To absolutely hate hate hate the school playground?

[peedoffbird]

I waited to pick my dd up from her primary school today. It suddenly struck me that the 5 minutes I waited there and the dynamics of the people around me pretty much represented the way I have always felt about my place in life and how others view me.

Little groupings here and there - little cliques that I am not and never could be part of. Largely walked past and ignored even when I go to say hello. I felt totally invisible.

Does anyone feel like this or is it just me and my paranoia??!!

[peedoffbird]

ScottishMummy I agree with you that it's just like life. We are all different and all perceive the same situation differently based on many factors. For some it's no problem, for others it's grim.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

I don't even notice. Maybe our school is full of cliques, I don't know. I am friendly with a few of the parents due to either our kids being friends, or just happening to get the same bus to work, but I vaguely smile at all the rest.
If they are all whispering about me behind my back (which I highly doubt) good luck to them.
To my mind, people who think everyone is looking at them/talking about them have an inflated sense of their own importance! People tend to be preoccupied with themselves and their own lives, not you.
(This knowledge should free you from giving a shit)

[peedoffbird]

IfNot, not sure if you mean me but I do not think anyone is looking at me or talking about me at all! I'm really not important enough!!!

But seriously, I need to grow a thicker skin.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Not really OP, just anyone who cares too much! You are important, to yourself, and your own family etc. Just trying to help by saying care less!

[peedoffbird]

IfNot yes you are right. I need to care less. I don't need to be important to them.

[LauraPashley]

OP that situation you described where the other mum turned back to her friend after saying hello to you- what is actually wrong with that? Maybe i misread it, but to me that sounds like you approached 2 or more people who were already chatting, they said hello to you then continued their conversation? Presuming they didn't turn their backs or ask you to leave, I would imagine that the normal thing would be for you to stand and listen/nod/smile/eventually join in?

[WillowinGloves]

Sorry if someone's already said this - I've been whizzing through the thread - but I think the problem with playground cliques is that you do have to engage with them, not because you want your own social life to revolve round them but because your dc's life will. If you are not on the mums' radar, they won't invite your dc to parties/lift shares etc. I used to turn up at events with my dc and find that my neighbour two doors down was lift sharing with another mum on the other side of the village - we were never included! Even though the dcs were friends, I wasn't ever able to be part of that clique on any level. I too spent years standing there feeling invisible. In the end, I adopted the 'rush in at the last minute' method (as well as the fake texts)! But oh, the relief when they left primary school!

[peedoffbird]

Laura no they didn't do anything wrong. I guess I am putting myself in their shoes and if it was me, I would have made an effort to include the other person. But no, they did nothing wrong.

[peedoffbird]

Willow that's true. I'm not there often enough. Dd does not get invited to much that's true. Hadn't thought of it like that. 18 months left to go and then no more!

[Shagmundfreud]

I love the fact that school is full of people who I woukdn't necessarily come into contact with in my normal social.

I'm friendly, me!

I see the paranoid mums looking all self conscious with their tight , defensive little smiles and I want to shout 'Over here lemon face!' And ask them some impertinent question about what they're doing at the weekend.

[mudipig]

YANBU the school playground brings out the worst in adults.

I would advise, take a step back and choose carefully the ones who aren't utter knobs. Don't be hasty about this - it will take a couple of years to identify them.

In the meantime, observe quietly and stay well out of it.

[peedoffbird]

Shag I wish you were in my playground calling me lemonface!! I would gladly tell you all about my weekend!

[DyeInTheEar]

I say hello to everyone me except the snotty PTA headgirl types

[CorduroyAngel]

Oh, Peedoffbird, you're not the only one (as several of these posts prove). Sometimes it really must be that we are doing something to shoot ourselves in the foot. My kids used to go to a rather well-to-do school in a semi-rural area and I always felt like the odd one out. The other mums actually started a weekly evening out and I went once and got completely left out at the end of the night and ended up walking home alone. I always said hello in the playground, walked over to mums I recognised and struck up a conversation, but it just didn't happen unless I started it off. In the end I stopped bothering. If you don't wear the right gear and have a super-outgoing attitude then some mums just aren't interested. There was one mum who seemed really friendly when you spoke to her but she would walk right past you and ignore you if you didn't go over first. I must have asked her daughter round to our house around 50 times over the first year and I was shunned every time. In the end her daughter asked me if she could come round and I just said "I think you'd better ask your mum". She would always turn up at my daughter's parties though!! I don't know why, really... could be I'm just a horrible person and I don't know it ;o) I'm kiddin'!

[mudipig]

I walked in behind a new reception dc mum the other day. She was being really friendly and jovial to this woman she was walking with. Explained that she only got to bring him to school one day a week - as she worked. She was so nice. But the other mum was really po faced and just frankly a right beatch. You're not my type so I don't want to be mixing with you sort of thing. Then they reached the playground and the po faced beatch said - I'm going to see my friends now - goodbye - leaving nice friendly mum stood on her own. What an utter cow I thought. And how completely unnecessary. Po face had all the right fashionable clothes and haircut. Friendly mum was wearing some lived in jeans and had slightly wild hair. Po face didn't have an ounce of human kindness. But I'd really like to get to know nice friendly mum if I could. This is my experience of the school playground. The nice lived in types and the po faces.

[Fakebook]

I was honestly scared about dd starting school this year after reading about school playground politics on MN, and it was horrible the first few days for me. I knew no one and everyone else seemed to be best friends. On closer inspection I found that the women who were more chatty chatty with each other were the ones with older children in the school and knew each other from beforehand. Others had met each other in nursery. So they weren't really cliques, they just knew each other.

After dd was invited to a few parties, I've got to know one other mother really well and am on smiling and saying hello terms to 2 others.

Even then, I hate getting there early, so I leave the house exactly 10 mins before school opens and get there just as the children are coming out so I don't need to stand around.

[scottishmummy]

whats a beatch?
po face i get
but beatch,is it an english thing?

[Quadrangle]

There needs to be a buddy bench for mums. With magazines, books, snacks, drinks, headphones. Maybe a slanket. It would need to be policed so that only people with no one to talk to used it. If any fellow clique members tried to use it together they would be ushered off. If anyone on their own made a friend on the buddy bench, they would then need to leave the buddy bench area and go and be a clique elsewhere.

[puffinnuffin]

The school playground can be very intimidating. It's best just to become friendly with a few people and chat to them but just smile and wave at the others (even if they are unfriendly).

[mudipig]

No scottish - just a way of writing bitch without getting it blocked out.

[CorduroyAngel]

Haha... Quadrangle you may have the answer in a parallel universe. I think we all feel a bit out of it unless we have friends from nursery starting at the same time - and even then the politics can be uncomfortable. The main thing to remember is that sometimes people have their confidence damaged when they are growing up, for whatever reason, and if you are a super-confident alpha female, make a little room for those less outgoing than you x

[Mintyy]

mudipig - you are allowed to say bitch on Mumsnet without it being deleted, but it isn't actually a very nice thing to say about a woman you have never met is it?

[mudipig]

Mintyy I think observing from behind and watching someone seemingly nice being treated badly is enough reason. And I see it all too often. Why can't some women be friendly and kind? You can see so obviously they are steering towards the "right kind" and rudely disregarding others. It's just so horribly cliquey.

[janelikesjam]

It also depends if you have anything in common with most of the other parents. I feel like a square peg in a round hole where I live.

[KatyPeril]

I LOVE the school playground! I move myself into different spots everyday and listen in to everybodies conversations. It's more exciting than any soap. They are some really, erm, adventurous people there