Ostracised for staying at private school

[LessorMore]

Please be kind. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. We are in the VERY fortunate position where we can send our son to private school which is a few minutes drive from our home. We are the only people in the village to do this, the rest use the (very lovely) state primary. Since DS started in January, people who went to the same nursery as him have completely cut me off! At first I thought it was coincidence but last week I eventually confided in a woman at the park and she bluntly said that perhaps it was my decision to separate DS from their kids. She was trying to be understanding as far as I could tell and I asked if she would invite me to the next lunch, she said she would. But today I’ve seen a few of the mums all waking round the village together so again I’ve been excluded. I don’t get it? I feel really alone as I am a SAHP and DP works long hours, often not back until gone 8pm. I love having girlfriends, I can’t seem to meet any at DS’s school as the vast majority board there. I feel really upset and now really wish we had stuck with the local school and DS still had his friends from nursery. Has anyone navigated this before? I don’t know what to go but can’t go on feeling like the odd one out in such a small place.

I've yet to see a cliquier and bitchier group than school mums. They're schoolyard bullies in disguise

Would you listen to yourself?

You realise “school mums” aren’t a different species or some group of people with neurological disorders. They are just people with children at school. Literally all human life falls into this category.

Have you ever heard someone say “working dads are the nastiest people ever?” Nope.

How do you expect your children to navigate school friendships if you instil this level of extreme paranoia? WTAF.

You do sound quite naiive of how school gate friendships work.

You also seem quite 'ignorant' of how private schools function.

There is no way I'd send a 6 yr old to a private school where most children are boarders.

Surely you appreciate that the life of a boarder is totally different to a day pupil?

Boarders make friends with other boarders.

It's that simple.

Your own child will have a limited number of potential friends.

Did you not consider all of this before you enrolled him?

Your son's education is about more than just the academic side. How will he make friends if most pupils are boarders?

It doesn't work that way because boarders aren't allowed out to have play dates with day boys.

Schools that are mainly boarders are very closed communities.

I'd really advise you to rethink not only if this is an issue for you and your 'friends' but also your son.

I didn't call you a bitch - I said your comments came across as bitchy. And nope, I don't even have kids, but I'm glad trying to insult me made you feel better for second 🙄

My point was that struggling to make friends with a specific group of people doesn't make that group of people nasty or unpleasant. There are lots of people out there I don't get on with, that doesn't make them bad people - it just means we have nothing/very little in common. And that's okay.

I’m sorry OP, loneliness is an awful feeling. But please don’t try and forge friendships with people where the only thing in common is “your kids are in the same class/year group”.

School mum friendships are extremely cliquey and mostly are superficial. Why would you want to be friends with women who have now ostracised you?

Imagine if this was reversed and private school mums did the same when a school mum switched to state, the comments on this thread would be so different!
And what makes you think they don't?
We moved out DD from private to state at the end of year 4 and I stopped getting invtations to coffee with those Mums straight away. DD was, I think, invited to 1 or 2 birthday parties from her old class but contact soon dried up. I didn't view it as being frozen out though, or get upset about it, it was just a natural consequence of our decision. Not in the class, not invited to whole class parties any more. Not a school mum, not invited to school mum meet ups any more. The same thing happens if you move from one state school to another or indeed one private school to another. Or if you change sports club, dance school, choir or whatever. When you have friendships based on having one specific thing in common and you don't have that link anymore then in most cases that friendship will end.
For some of the people involved there may be an element of disapproval of the OP's choice of school but we don't actually know that and nor does she. All the mother she spoke to said was that it might be related to her separating her child from the rest. That could equally be the case if she had sent her son to a different state school or indeed chosen to home educate. The primary issue is almost certainly that the OP's child does not attend the local school rather than the specific school that he does attend.

You're so right - nobody ever says it about a group of dads.

It's just women attacking women. As always.

This discussion should be about the child's opportunities to make friends, not just his Mum's.

I'd never choose a mainly boarding school for a day boy aged 6.
Madness.

OP if your son is at school all day and you are lonely, why don't you get out and about to make friends?

Hobbies? Classes? Volunteering?
Work????

You can't expect school gate mums to be the answer .

The thread is precisely about the mum wanting to stay friends with the other mums! 😅

To be honest you don't need friends like this. They were obviously just friends of convenience and now you've moved on then its natural that you aren't in the same group. It's not jealousy, it's more that you were not really friends in the first place. They aren't "ostracising you". It's just school mums hang out together.

I had a group of friends at nursery, but we stopped hanging out when our dc went to different schools.

Before that I had a baby group but we lost touch in the school years.

I now have a group of school mums but I don't expect the friendships to all last. Some of these are people I sit with at school plays or talk to at pick up, or message about "what are the arrangements for x". Sometimes we socialise but it's not one big group.

I should imagine in a village you have to be pretty selective before you end up fake friends with people you don't really like.

