To just have a moan and a handhold about the primary school years

[Deereemer]

Ds is year 7 and dd year 3,both going through same small local primary school. I am just SO tired of it. If a family has a hard time like cheating or poor finances or god forbid SS it is manna from heavan forall the gossiping. Judging and competivity on parenting, income, social status, cars, book bands, child popularity, weight loss, exercise, size of 40th bday party, generosity of GPs... Endless.
Im SO tired of it. Ds in year7 doesn't even feel like a break because everyone goes to the secondary.
I try to take a step back, be friendly but not too close, open but not tell everyone everything, non critical, non competitive and offer play dates and give a decent birthday party to the whole class each year. I feel like what more can i do? Its just such a horrible place. Is this just my middle England primary school right now in 2022? Or other places better? Aibu to think not every primary school in the uk is full of this?

I just drop my kids off and pick them up. Eldest of 4 is in year 5 and I have no clue what the other parents are like.

If someone is discussing about someone else's family and social services involvement, I'd be inclined to let social services know. Just in case there is someone in the social services team not maintaining confidentiality.

I would find what you describe tedious.

Luna do you not do playdates / parties /carol concerts?

I have been unlucky in that exh had a breakdown after losing both his parents which was hard, and it felt like other mums just wanted to hear the latest from the horses mouth so maybe im jaded.

I don’t really understand this tbh. If this happened in my family no one outside of our family would know. You or him must be sharing this information to some level, so stop. In my experience it’s not hard to keep private things private.

Carol concerts? No we aren't religious and neither is the school. We do parties and playdates but with actual friends not randos from school.

How does your school work that your year 7 child is still in Primary school? Can’t you move them to a secondary school?

Balalake - it is always and without fail that the person keeping trying to keep the problem private tells one close 'friend'. And then said friend uses that info to discuss with another friend and so on until before you know it, everyone knows, its an open secret and everyone gets shifty when they see the original person with the problem. I've seen this happen with infidelity, dv, cancer diagnosis, financial problems. No real care for the person. Just entertaining information.

Unfortunately, exh was very obviously ill, and still is. Its been incredibly hard.

Sorry i meant ds is in year 7 but it feels like still primary as same old just a mile further away

North west England here with two kids in primary. My experience is nothing like this! Other parents are polite and friendly and everyone basically minds their own business. Sorry you’re having a tough time OP x

@Lunalicious
So your DC don't socialise with any of their classmates? That's so sad. I've yet to meet a child who doesn't consider their friends from school to be very real friends.

it is always and without fail that the person keeping trying to keep the problem private tells one close 'friend'.

So don’t tell them either. You can tell family or friends that aren’t involved with these people.
I’m gonna be blunt, this is the impression I’ve got - it sounds like possibly you were enjoying a good gossip about others yourself, hence why you got involved with all these gossipy people in the first place. Tables are now turned and it’s your laundry that’s being aired after you said too much and all of a sudden you realise it’s not nice.

I don't recognise this at all. My DD is at a local primary school with a vast range of types of parents from very broad-ranging income brackets and backgrounds and no-one would ever say anything like this to another parent. People may think things in private but they would absolutely never be vocalised.

I have to say and I'll probably be accused of being insensitive but I stand by it I think there's a huge amount of overthinking at work on a lot of these threads.

I've lost count of the threads where someone has come on and accused other parents of "blanking" them or cutting them off a WhatsApp thread and nine times out of ten it boils down to miscommunication or the other parent being busy.

Not my experience - honestly every parent of kids in kid's class seems very "normal" and supportive.

I'm confused about Year 7 situation - are you saying you're encountering the same gossiping parents at both the secondary school and your other child's primary school? I'm puzzled as I didn't think children in Y7 were still accompanied to the school (mine are both primary school aged so I may be wrong but all of the Y6 children I know at their school walk to school alone).

Anyway. I have no idea what, if anything, the parents are my DC's school talk about at the school gates as I drop and go. I rarely see any of them congregating to talk but there may be more going on behind the scenes that I'm not aware of. We are in a busy part of London and it's a nice school but most of us parents are on nodding terms and exchange brief pleasantries. I am friendly with a handful of but doubt I'd tell any my personal business. But then again I've never understood the MN thing where school run parents are supposed to become lifelong friends.

Midlands for me there are some parents who are clearly friendly with others, neighbours or friends from elsewhere. Generally though there is no group, no PTA going on these days (post COVID) as there's not been anything for parents to get involved in as a group. Most parents don't want to chat beyond being civil, we nod and smile, we laugh at a child's antics, tut at the weather and that's it. There is no WhatsApp group I'm aware of. It's just like everything else in modern life. Noone is interested. There is no "village". Everyone is getting on alongside others with barely any interaction.

@Deereemer

But i must say... I think it does appear from this thresd that there are those saying not their experience of their semi rural primary are either total non engagers or maybe part of the competitive in-groupers? Not wishing to be goady. Anyway. As i say just a bit sad and thinking about moving.

I apologise in advance for how harsh this sounds, but I always think threads like these throw up a lot of insecurities for people. The absolute facts are: people are only there to drop their kids off. Nobody is choosing to be there.

So there are two types of people: people who try to make the best of it. And people who don’t. And the people who do are accused of being too friendly, too involved, too cliquey. And the people who don’t are too aloof, too cool for the school mums, too rude. Nobody actually wins.

This is why I didn't send mine to the outstanding local state primary full of wannabe private school kids. Its very upper middle class and one of the teachers there warned me about the parents and competitiveness. Our kids have a not so good school on paper but it is much more down to earth. No one dresses for the school run, lots of council estate families, friendly but only rated good rather than outstanding. I do think there are many schools like you describe but not all of them are.

I don’t recognise this. Parents rush past for morning club, after school club or regular drop off and pick ups. Nobody including me appears to have any time and are picking up work emails on phone often whilst in and out. Have a couple of parents whose kids are friends with mine - they have the odd play date and the occasional birthday party.

@TwiggletLover my eldest's best friend is in her year but we are family friends and they have known each other since babies so we socialise with them a lot... but there are 90 children in her year... I am not going to pretend to care about all these other kids and their random parents. No need to write some fake sympathy post though, we are all pretty happy and by the sounds of it have it better that some who seem to be far too involved in other families and their business!!! Who has time for this drama? Honestly!!!

@Lunalicious
So your kids are only allowed to be friends with children whose parents you are also friends with. That's really strange. I'll support my dc friendships with whoever they choose to play with, their parents don't really come into it and actually I don't find it that necessary to have that much contact with them anyway.