To still be upset about mum bullies?

[GingerNinjer]

This happened a couple of years ago but I just can’t seem to get over it. The class was having a party and all kids were sent home with an item of what to bring. Me and another mum got “crisps”.
I bought a multipack of hula hoops, took the individual bags out of the main bag and spread the packets on a party plate, covered it with cling film and that was it.
DD proudly walked into school playground carrying this plate. Other boy who was asked to bring crisps walked in with a multipack of monster munch as bought. DD said to him “why are they not on a party plate?”. She shouldn’t have commented but she did. I quickly told her it didn’t matter whether they were on a plate or not. The boy went to his mum and said DD had said they were meant to be on a plate. Before I had chance to apologise/explain this woman flung her head back, screamed and said loudly “sick of the snobby cunts here, get to private school!”
I was mortified, didn’t confront as this woman has been violent in the playground before so made a quick exit. I was so upset by it, shaking all the way home, I’m not confrontational at all and certainly not a snob.
When I went to pick DD up that afternoon I got standing with a woman who I considered a friend. I told her what had happened and she burst out laughing and said “but why did you put them on a plate? Some of the others were laughing about it too! They were just hula hoops!” I said I knew they were just hula hoops, they were still in their individual bags, I wasn’t pretending they were anything different!” To which she said “exactly, they were in bags! So why the cling film and plate?” Whilst laughing hysterically.

Months later jokes were still being made in the chat groups about wether to buy crisps from asda of Waitrose etc, jokes about cling film for extra protection etc etc. I came off the chat groups and no longer speak to any of them but I just can’t get over it. Seems like such a massive reaction to crisps?? They’re talking about the possibility of a party at the end of school year if guidance allows and I actually feel sick at the thought of the jokes starting up again.
Was I really so badly in the wrong here?

Most normal people would not have cared howyou presented crisps unless they were v bored/ unfulfilled.

It might have been 'strange' but was it necessary to even comment in it...NO!

This is bonkers. I don't think either form of crisp presentation would have registered with me. Considering in the UK we present oranges covered in tin foil with cheese and pineapple protruding on sticks- I call crisps on a party plate a non-issue!

Bit odd that they found it so funny they still talk about it. Surely they have more interesting lives.

Bunch of saddos..mums of under 10 year olds( joke btw).

This is bonkers. I don't think either form of crisp presentation would have registered with me.

Me neither. It would be as much of a non-issue as a leaf blowing in the wind across the playground.

It’s a class party. We leave them in bags and tell children roughly how many to take ( one bag , a cake etc.). Do people really thing it’s the done thing to have a big bowl with 30 children diving in?
It’s not elegant to have individual bags but it works in a classroom. I would have been very happy to receive that tray of bags of hula hoops ready to put out.
Even if not, it wouldn’t have been given a second thought.

I'm trying my best to imagine what type of person you have to be, and how insanely angry, when your child saying "mum, my friend says the crisps are supposed to be on a plate" prompts the response: "sick of the snobby cunts here, get to private school!”

I mean. Why? How...?

Surely: "oh that's ok darling, they'll be fine in the bags - your friend's mum has just done something different, which is fine", or similar, might have sufficed?

*I'm trying my best to imagine what type of person you have to be, and how insanely angry, when your child saying "mum, my friend says the crisps are supposed to be on a plate" prompts the response: "sick of the snobby cunts here, get to private school!”

I mean. Why? How...?

Surely: "oh that's ok darling, they'll be fine in the bags - your friend's mum has just done something different, which is fine", or similar, might have sufficed?

confused*

Lucky you if you don't know the answer to that! It's clearly not a normal reaction but there were a couple of children at senior school I can think of whose parents behaved similarly. Some people are massive inverted snobs and feel that everyone who is not like them and everything that is different to them is a personal slight to them. Usually stemmed by poor education/opportunities and/or a trauamtic childhood which they then hand down to their own children.

@Cam2020

Oh of course... I understand all of that in terms of where this type of mindset stems from. I'm more trying to get my head around the utter lack of self-control one must have to respond to that by shouting that sort of obscenity in a child's school playground? It's just a level of crazy, angry behaviour I've only come across in my work with offenders in prisons. Not mums in playgrounds.

The first woman was bang out of order

The others.... they should have realised that you weren't finding it funny and dropped it. This is the kind of thing I'd joke about with friends, but only if they joked back.

The most hilarious thing about this thread is the number of posters who seem convinced that the OP took the crisps out of their packets!

They sound tiresome but it was 2 years ago OP, you really need to let it go now. I think theres 2 ways of dealing with people like them, either laugh along with them, or just ignore them and get on with your life. I would favour ignoring the idiots.

It's possible the ringleader bully feels a bit intimidated by your thoughtful plates etiquette. She sounds like a bit of a thicko, with her puerile and inane group "banter", and the others might be scared of her but intrigued by you in comparison. You could be a threat to her bully group dynamics and control and she senses it

I'm from a tough working class background and have grown up with this kind of mindless crap all my life, still see it now from some of my neighbours. Nothing to talk about but other people, no culture, no current affairs talk, not even a chat about the weather, just bitch and whine. Don't rise to it but don't back down either. Be polite but distant, they sound like massive conversation bores anyway

Who cares what school mums say?! Surely you just drop off the child and leave?! Why get involved. It's very sensitive over a whole load of nothing.

