To ask about Primary School mums. Friends or frenemies?

[MessyMummy15]

Ok so my son is due to start primary school in September. He will be in reception and we live in London.

1 mum friend. Let's call her Milly. Says that meeting all the other parents who have kids in your kids class is great. You all form a bond and can talk to each other and basically she's made friends for life and everyone is super close. Even go on camping holidays together.

Other mum friend, let's call her Rosie, says that she can't stand drop off and pick up because she feels that no one talks to her and she gets dirty looks for no reason. And it's awkward.

Both of their kids go to schools in same area but different schools.

What am I to expect?
How have you all gotten along with other school mums? Is it cliquey? Or everyone just put there heads down and gets on with it?
What was the hardest thing about other school Mums?

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the SECRET WhatsApp group for clique members only, where they’d try to figure out which child was responsible for the “threadworms warning” ParentMail, etc. Took about a year and a half for me to even be aware it existed!

Ahh yes,the reveal of a invite only group.The leaked or inadvertently forwarded messages

school parents are just people.

You are just as likely to make great friends or be pissed off at them than you are with your work colleagues.

It's not a good start if you think that "school mums" are a different species.

I have made good friends at school, despite working full time, and it has been extremely helpful. We became friends slowly, chatting whilst watching the kids play, competitions, staying at parties (with 30 kids per class, there's A LOT of parties in the first years!).

We help each other out, dropping kids early at one house, having them stay for tea at another when childcare or work is being a problem.

I find it funny when people decide that "school mums" must be clickey, uninteresting and so on. They are one of them for a start, dads are as much involved in the school drop off and pick ups as the mum (they are here, and half the PTA is male).
Women do not get a personality transplant and become "school mum" because they pop out a baby out of their vagina (or belly if c-section).

Tried and failed. Doomed to be a Billy no mates all my life!! Saying that I have acquaintances at the school where we help eachother In an emergency but they are not my friends. I don't socialise with them outside school. I did try to make friends thought it be a new beginning and I will finally have a group of female friends but nope like all my other friendship tries , only make one crap fake friend and the rest don't like me . I do think I try to hard and can come across too keen. Now I'm just polite but don't try like I did before. I am trying to Accept my life of solitude !

Outer London here, have made some friends for life and yes, we have camping trips. No Queen Bees here, or Alpha Mums, an expression which cracks me up, hadn't encountered it until friend told me she had been invited to the Netball Team as she was clearly an 'Alpha mum'.

There are some parents who don't talk to anybody and I try to talk to everybody, would never chat away with somebody and exclude anybody but they don't want to get involved, fair enough.

I love how everyone who has a child on a playground is either cliquey, a bully or a bitch if they speak to anyone else . Apart from the poster. If you do that stats on that, it's not a pleasant result for mums in general! People speak to people they know. That's life. I have no idea of anyone's reading age or who has threadworm. Doesn't mean I can't be nice to people I like
Grow up.

I don't see cliques, I see groups of friends who like hanging out with each other. But then I'm happy to make friends at the school gates, in the office, evening courses, out and about, anywhere. Parents dropping off their kids are just people.

@wingsandstrings that's such a well expressed post about community, friends and security.

I totally agree.

To be fair, people who complain about drama and the rest are the ones involved in them.

Other people don't even notice!

The majority of my friends now are school mums & dads. We socialise a lot outside of school, with & without DC - nights out, Book Club, parties, even got a mass family camping weekend coming up. We help each other out a lot, too. We are in a village, though, where everybody knows everybody else & I think that is definitely a huge contributory factor. I cannot imagine it would be the same in a big inner city school.

@shitpark oh the irony of your post!

@LipstickHandbagCoffee I'd love to hear from you how we are supposed to get new volunteers? There's no "demanding". But in order to raise (desperately needed) funds for the school, then yes we need people to run cakes stalls etc. Or is the PTA the issue by virtue of its existence?
There are shitty people in all walks of life. Discounting a whole group (school mums, PTA members) seems a bit disingenuous.

What makes a clique? When I get to school I chat to a few friends - people I’ve become friends with since our children started school together because we live nearby or share interests. Other people in the class have become more friendly with others. We chat in groups. None are a ‘clique’. I’ll happily talk to anyone, but not everyone at the same time. And why shouldn’t people be more friends with some people than others? It doesn’t mean they are being mean to others just because they aren’t talking to each individual on a rota or something. I think people who go into the school playground with an assumption that there are cliques just see what they are expecting, rather than just groups of friends chatting.

