Group of school mums.

[Hiwelcome]

There is one group of school mums who have children in my daughters reception class. Every drop off and pick up they stand in a circle chatting away and seem very involved in the school, seem to know everybody and everybody’s children. I’ve noticed they are quite hostile towards me though and have started giving me ‘dirty looks’. I have never spoken to them but do smile and this morning one of them gave me the evils back. I know I shouldn’t care but it’s annoying me as this is every morning and I’m just trying to go about my day and drop my daughter off to school but it’s bothering me.

I can guarantee it's not personal at all. Don't worry about it! Just collect your child and go. Smile and be pleasant to those you cross paths with and if they don't reciprocate then don't give it a moments thought. I used to worry about this sort of thing when my child was in reception but now he's Y6 and couldn't care less who's talking to who/ who's doing what. It makes it so much easier when you give it less thought.

Just remember that the only reason you are all at school pick up at the same time is because you happened to have sex and give birth in the same school year.

They are no more important than that.

If you smile or say hi, and someone is looking at you funny, you're within your rights to feel weird about it.

Bitterness? People aren't that desperate to be mates with a random school mum. Op is just wondering why they don't seem friendly.

It may well be that they're just bamboozled and don't have time to react and say hi back. No bitterness involved.

When DS was at primary school I became great friends with a group of other mums who remain great friends years later. DH pointed out to me one day that others could easily see us as the clique or the coven and I did eventually see his point.
When I first started doing school runs I was quite unusual in working full time. Everyone else seemed to know each other and be friends, and I felt pretty much invisible. So when I did start to find my people I was incredibly glad, but was probably less sensitive than I should have been to people who might have been feeling as awkward as I had.
So what I’m trying to say really is don’t assume the worst of these people! Try engaging them in conversation; go along to the horrendous coffee mornings; organise play dates so that you can interact with them independently of their friendship group - or just find some different people to be mates with.
As a wise friend once said to me, 10% of people really like you, 10% can’t stand you, and 80% really don’t give a shit either way.

Why on earth would you feel guilty for talking to your friends??? Mn is so over-populated by the socially-awkward and misanthropic that there’s often a weird sense of entitlement where the lack of school playground friends/ acquaintances is clearly everyone else’s fault, and there’s an expectation that other dropping parents shouldn’t talk to their friends, but stand about checking for anyone standing by themselves, in case this indicates loneliness, otherwise the people just talking to their friends are a ‘clique’ populated by Mean Girls and Alphas.

They just sound like friends chatting. Work on finding your own group of friends or friend to chat with!

There are always some parents far more involved with the running of the school than most. This can be great - organising fêtes etc. It can be just whingeing and gossipping though. If you want to become highly immersed in the minutiae of school life then you'd probably already be in the group. Most people don't and just have a quick hi, chat, bye and go off to focus on what they find most interesting in life.

THIS ☝️

The only people who use phrases like clique and coven are the ones who aren’t prepared to make any effort to integrate, and expect everyone else to bend over backwards to include them, in my experience.

The only time I’ve ever given ‘the evils’ to another mum is if her child is a bully and I know that she sees (or hears about) really mean behavior without seeing fit to intervene in some way. One time at school pickup, a fellow school mum’s son (who is 2 years older than my daughter) grabbed my 4 year old daughter’s artwork out of her hands, ripped it up in front of her, and then laughed in her face when she started crying. The mum saw it all happen and acted like it was totally fine and normal ‘boys will be boys’ behavior.

Is there a chance your daughter is a bully?

If not, I honestly don’t think you should read anything into it! Maybe the lady just has resting bitch face.

I've got two children in school. With my first, I didn't really gel with anyone in particular but there were a group of mums who did. They weren't 'cliquey' but they were more friends with each other than the rest of us. Fine. I was a bit sad that I didn't have that (I was hoping to make some good mum friends when DC started school) and probably a bit jealous but I coped.

With my second, I happened to meet a small group of like-minded women in the class and we have been firm friends ever since. We have our own whatsapp group, we see each other socially quite frequently, we stand together and chat in the playground. I sometimes wonder if people think we're a 'clique'. Now I'm on the other side of the coin, I realise that, in my experience anyway, these 'cliques' that people talk about are just people who are friends. That's it - there's nothing remotely 'mean girl' or exclusionary about it.

I'm really pleased I found this wonderful group of women but I also acknowledge that it was pure luck that I did - the fact that we happen to have children the same age in the same school was serendipitous but it isn't our sole common ground and I look back with amusement on my assumption that finding friends at baby groups and school gates would be a given.

So - don't take it personally. They're just people who have found each other and have become friends. That's all.

So you are thinking bad about them because you have made up some back story so you have permission to think badly of them?, when people think like this i either think they need more going on in their life or are acting like they are back at school themselves

Next you will be making up they are having secret meetings just to talk about you

They just know each other already. They probably have older children in the school, went to Nursey together, live in the same street or even grew up in the area and have known each other since they were kids. They have you g kids and do t socialise as much as they’d like. They see each other for 5 minutes in the morning and have lots to talk about.

