The swishy blonde ponytail mums and others

[Doeshethinkhesinpeakyblinders]

Just started school run for the first time with my dc, interesting to observe the different mums.
The type of mum I want to be the most is one of the bouncy, swishy blonde ponytails ones wearing gym gear. I also saw the well put together, professional ones in the suits…perfect make up and jewellery..reeking of class and top organisational skills.
Then we have the mums with more than one, usually juggling the bags with the tiny baby or errant toddler, slightly stressy looking or just gone-completely dead tired.
As it happens I’m the fairly inconspicuous one who shuffles past-jeans and converse, never really late but almost always just about to be…one dc but still fairly stressy, not bouncy, not well polished…but off home to clean up dog poo.

Which are you?

🤣 Love it!

😂

I can never relate to the posts about playground mum types, cliques and alpha mums etc. I always wonder whether it’s more a ‘thing’ at very middle-class schools? My DC primary is in a poorer area, very ‘un-middle-class’, high percentage of the kids gets fsm etc. Everyone is really nice and there’s no hierarchy or cliques or anything like that. Or maybe I’m just lucky.

I’m in a well paid professional role, I’m usually there in jeans and a fleece with my hair in pinned up Dutch braids.

Where do I fit in your hierarchy?

Ahh OP I remember those days fondly. It’s all in the past for me but I remember sussing out the other mums, as I got to know them it turned out they weren’t who I had assumed at all. You may be surprised. The one who looked amazing and like she had it all together with her good looking partner and beautiful looks and figure was so unhappy underneath it all. And the one I thought was a busybody nosy parker turned into my best friend!

@pinok same, makes me feel v lucky to have such a great school community not all this ‘pulled from the script of motherland’ nonsense.

Best thing about them going to senior school - no more school runs!

I was always the older mum, wearing cheap jeans and an old sweatshirt. I have short hair and glasses, and in my 50s so automatically invisible anyway!

Crikey, the snarkery! Lighten up people! I'm the one who's usually dressed quite well but actually hasn't showered or brushed teeth yet, because I hate getting out of bed and am always running late 😆Benefits of WFH, for myself, means I can then go home and get ready properly.

Big up the PTA wankers!

👋👋

I'm the one with 15 mums asking me what date the Halloween disco is and will there be a movie night this year and is there a vegan option.

You do know , though, that the ponytail swooshing mum in activewear is not remotely active , don't you?
She'll be walking , actively, her Pomeranian pooch for barely 500 meters and will then be , actively , selling some micro biological veggie drip juice to her mates on FB.

Haha at kicked it through Primark

I’m smart 3 days a week but you can’t tell because of my coat, rucksack and cycle helmet.

Dad’s at DS’s school tend to be either scruffy in joggers or IT workers from India wearing smart-casual office clothes.

Same here! I drop DD at 720 (live overseas and school starts to early here!) then go straight to the office. So always dressed up and polished.

When I did the school run I was the one in pjs pretending they weren't.

I am the really old one who looks like the granny.

I'm the one who has finally FINALLY got to the stage where the youngest is in Y5 and can take herself to school and back.

After 12 years of the playground I am finally free.

That's the best description I've ever read in my life

🤣

I or rather my kids went to primary gym n aspirational and competitive Wimbledon ( we lived in the ugly sister hood down the road) so I get where you’re coming from. I was the harassed, prickly one who didn’t own a Mulberry handbag but was carer for a dad with dementia. The self pity is still there …

Today I am swishy ponytail mum with my progressional job, tomorrow is my day off so I’ll be hoodie/don’t speak to me mum

When you’re around the school gates a while you see a lot of changes as roles and circumstances change. It looks very cliquey and intimidating to begin with but over time you get to know a few mums and start looking like a clique too.

Everyone is just another person, doing their best, hoping their kids will be ok.

😂

There are several categories, the alpha mums who want to run the playground, they stand in a group bitching about other mums, usually dress alike & all go for coffee to carry on bitching, the gym mums who all turn up in gym gear before going off to the gym or going running, the career mums who come dressed for work & take work calls stood in the playground & the outcast mums who nobody else speak to. I was an outcast mum.

Cosmo quiz circa 2002

I was the overweight hippy mum in a maxi dress with long greying hair. Always cheerful (bye you little fuckers. I'm off home to study for my hobby-MA or WFH selling esoteric crap online, depending on my chakras and energy innit, type of attitude).

They were naice maxi dresses, and I'd always get compliments on how put together I was (with no make up, jewellery, and unbrushed hair - but it's so straight I'd get away with it most days). I guess wearing comfy but smart black shoes with anything works wonders.

Do I have a 'mum-box' to fit into?

Oh god, I'm the farmer mum! However hard I try to be smart, I fail miserably. The worst fail being at lambing time and turning up with a lump of afterbirth in my hair. I don't think I will ever live that down. Most days, though, my nice clean jeans are covered in some form of animal excrement or other!