@CreosoteQueen

They are being wee weird. A plate and cling film is a bit odd for packaged crisps, but not so weird for them to still be going on about it. Do you think they’re if the view that it’s an amusing in-joke and just haven’t realised that it upsets you, or are they being deliberately mean?

This

TBF I would100% take the piss out of a friend who cling filmed packets of crisps I'd say it once and move on though. It's not NEARLY amusing enough to be a long standing joke

Also I think every school has a "the other mums are out to get me" parent like screamy lady.

We had one mum in my son's class kicking off on WhatsApp last lockdown because some of the symbols next to the children's names on Seesaw were their actual pictures and some were just clip art animals. She said it was favouritism that some had pictures on them, thinking the teacher assigned the picture/animal. A few people kindly pointed out that you can upload a picture yourself to replace the wee animal on your child's profile. Did she listen? Did she fuck. Ranted on about how it was "still favouritism". Best thing to do is laugh inwardly at them and avoid them like the plague in the playground

I'm from a tough working class background and have grown up with this kind of mindless crap all my life, still see it now from some of my neighbours. Nothing to talk about but other people, no culture, no current affairs talk, not even a chat about the weather, just bitch and whine.

This is really interesting, puts things clearly.
I did voluntary work supporting people and the spiteful things done ( reporting someone to sw) , constant fall outs, envy, criticism of everyone else etc was exhausting. Hadn't twigged it was lack of culture or interests in anything else in their lives.

I think the woman that shouted was projecting her own insecurities onto you. It was more about her than you.
I can see the logic with the plates, so the children can help themselves to a few. I don't understand why the other mums think it's so funny. It's not. However, they probably don't realise how much it upsets you. I think you might be being a little sensitive though. Sorry!

I’ve not read all the replies yet, I’m on page 8 but will get through them all today, I wasn’t expecting so many responses!

Someone asked what violent woman did the day she was violent - another mum had told their kid not to play with hers. She confronted the mum who admitted that she HAD told her son to stay away from hers because they were always getting upto trouble together. Violent mum started screaming at her, other mum said “oh fuck off” and violent woman grabbed her by the throat, pushed her against the wall and was screaming in her face. The police were called but it didn’t go any further. She also punched a bloke on the way home one day.

I put the hula hoops on a plate because a) it looked more party like and b) other parents had more difficult requests so I wanted to make an effort as I’d been given an easy one. Also DD didn’t say they should have been on a plate, she just asked why they wasn’t as obviously because I’d done that, she assumed that was the way it was meant to be done.

Just to add this woman had had a dig at me before. I used to drive to school quite a lot (half hour walk otherwise each way) but I started walking when the weather got better. One day she was walking behind me with her mate and said loudly “oh look, has she remembered she’s got fucking legs now?” And in another incident she said to her mate “I wouldn’t leave the bastard house if my hair was like hers, it’s like a white Afro”. (I have frizzy curly hair).

I think it is odd to put cling film on bags of crisps.
Why did your dd say that to the other child knowing what type of reaction it could invoke? She is old enough to know better.
You did the correct thing in leaving the WhatsApp group.
Very soon you won't have to see any of the other parents again.

The woman who threw back her head and screamed before swearing like that at a school children's party sounds insane.

Your (former) friends in the chat groups sound boring as well with pathetic lives to find such a non-event so funny at the time, let alone months later.

You sound ridiculous for not being able to put this infantile event behind you two years later.

"oh look, has she remembered she’s got fucking legs now?” And in another incident she said to her mate “I wouldn’t leave the bastard house if my hair was like hers, it’s like a white Afro”. (I have frizzy curly hair)

She's obviously very nasty.

"She is old enough to know better."

I haven't seen Op's daughter's age mentioned.

Doubtless she won't be passing comments on what other people do after witnessing that though.

@Foxhasbigsocks

The cling film is there to keep the crisps fresh in between the food being plated and kids eating it. Seems totally obvious to me

The crisps were in their individual packets, on the plate.

The individual packets were keeping them perfectly fresh, the cling film was redundant!

So many people seem to be missing this!?

Who cares about the crisps and how oddly or not she presented them.

The rude mother has a chip on her shoulder and must have bitched about you to the other mums so they acted all passive aggressively when they saw you next. That's pretty much my experience with SAH, little-job and mumpreneur mummies. They are over invested in their little darling's lives and the main opportunity for social interaction is via the school mums. So while pretending to be oh so good friends, they bitch and gossip as soon as you're out of sight, desperate to fill the void in their unfulfilled lives.

When we were laying the tables for the school Christmas lunch, a PTA mum reprimanded me sternly for placing the (white plastic) pudding spoons the wrong way round . It was a beautiful Hyacinth bucket moment and still makes me chuckle.