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?

Live right next to school but always late, flustered and always looking a mess, work or non work day!!

Until they're replaced by wife number 2 that is...

I've been doing the school run for 15 years now (large age gaps) and haven't noticed any categories of women dropping their children off, tbh. These days I don't see many parents at all, using wraparound care.

I want to be the immaculate well dressed woman, in a suit, reeking of expensive perfume with my shit together.

I am the one with the messy hair, jeans, vans and looking super stressed wondering when i can nap.

Just as many dads as mums at our school. No cliques

I'm the one who only does dropoff twice a week coz I work the other days. I look trampy because I have been spending more time sorting my daughter out than myself (and also so people don't suspect I'm a doctor) I am also the one who'll have a natter with anyone without judgement on how they look/what they do and without subscribing to the mysoginistic act of categorising other females based on a superficial, 5 minute snapshot of them because my daughter is watching and .... well.... monkey see monkey do!

I’m the “glad sun passed all this shit” mum, but used to be the “been up all night on a nightshift or worked till 2am and up at 7am so look like shit” mum

I've been doing the school run for

I look like an absolute tramp (and not in a stylish way) but if you look closely you’d see I’m wearing 100k worth of jewellery. Hard to put people in boxes isn’t it!

The mum with the red face,having pushed a pram up a hill and a 30-40minute trying and failing to get the kids to walk at a decent pace, with one kid trying to run off and the other wanting to stop and look at every flipping front garden we go past. I arrive slightly sweaty and stressed with a crying baby usually who will have a bottle and nap on the walk home. Thankfully I don't do drop offs very often unless dh is in the office.

Not sure what I look like really.

Probably like I'm unemployed, but I'm not.

Hopefully

Nobody who wears gym gear actually does any exercise

My mum is one of these, she counts going for a pedicure in gym gear as exercise!

Erm…maybe just mind your own business in the morning and focus on what your child is doing? 😂

@RedToothBrush Ouch. Not accurate at all…no need to be unkind

Older than all the other mums (twice as old in some cases). print midi-dress & trainers, shit hair.

Silently, scathingly judgemental about the swishy pony-tailed types (if by that you mean the 4x4 urban tank-drivers with investment-banker husbands that pretend that 4xhrs a week teaching yoga in their basement studio is a ‘job’)

I loved the mumsnetter who wrote once ' I'm
common as muck, but very rich ' !
(I bet she isn't a yoga loving , swishy haired yummy mum ! )

You lost me at "reeking of class" wtaf that means

But you’re not shit, you’re you and you are who you are
I think we do our best tbh, and it isn’t always easy.

I've been the scruffy one that always looks hassled, the one with a baby in the buggy and a 3 year old hanging on the side, the one with a smart suit and make up on, the one with the swishy pony tail and the gym gear, the inconspicuous one in jeans and converse, the chatty one that knows everyones name.....just about all of them, but then I have 11 years of school runs behind me. Those days are over now they're both at high school. and I don't envy anyone having to go into what can be a lions den. My advise is just smile and say good morning. You'll probably make some great friends that will last a lifetime though, they will be the likeminded, you'll find your tribe there for sure. Some of my besties are from the school run x

I used to womble in looking like I'd been dressed by a blind man in a charity shop with hair that looked like it had been brushed with a toffee apple.
God knows what category I fell into.
Sorry you're getting a hard time on your thread op.

Stop making assumptions.

@GoingThatWay Thanks 😊 as I said, it wasn’t meant to be offensive or taken seriously.

I misread at first and thought you said you looked like a womble 🤣

I was rarely there for pick up but when I did we had the farmers, the artists and the church goers.

People seemed nice but I didn’t really get a chance to know them sadly. I was the invisible mum.

Work days I am smartly dressed with hair and make up on tottling around in heels and on days off I am makeup free hair just about brushed, trainers! There is a big difference in me

A total scruff-I cook for a living so am covered in allsorts by the time I finish!
ds walks home now so I don't do the school run anymore. I'm allowed on his last day of y6 apparently but that's it 😢I do appreciate the extra 20 minutes peace and a brew before he comes in though.