To think that ‘mum’ friends are often far more hassle than they’re worth?!

[Blargon7]

Jeez.

I’ve been dropped by my close ‘mum’ friend from the school, she’s gone from being super keen to not wanting to meet up with me. It really hurts and I don’t know why. She is however still going around with another group of mums, a couple of whom she has moaned about to me on many occasions.

Then there are the other women there. Some I say hi and have a quick chat to but sadly we don’t have much in common and don’t really click, it’s just polite how are your kids doing chat which is fine.

Then there are a lot of mums who have cliques and seem to bully and slag off a bunch of other mums to the point where some mums have stopped coming into the playground and have been reduced to tears.

I just can’t be arsed with this fucking bullshit anymore! Life is too bloody short.

What’s your experience?!

Well I think it should be quite obvious that if you and your friendship groups are not bitchy, cliquey and nasty and rife with petty politics then you’re not the type of ‘ friends’ OP and other are referring to...

If your school gate seems cliquey, get stuck in, you can be the change you want to see.

^ spot the extrovert.

I have a lovely group of mum friends. We go out regularly, our kids see each other in the holidays, it’s nice. I feel quite lucky after reading this thread. We’re not all cliquey.

also 'mum' friends?!. In my school a huge number of dads drop or pick up their kids.

The children of my ‘mum’ friends were very rarely friends with my children

Have to say I'm pleased that the mums at my school aren't such a pathetic bunch that they don't come into the playground because not everyone will be their best bud 🙄

At my kids' school there's definitely cliques. In DD's class in particular there's 5 or 6 of them who are very close and do lots together. I'm not part of any clique nor do I have friends there. Well I have one friend whose DD is in another year who I knew years before my kids started school so not sure that counts. But I genuinely couldn't give two shits. People can be friends with whoever they want, they don't have to invite all the mums to every social occasion simply because their children are in the same class. It's your kids in school, not you so don't act like it!

I like the 'We're colleagues' approach. Some people in that analogy though, see themselves as the bosses...

Here's my experience at a small school:

Over the years I've pieced together that the mums in my school (and dads, but at a distance) sort themselves into a parent hierarchy where at the top are alumni of the school, old village families, local big names (if not alumni) and people of similar social standing with the right face.

They favour their kids being friends with each other above outgroup kids, and parties have been decided along parent friendships as opposed to 'in schooltime' friendships, as mentioned by other posters from reception onwards.

This hierarchy often weaves it's way through all class years and the parents themselves are often related by blood or marriage to each other.

Consequently, at school representive level - on PTA board, as class rep, on commitees spanning church and school, it is the same families seeking and getting roles in same, with the added negative that if you want to serve and do get your nomination under the wire, you will always be serving alongside one of them.

It's become obvious since WhatsApp came along, that class rep roles were nominally open for 10 minutes for 'all' but in reality the reps already knew they were 'volunteering' publicly as it had been sorted in other conversations.

IMO, our school is more clique-ish than many I read about here.

I wish friendships were child-led, but I'm counting the years until Secondary.

I kept away from cliquey school gates Mums who slagged each other off on the basis that if they do it to others behind their back, they're almost certainly doing it to you!

The Mum friends I've got are confident enough in themselves to not do that, and they've largely been amazing and are a source of inspiration to me even years later now that my kids are in secondary school.

Having autistic kids has been a very good way to weed out the horrible ones too - every cloud...

Not all school gates Mums are bitchy/fickle!

I’m chatty to anyone, it’s nice to be able to say hello to most of the school parents. I put in effort to chat but I wouldn’t look at the the other parents to form close lasting friendships with. I do find they are mostly just friends via circumstance. Like friends I make via nursery, they don’t last so in that respect I’m reserved about over sharing.

Besides from my WhatsApp school groups there are a fair few people with very different attitudes to life. So i chat to the people who seem friendly and generally give up fast on the people who don’t reciprocate. But it’s nice to have to odd class meet up, just to be involved in school life. BUt seeking out meaning friendships that will last? Possibly not something I expect at all.

FeckOffGraham

Nobody has suggested being rude, frosty or unpleasant.
I think a few actually have! that's the point, so unnecessary.

A lot of this stuff is misogynistic rubbish

This.

There's a reason men aren't expected nor bothered about creating circles of friends with men who also have children

If I see groups of people chatting at school I just assume they all know each other because they are around more, they are neighbours, or have other children in school etc. I don't think that makes them a 'clique'. I am shy and usually prefer to speak to people I know rather than approach new ones (I don't know anyone at school yet really, I say hi to a few people but am not there much), maybe some people are like that.

