School mums are too much aren’t they

[NCschoolmumssuck]

I’m just finding the school mums scene too too much, AIBU? There’s a group of us who have spent time together socialising (with and without children) for years now, and yet it still feels like teenage levels of friendship drama, I feel like I can’t escape it without impacting on my child’s friendships and I’m exhausted.

Who had play dates with each other, who got invited on a park visit, which families have had clandestine barbecues with each other who has had secret sleepovers.. I don’t want to care about this shit, it’s so inane, I try to stay out of it ,and as a result am probably not as intensely involved as others in our group) but somehow I end up sucked in, and then feel paranoid, and shit about myself, second guessing why I wasn’t involved/told about X Y or Z.

I hate it, but if I walk away from it all I can’t see how it won’t wreck my child’s two most important friendships. And as we live away from family and old friends, this lot are pretty much all I’ve got.

I don’t think school gate mums are ‘extra bitchy’ @Quarantimespringclean but maybe more politics than a ‘normal’ friendship you make in other circumstances... who is more popular, who is more gossipy etc and can feel like a constant battle for inclusion. I’m sure this isn’t everyone’s experience, maybe it’s because ours is a bigger group that there is this jostling for position.

If you feel like this then others will as well.

The kids will play at school, and they don’t need to have play dates.

Step back and ignore! Harder done than said.

You’re right @BluebellsGreenbells this is what I should do. I need distance to get some perspective. But I need to get over the fear of not being included, and of my child being affected if I pull away, these things make me anxious which feels like too much.

You're not wrong!

I got through it as a single mother with children at a privileged school as well. Not everybody by a long shot, but there were some pretty crappy individuals along the way who used me to make themselves feel better, either by patronising me, referring once to be having been a ''battered wife'' in front of teachers. I nearly died. She showed herself up more, but still. My cheeks burnt. Same woman dropped around a bag of her old clothes to me because I was a single parent. I wasn't actually in poverty, I was a single parent yes, but I didn't need her old clothes. She had various social events that she did NOT invite me to. She would stand in between me and the person I was talking to on occasion if that person had a higher social status in her eyes! It's a very conservative stage of life, raising small kids. The whole family unit, mum, dad, 2.4 children is revered when the children are young I think. Probably something evolutionary in their. Probably some very basic primal notion that mixing only with other families protects your own families.

But yes, it can be a particularly stifling environment in my opinion. TAke an enormous step back and get a part time job.

@KorkMum I really want to say something to you but I've been suspended a few times recently for calling a spade a spade, so I have to hold my tongue unless I want to banned for good. But I'm
thinking it and there's bad words involved.

Op, for sure Korkmum is That Type.

It sounds exhausting OP, when my eldest first started school I feared this.

I would do pick up and drop offs with my head down and avoiding all conversations. There was a quick and clear clique, they all knew each other from the NCT class years before.
I celebrated the time my middle son started school, I went back to work and got a childminder to do the school run.

I can't help, but I wanted to sympathise, it's basically what I had to deal with at school but some women just carry it on into adulthood and it's just sad.
I guess you can only ride it out until secondary school when the friendships totally change.

Good point @WinnieLo a lot of the socialising is couples based, and my husband isn’t really that interested (I guess he has more sense) which I’m sure makes a difference. It all makes me feel a bit inadequate and I’m too old for all that really.

Hi OP.
You say you have a fear of not being included- but why would you want to be included in all this anyway?
Work on stepping back and forming friendships away from school . There's no rule to say you have to be friends with your kids friends ' parents.
Your children will form their own friendship groups and you only need to be minimally involved as they get older.
I don't get entangled in all this as I work full time and haven't had time but the mums I do like I have become friends with , and sometimes our kids are not even that close. I do see this going on and see the anxiety it causes some ladies at the school .
Unfortunately you get this type of behaviour in any situation where there are a group of people ( sports , offices etc ) you can't go through life beating yourself up over it.

@Supsista Thankyou for understanding. From the outside it probably looks like I’m the one in the clique! but it’s not what I signed up for, and I don’t want to be in this.

I’m finding it hard too. Doesn’t seem to matter that DD (5) is a reasonable kid, she doesn’t get invited to play dates with three of the girls she knows well because I’m not in the clique. I do find it hurtful.

Decide to use your time more wisely.

I did get to know some lovely people, but they were more ''accepted'' (being married and having huge beautiful houses and husbands and BMW X5s and dogs with portmanteau names... I'm being flippant but you know what I mean. I'm not disparaging everybody I met, but even the friendships I had that were genuine made me feel inadequate/rejected at times. example, I had a friend who is a genuine person and does not choose her friends based on how wealthy the family is or how sociable and handsome their husband is, but, quite often I'd be standing right NEXT TO HER and I'd figure out that somebody we both knew equally well had just invited her but not me out somewhere. It happened more times than I could count.