They are not given you evils. Could this be a possibility OP because it’s really unusual for a complete stranger to side eye you. There’s no reason. Perhaps you just feel left out of their clique.

Sigh.

Why is it men never seem to have this issue? I've never known of a school dad to obsess over other dads excluding him. The number of threads on here from women at their wits end because they've been left out of the school mum 'clique' (in reality, likely to just be a group of friends who are chatting and catching up at drop off and pick-up) is ridiculous.

So many OPs insist that other mums who they have never spoken to give them 'dirty looks'.

I mean logically, why would a woman you have literally never engaged with decide to give you an evil stare?

As for calling women who dare to talk to each other a 'coven'....FML.

I guarantee they just know each other well as they have older kids in the same class. Our primary school used to do this, put siblings of older ones in the same class. When my youngest started reception, there was a group
of 5 of us who knew each other very well, had spent the past few years in each other’s houses etc. It probably looked like we were a clique but we weren’t, we were just friends.

Go over to them, say hi, ask them how they know each other. Tell them you don’t know anyone. Get to know them. I’d be amazed if they all turned their backs to you.

Exactly this.

I have 3 DCs and used to nanny, so have spent a lot of time hanging around playgrounds of many different schools, and can only think of one true mean-girl clique, and even then, they weren't popular and powerful, just gossipy with high opinions of themselves, the rest of us just said hi and made occasional small talk amongst ourselves.

It's strange when people talk about PTA power stuff too. The reality is that most of us are too busy to volunteer much or at all, so PTAs do tend to attract a few people who like being in charge or don't have enough else going on - but most are just other parents trying to help out or to make some more friends.
The few times I've volunteered, it's been pretty thankless, and most parents take the benefits without giving much back, so I'm now happy to let anyone who helps out make a few power plays if they want.

All this would be a bit funny, if it weren't so sad that so many women posting seem to be left miserable or lonely because of these social stereotypes and misconceptions.

I agree with most of your post, but I will say that my DH thinks the local school gate has cliquey groups. He finds it a bit intimidating, I think, and says a lot that he thinks it's cliquey.

I'm very clear that I really don't see this myself, and have asked him explicitly wat makes him think that. He doesn't really have a clear answer.... he knows it's bullshit but I think it's an easy mindset for people to have if they feel insecure at the school gate!

yes and no.

"Other dads" excluding one dad, unheard of.

SOME groups of women excluding or trying to exclude a man is very sadly too common. It's a pathetic and outdated attitude from SOME women who think everything child-related belongs to them, and them only, trying to shot down the concept of equality.

It's very depressing when it affect a single dad, widower or just lone parent. I am talking from experience of people very close to me, and I have witnessed it myself, so did DH but as he's not a single parent, he cares very little!

It's interesting you mention behaviour towards dads as I've seen the opposite to the treatment you describe at DC's school. The handful of single/widowed dads or the relatively few who do the school runs seem to be fawned over by some of the mums, always encouraged to participate in events and not excluded at all.

Similarly the level of hero worship towards the male teachers at the school is next level. At a recent birthday party I sat with a group of mums who were discussing various teachers. All of the female teachers had a least one detractor in the group but not a single word against any of the male teachers who were all without exception 'amazing', 'so kind', 'incredible' etc. When DD started Y2 she had a male teacher who was so beloved that several parents complained to the Headteacher because their child was not placed in his class!

It also makes no sense because witches (of which I am one) are usually solitary and a bit eccentric.

Just don't even look in their direction. Pretend they don't exist. No amount of "evils" work if you don't see them. Stand with your back to them or sideways or across the other side of the playground or behind other people. There's no need for you to have any interaction at all. It's 5 minutes twice a day and you are gone, easy peasy.

The only reason to be concerned is if this petty behaviour is because you are on a lower income, or some other personal characteristic. Just hope they don't project their pettiness onto their children, which to be honest is unlikely.

Ha! Having run the gauntlet of prep schools in Surrey, I would say these types of exclusionary ‘cliques’ certainly do exist. But not sure if glaring at other mums ever took place, more a kind of looking straight through people as if they weren’t there, or blanking them when away from the school playground.
I was in at least two of those cliques without realising and the others I liked to make feel uncomfortable by purposefully talking loudly and kindly to them so they couldn’t avoid me but knew exactly what I was doing 😁

If the children are friendly and cliquey then it's definitely a thing, parents set the tone and children follow. However it's unintentional and harmless so instead of ignoring pretend they don't exist.

It was this morning that it happened it was one of the mums on her own walking up to the gates and I happened to look her way and honestly she did give me a very dirty look. She then went to join the other mums in the group

The other day, one of the other mums in the group I was stood behind and her child got chatting to mine, I tried to make a little conversation and she moved away