If I'd tried to talk to them and they froze me out or were rude or something ams clearly didnt want anyone new joining their group, or excluded children from parties where they weren't friends with the parents, then I'd say they were bitchy and cliquey.

Some of the posters on here do sound a bit paranoid about everyone looking down their noses at them or thinking everyone judges them for what they look like. Some people will do this, sure, but surely not everyone

Surely quite a lot of men do school runs now?

anyoneseenmykeys

Really? I must have missed those posts... Can you point to any in particular? I thought I was up to speed with the thread and I thought that at least the vast majority of people fit your definition of 'normal'.

‘Mum friends’ is an odd phrase. A wide range of people will be mums including you so not sure why you are grouping all of them together to make a rather dismissive judgement.

There’s no reason to think you will be more or less likely to be friendly with someone else who happens to be a mum as you would anyone else, surely?

Thing is, it's not "misogynistic rubbish" for many people, it's their lived experience.

Especially when you move to a new area/city/country, then you need to find new friends - and if you have nursery or school age children and don't work in a largely populated place (or at all), then nursery or school mums are the pool you have to look at and deal with.

Unless you really don't want to have friends of any kind, then it's normal for people to try to find friends like this. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There's a reason men aren't expected nor bothered about creating circles of friends with men who also have children

You've really struck a chord with me here gunpowder! It's the expectation that we have to be best mates and have a good old natter at the school gates. Indeed, there ARE lots of men at the school gates too, who get let off the hook!

Re someone being so "pathetic" that they can't come into the playground unless everyone is their best bud - firstly, can parents not go into the playground? They wouldn't let my dc out on their own!

Also, maybe it's more the fear that someone will try to become best buds, with everything that entails. That is something someone like me is trying to avoid. I would really avoid becoming best friends with another school parent. As I said earlier in the thread, it's a bit like colleagues. Friendly, yes. Polite, yes. Chatty even, yes. But not close / proper friends thank you .

Women at the gym.
Women who are your neighbors.
Women you knew from your own school days.
Women at your work.
Women who are your customers.
Women at the club you belong to.
Women at the church you belong to.
Women you meet on the commute.
Women doing school run.

They're all the same bloody women!

I keep reading: don't bother with 'school mums' stick with people you like.

Where are you finding all these people you'll 'like' without running any risk of talking to (the horror!) someone who is also a 'school mum'!

It's all the same

You're not unreasonable, what you say is so typical. I hated it, once I'd made my mind up not to be involved, I felt better. Of course I could smile and say 'Hi" but not more. I had people outside of school to mix with as I am sure you do though was also quite happy on my own - and I did work part time.

Chin up, you're well out of it.

Laiste

No, to me, it really isn't the same.

You're stuck with school mums for the duration of your child's time at that school. So if you have a best friend / gang of pals at the school gate and things go sour, you cannot avoid them. So, it's more like a colleague relationship for me, rather than a proper friendship. You can't be totally yourself, as you need to be polite... which makes it sound like I'm naturally horribly rude 😂. I'm not, but my sense of humour with 'proper' friends is not the same sense of humour I would use at the school gates.

I don't do mum friends at school. I have purposely kept myself away from them. I have a few friends that I see at the school when picking up kids but we are friends because we went right through primary and secondary school together.
I've no interest in being friends with anyone else. I think I'm a bit of a loner really. I do love to stand and watch the way they interact. Very much keeping up with the joneses, and trying to impress the Queen bee. I find it amusing.

So you can only have friends who you don't see regularly while doing something else in case you fall out with them?

Who are your friends and where did you meet them? I'm genuinely not getting it :)

Its not really the same women Laiste because women at the gym are typically the same type of women who enjoy working or force themselves to out. There is a shared outlook. Same at church. Or at a gig.

Women at school aren’t linked to you by your own interests, they could be anyone. You have to do the feeling out of what they are like and some may be too shy or unwilling to open up. At one of those places you’ve listed, the shared interest opener is already there. And it’s a meaningful one because it’s a shared passion instead of - we happen to be in the same catchment for this school. That’s hardly a hot topic

I mean primary is only 5/6 years. You'd easily work somewhere that long. You cant say i wont make friends at work in case we fall out can you?

I've found that the SAHM or WFH mum's all chat because they know each other, they can hang around for 20 minutes after drop off and have a chat. (This is NOT a criticism). I can't do that, I practically throw my kids in the gate so I don't expect the same relationship.

I have perfected the art of arriving exactly as gates open and on my pick up days gate opening, so I always say HI, exchange some top level pleasantries and then disappear.

I have my actual friends, and brief acquaintances at school. In a couple of years my kids will be through primary and I won't see a lot of them again!