That whole decade of having kids at primary school was not a great time for me.

Decide what you want out of this time of your life and don't get side tracked going for coffees or even being sufficiently involved to be AWARE of who was invited where. YKWIM?

Cos it'll all be over in a decade anyway and most of the friendships are situational.

I dont think I will have this as my youngest will be in before and after school clubs and I am relieved.

I saw it with my eldest and hated it. So much so I used to stay in the car until the very last minute. Go in, grab child and back to the car again. They still had play dates, they still got invited to parties but I didn't have to put up with the bitchiness of it all.

@Dontforgetyourbrolly I don’t really know why I want to be included in the School Mums Hunger Games. I guess I feel that without this group of ‘friends’ I’ll be pretty isolated here. Not that this is much better.

It will look like that but I've no doubt there's at least one like you in most cliques.

The clique I spoke of, I know at least one woman in your position. Funnily enough she is really really nice. The others however....

Also, I moved to this area specifically for my son to go to school here (the area I lived in before was Not Good, mums having fists fights in the school play ground, parents turning up drunk...).
So for a long time I had no friends unless I travelled to my old place and saw my friends there.

It was close by so doable.

Is that possible?

How many more years of primary does your eldest child have?

There is such a thing as rejection sensitivity and it means that you feel physical symptoms when you think you have been left out of something.

You might find that you experience this and so you have come to feel that this group of friends is exhausting because there is a lot of 'leaving out' going on.

If this is the case, you might benefit for limiting your time with them, assessing who is genuine and who are the arseholes, and then slowly back away from the arseholes.

Remember fools rush in where angels fear to tread ( I am not calling you a fool, just using the idiom).

Good luck!

I find the school Mums (at least the English ones) to be extremely pleasant in August. Otherwise I avoid, avoid, avoid at all costs.

I know what you mean OP. I think the bottom line is they arent really friends, they're just people who happen to have kids at the same school.

We got caught up in a group when our youngest started at school. It wasnt long before the backstabbing started , competitive smuggery and secret invites etc. We decided to leave them to it and just be polite and it's worked better for us. I didnt get so involved with our second child but have ended up with two really good, genuine friends out of that time. There was a group of mums I occasionally went for coffee with but walked away once the silly bugger behaviour started, not inviting some people and all that. It's all much better at secondary as little or no contact with parents.happy days.

@Supsista two more years, my good friends are scattered to the four winds a bit these days so it’s difficult to see them but maybe something I need to do more of when it’s practical again.
@WinnieLo yes I definitely need ‘more’ in my life to stop me being so aware and involved.

Sorry to those who are/have been in similar situations!

It's easy to say don't engage, pick your kid up and ignore...but this has a detrimental effect on your child's friendships. I agree it's hellish

The school gate mafia ....there is a reason one of the school governors used that expression!! Rest assured that whoever is your first set of friends’ in reception will not be the case by the end of infants!! Really do not over invest in friendships at the school.

We have coffee mornings for class years. It has nothing to do with our kids friendships, more a informative/gossipy thing. Like in any random group with only one common feature, there are people you will like and some you don't feel much for. As your child ages they parents relationships with each other matter less and less. Have to say I'm not close with most of my children's friends now (teenagers) many I've never even met.

I could have written your post. It’s exhausting.

I’ve focused on building some non school mums friends. So don’t feel bad if not included in things as I’m doing other stuff.

OP I'm not getting at you in fact you sound like a really nice person .
I know what its like to be isolated , it is very hard , sorry if I came across as harsh. I'm just annoyed at those cliquey type of school mums !
Its harder now due to this shitty covid but do your kids like football/ dancing etc.? You could try and find activities outside of the school and maybe chat to parents there

I sympathise. I think I have had a very brief taste of what you're describing, just by being on the parents' WhatsApp group and through overhearing conversations between other mums. Easier said than done, but I'm really trying not to get involved. As a pp says, I am viewing it as being friendly to parents of children who are in my DC's class. I am not planning to become close friends with any of them. If that happened of its own accord with one or two parents, that would be lovely. But the whole group dynamic and cliques will not be something I actively participate in at all.

The pp who described the fist fights in the the playground between mums...this would be my absolute nightmare. There must be some huge backstory there.

My theory is, that if you never get super involved, there can't ever be a back story. So, yes, I'm polite and friendly and always myself with parents, but I don't offer strong opinions or stir up trouble. If I overhear a bitchy conversation I distract myself with something else. It's hard enough raising young kids at the moment. I am up for precisely ZERO drama at the moment. Except on MN .

Oh and I left the school WhatsApp group with a very polite excuse. Think I got away with it. If anyone suspects I snuck off because I find the whole thing unbearable and childish, they will never be able to prove it mwaaahahahahahahaha!