To think this school mum is off?

[propernot]

DS starts reception in Sept. Via a Facebook group I am on I was invited to join a whatsapp group for parents when children starting that school in September.
The mum 'X' who started the group already has 2 children at the school and her third is starting in reception. To my knowledge, she chose to start the group of her free will, presumably because she wanted to, and wasn't forced to do so.

The title of the group is 'school name intake 2022'. But its becoming really obvious that X actually only wanted this to be for school mums. When people said 'can I add my husband/partner' they were told 'not yet due to security reasons', and after a couple of weeks she finally relented and let dads join. X has a notes document which she updates and shares on a regality basis as new people join the group, which has the names of the children and their mum next to them. X says she is too busy to put the dads name on the document as well.

Dads are getting arsey now making passive aggressive comments about 'the March to parental equality' and some are raising that they are SAHD who do all the drop off and pick ups, so if there can only be one named parent on this group then it should be them...

AIBU to say that X is going around this wrong and feel sorry for the dads who are basically being sidelined? And to say that if X is finding the group too onerous to run she can stop?

To be fair she was probably just trying to help. Maybe they could start a dads group?
There's no dad's on my son's reception WhatsApp. It's generally to share if someone's lost a jumper etc.

Wow what a bitch she sounds- the forms for school say parent/guardian not mum. She sounds like a strange man hater.

School WhatsApp groups are bitchy, cliquey cesspits. Why anyone would want to be in one is beyond me.

Men clearly don’t want to be bothered by lost jumpers?
there’s a couple of dads on ours, literally don’t care who’s on the group for their child.

Make a spreadsheet of your own and mark a big fat X next to her name. Smile but be wary of this one. Over the coming primary school years you will add many others to this list.

You're not being unreasonable but don't get dragged in to the drama. Save your energy for some bigger stunts that will be pulled down the line. Six weeks left of primary school for me. Can't bloody wait to get away from all the school mum wierdness I have encountered over the years.

Tell the dads to start their own group. They’re getting arsey because she isn’t updating a document that she has zero obligation to update? It’s just a WhatsApp group!

Oooh she’s a busy body! She’s going to be insufferable come September, telling all you newcomers how things work at that school / as children grow / as parents grow more used to parenting / when siblings come along. Every time she drops the ball, it’ll be because she’s got two older children, dontchaknow. And every issue will be a non-problem because “just wait till they’re older”

Can you tell I’ve been there?

😀

This ^

I help admin on an unofficial parents group on Facebook. We have made the decision to have a list of rules and one of these is that no child is mentioned by name for safeguarding reasons (one of the parents fosters children).

She has too much time on her hands.
Why is a spreadsheet needed?!

Just leave the group!

Blimey. I hope none of the children are being raised by single dad's, widower dad, gay dads, their uncle, their grandad, their brother, their step dad who is their legal guardian, foster dad.....how will 'X' cope. Does she get the vapours if she sees a man?

I wonder if she is worried that it would somehow highlight single parent families and she doesn't want to do that? That's the only potential explanation I can come up with

These groups are basically for things like “don’t forget it’s school picture day tomorrow/Jessica didn’t bring her jumper home, can you check your kids bags?/whatever”.

Why do you feel sorry for the dads? I don’t get that. It seems like an overreaction from
them and people who feel sorry for them. Maybe this mum will delete the whole thing and tell you lot to piss off. Wouldn’t blame her.

Couldn't someone just make another group?

But why can't Jessica's dad give a shit about her lost jumper? Or is this just for the female parents mental load?

We have a class WhatsApp for DS, just set up by one of the mums and added to as we go along. Mums and dads are both welcome because both parents are... parents. And personally I don't see why organising costumes or tracking down lost property is my job rather than my husbands.

Because DH and I are equal parents, so it's equally his problem if it's school picture day or DD has brought someone else's jumper home.

Someone with a gender neutral name should ask to join - how will she know if that is a mum or dad?

The whole thing sounds absolutely pathetic.

Why would there not be dads? In our class whatsapp group there are both - some divorced parents with joint custody for example need to both be on there, as do parents who share the childcare and don't see lost jumpers for example as something only women should deal wit.

Yip.. some school mums are awful!

This type of thing leaves DH to go into a rant. He is a SAHD but still time and again comes up against people (almost always women) who assume that it is the mum that does everything. After one flip out at someone on the class WhatsApp group sending a message starting 'hi mums' for the 10th time I made him put his money where his mouth is. He's now class rep. The 'hi mums' has stopped on the class WhatsApp group, but he still gets the on the Class Rep group - of course a man couldn't be involved enough with his kids to be Class Rep.

How is that helpful, everything to be sex segregated is childish. Say a dad is the primary carer and he is looking for his child's missing jumper it has been found by a mum who posts about it on the mums group. Is that sensible? How about a mum who is the primary carer when that scenario is reversed?

What about someone, anyone with or without a penis, starting a grownup group that everyone is welcome to join.

You misunderstand. These groups aren’t interesting to anyone- no one is missing out on not being included. I muted the one for my daughter’s class and then left when it all started kicking off about the residential trip.

If anyone does want to be on these groups just make one like this mum did. No need for drama and shit.

If someone decides to run a Facebook page for their kids school year, then they should let any parent or guardian of the yeargroups children into it. Anything else is not actually running it for the year, but as a clique.

I'd post to the group page

"Hi admin, please could you check whether there are any parent requests pending as I know a good few of the dads are waiting to be added. Might be worth taking down the spreadsheet of names for data protection too"

I'd not join such a page, but I don't know how she can justify not allowing some parents to be added and not others.