drives off at pick up. It’s nice to have a bit of community, reminds me of where I grew up.
Theres no big characters or queen Bees. I don’t even know what that would be like for this group, who has the oldest camper van? Who makes the best dhal? Who’s kid speaks the most languages or plays the most medieval instruments?

WouldYouEatThemWithAFox · 04/08/2025 21:38

We had one that I called ‘my son’. Every sentence started with my son no matter what was happening. Someone could be juggling fire and she would have something to say about my son.

In seven years I never found out his name…because he wasn’t at the school. It was her daughter who was in my daughter’s class. She was never mentioned!

Alltheyellowbirds · 04/08/2025 21:40

Meltyourpopsicle · 04/08/2025 21:34

I like my bunch. They’re a hippie sort of community of parents, but they’re all nice and not too out there. I think because many are from other countries or parts of the UK there’s a willingness to chat and make connections. It’s beautiful actually, if I forget my kids coat, one parent who lives close will bring my kid one in, likewise I’ll take other kids to party’s or pick up if someone is running late. It’s very easy found and natural. Worth putting up with a bit of sage talk and vegan buffets. I’d hate to deal with parents who don’t want to chat, play dates have to be scheduled two years in advance, single parents are scowled at and everyone just gets into their land rovers and drives off at pick up. It’s nice to have a bit of community, reminds me of where I grew up.
Theres no big characters or queen Bees. I don’t even know what that would be like for this group, who has the oldest camper van? Who makes the best dhal? Who’s kid speaks the most languages or plays the most medieval instruments?

I want to live where you live, it sounds lovely. Any clues?

user1491310727 · 04/08/2025 21:51

NC.

In early 2021 when the schools closed to most pupils, i managed to get my then 5 year old a key worker place. My exh and I had just broken up, my dad was dying in a nursing home and I couldn’t take the children with me to visit him due to the restrictions, and my 5 yo was in desperate need of some normality. It was the worst time of my life. I happened to mention to a friend in the school playground that I’d managed to get him a key worker place even though I was WFH. Big mistake. Well, another mum overheard me and posted on the school facebook page detailing this conversation and outlined how irresponsible I was, abusing the system, with a lax attitude etc. She didn’t name me but I knew from her description she meant me, mentioning that I was also wearing trainers and “certainly didn’t look like she was going to work”. I didn’t know her, as her child was in another year, but one of HER friends, who I did know as she had a child in our year, joined in with her and said how awful it was etc etc. I commented, explaining my situation and standing up for myself. Never got an apology from either of them, and the mum who I do know doesn’t speak to me to this day, 5 years later.

BunnyVV · 04/08/2025 22:02

Tidying up after a Christmas fair craft stall I got a broom from the cleaning cupboard.
the class rep screamed at me demanding to know why I was sweeping up so early (tables wiped down, craft stuff in boxes, seemed the right time to me). I explained.
Class rep: ”how do YOU know where the cleaning cupboard is?”
me: “it’s been there since 1983 when I was at this school. Lucky guess”
Class rep: ”nobody sweeps up until I say so…”
what I wanted to say “shove the broom up your arse then.”
what I actually said: “oh I’m sorry. What shall I do instead.”

BootsandCatss · 04/08/2025 22:11

Well now I don’t as my son is in a SEN school 16 miles away and gets transport there. Going back some years ago though I had to deal with the chavviest scruffs parents ever. They took an instant dislike to me (if you were slightly different to them you were a target) and they used everything they could to do that. My son once joined in with their children rubbing each others heads, they were fine with the other kids doing it but I was threatened by a group of 5 of them over mine doing it🤦🏻‍♀️ I got daily threats, they got their older children to threaten my older daughter, one of them even called my 5 year old a little c*nt because he’d said hi to them. They were vile in every sense. I don’t miss the school run in the slightest, the anxiety of being around them made me physically ill.

SpamBeansAndWaffles · 04/08/2025 22:12

I had a lovely bunch of parents in my dd,'s classes. Enjoyed a bit of chat while the kids played and at parties . My dc had lovely friends who came round lots and the parents helped each other out. Have a few long term friends from those years. I guess there's a few I'm not bothered about seeing again but no real hate towards them.

CaptainFuture · 04/08/2025 22:14

Cliffedge25 · 03/08/2025 20:47

I didn’t.
Drop off then piss off. No time nor energy to speak to any of them. No idea who’s mother or father is who’s.

Zero interest, zero time, zero energy.

This, don't get the obsession with building your life around the school gates!