Unfortunately on here, anyone who shows an interest in the pta is an evil overbearing cliquey bitch who makes other parents feel shit and gets preferential treatment by the staff. I'd save your breath. Sadly, you can't win!
People being pleasant to the people they see most days on the playground is seen as wrong and battle lines are drawn. It's a weird attitude to a very normal and common scenario.
If you can manage with total strangers on MN I'm not sure why you can't smile politely on a playground. But hey. MN for you!

I made some good friendships at primary school and would socialise with other mums hosting breakfast at each other's houses and going out in the evening's. It changed when my child complained about another child getting physical. I like to keep an open mind and asked the school to investigate what happened, the parent of the other child never spoke to me for over 2years. I make less effort now x

I don’t really talk to any9ne, a few parents I’ll have a little chat with but I’ve not joined any cliques. I usually stand in playg4ound with headphones in. When I go stop parties I do talk a bit if they talk first. I’m just shy, I don’t ever wanna interrupt anyone so I keep to myself. The funny a thing is dd is part of this little group that always plays together everyday, boys and girls and the parents are all in a little friendship group except me and Dds 2 best friends parents. The rest of them do stuff out of school all the time. Thing is it’s the popular little group so they always get invited to all the parties, they will be coming to dds party. You control what goes onl if you wanna talk then talk if not mind your business. Luckily the parents in the group are actually alright. DS school mums however were not, luckily don’t see them anymore and DS meets me halF way for the last 2 years.

I’m not at drop off or pick up as I work full time and use wraparound childcare. So I escape all the school mum politics! Yay!

Far more like minded than deadly dull work colleagues I definitely got lucky

I hate every second of the school run. Can’t wait till my kids are old enough to walk round to the car themselves.

Southern seeing you & the PTA are so nice,normal,human you surely naturally possess the bonhomie and charm to recruit volunteers
But hang on!youre saying only a handful volunteer,so umm clearly not getting it right
As a pta group and individuals I’d suggest some self reflection on how you are to other parents

I have 3 DCs. All their classes (and class parents) have had a very different dynamic. You have no way of knowing how it's going to be, it's pot luck. All you can do is be friendly and chat to people when you can/feel like it, or at the very least say hi when you pass them.

One of my DCs classes has a clique which I'm not in. I don't want to be in it but there's a sense that they are a bit judgey and I've seen them be nice to another parents' face and then talk about them behind their backs. I try not to get involved. But other DCs classes parents have been absolutely lovely. TBH I blame social media a bit because a general group will be set up, and then sub-groups and sub-sub-groups and then you realise you're not included on a particular sub-group when someone says something on the general group that gives it away. Not really a problem except if the others on the sub-group are the ones you felt you are friendliest with - you find that you are asking yourself if you did or didn't do something, and worrying if it will mean your DC will get left out of parties etc.

Also you get parents mums who size you up at the start and then drop you if they deem you not interesting enough or not useful enough, or even more awful, not "them" enough - maybe you dress differently or you wear makeup and they don't, or you work and they don't, or they work and you don't, or whatever. Best to pick one or two parents who you feel are the friendliest and work on that whilst being very friendly general to everyone. Is my advice FWIW

But there are generally lots of lovely people too. Like a PP said, you get out what you put in, that's true. But you have to be ready from the start to pick your lane as the groups get formed pretty quick and once that's started it's hard to infiltrate months down the line.

I’ve always found there are three types of people in a group, whether it’s work or school or pottery class or whatever.

Those who think everyone else is in a clique, those who believe they’ve met their soulmates and those who just turn up and don’t notice who talks to whom.

And the world still turns.

We have some minor politics at the gate however...basically....

There are some pleasant parents
There are some somewhat snobby parents
Everyone is generally cordial regardless.

We are not bothered about being liked for being liked sake.

We value nice people. We are able to tell who we would like to get to know more and ignore the rest who are kind of snobby and yet still be polite to them regardless.

Those of us who are nice and normal have worked out who we all are. Perhaps we are our own clique!

Just be nice and friendly and don’t engage with games and you’ll soon find your people.

Just be nice and friendly to everyone, if friendships form then it's like in life, they are meant to.

I'm so scared of this! I'm terrible in social situations, I joined NCT hoping to make friends but didn't fit in at all and was quickly blanked by them all.
Not sure if any of them will be at my DC's new school but I hope not.

I plan to try to be friendly to everyone in September and hope for the best but I feel like I'm back at school myself and preparing to be rejected by a whole new crowd.

Just hope it doesn't affect the DC.