I've dropped people nicely over the years or just not returned the overtures of friendship. It's life, you can't be friends with everyone.

I am so sorry, but I am not surprised, really. Basically, they are reading your choice as 'I am better than you, and my son deserves better than your kids'. One reason we chose to send ours to the local school, is to ensure this social cohesion and local friendships.

To be honest you have in a way excluded yourself and your child from a common and shared experience of the kids going to school together. These kids will build closer friendships with kids that are in school with them, engage in sports days together, attend birthday parties together and there parents will inevitably be a part of each others day to day lives and friendship circles.

You have opted yourself and your DC out of all this by making a choice to send your child to a private school though there is a good state school in your village. Unfortunately this is a result of the decision to do that.

What were your reasons OP? To be honest I think @boltonb has hit the nail on the head.

Rightly or wrongly, you've decided the school their children go to isn't good enough for your child. It's hard but people don't like feeling inferior particularly when as you say, the state school is excellent and therefore no reason for you to shun it really.

I don’t live in a village, but it seems to me that’s exasperating the situation.

This morning I had coffee with two of other school mums. Before Christmas another mum would have more than likely come too, but her little boy moved schools, and I think I’ve bumped into her once since. She’s lovely, we just don’t exist in each other’s orbits anymore. She wasn’t there when we made the plans. As others have said, it feels very much like having coffee with a colleague at lunch time. Until I read this thread I wouldn’t have even given it a thought.

I live in a relatively large town. The other school mum will have made ‘mum friends’ at the new school. In the unlikely event she did see us, it won’t be a big deal. In a small village, with fewer chances to make friends, I can see how that would feel lonely. The suggestions of joining a hobby group are good, you’ll have different common ground with people there.

I had a group of friends at nursery, but we stopped hanging out when our dc went to different schools.

I think this is correct. The fact you are sending your son private is probably irrelevant and it would have happened if you had moved him to a different state school. Parents of young children, particularly when they work, don’t have time or energy to do much socialising and the school network is convenient.

This is one of the reasons it’s unwise to over invest emotionally in school network friendships. Because a large portion of these friendships are borne of convenience. That doesn’t mean that real friendships can’t develop and it certainly doesn’t mean “school mums are bitches”. It just means you need to realise that many of them may not survive if it becomes harder to meet up with your kids.

Where was he between nursery and starting in the private school last January at age 6?
Are you in the UK?

This is what many/most people think. Sorry to break it to you.

You don’t want to be friends with these people! Our child goes to state while a friend goes to the private school and we are still friends.

This doesn’t seem like true friendships, this is a fickle friendship due to people in the same class. What you are after is a close network of friends and this isn’t it.

These friendships are usually based on proximity and convenience. If they meet every morning at drop off and someone suggests lunch absolutely no one is going to suggest let’s find out if lessor is about unless they had a pre-existing friendship with you .

As the kids move on years and start having parties etc this will exacerbate as little groups are formed because the same group of mums are sitting having coffee together every Saturday while their kids are at another soft play party.

Regardless you should be thinking about what is best for your son . A Private school education at age 5 or a group of friends living in close proximity at a good school. I know what Id pick even if I was “fortunate “ enough to afford private. I’m sure many parents of the families going to the local school could have afforded private too but had other priorities.

So if a few mums bump into each other at the school gate on a nice day and decide to go for a stroll, you believe that they are ostracising you? Even though you weren't at the school gate and your child isn't even in the school?

OP, I think you need to put on your big-girl pants and own your decision here.

A natural consequence of you deciding not to send your child to the village school is that you will no longer be bumping into these mums at the school gate, your children will no longer be in the same class, playing together in school, asking for playdates, etc. Mums who are trying to help their children navigate through school will make an effort to try and form friendships with the mums of other children in the school. Through your own decision, you decided not to be part of this school community.

I know. 😂

But I'm allowed to say that she ought to also be thinking about her son.
If HE makes friends with other children at his school, surely she will meet those mums? Does he go to school, come home and not see any friends?

There's a lot about her thread that doesn't sound quite right to me.

OP needs to realise that if her old school gate mums were really keen on her as a friend, they'd respect her choice of school and still remain friends.

I think 'ostracised' is a bit dramatic.

She's moved on and she'd not one of the crowd now.

I think 'ostracised' is a bit dramatic.

@LemonandLimeCake according to another poster, anyone who sends their children to private school is reflection of a superiority complex so maybe ‘ostracised’ is accurate.

I also think it's morally repugnant to accept children that young as boarders, and I would be judging you for effectively supporting that with your decision to send your child there.

A decision you made on the basis that, for some reason, they deserve more than my child, I guess.

It sounds like your friendships were centred around you all having children in the same nursery, rather than being any deeper than that. You no longer have that connection, so they no longer think you have enough in common with them - they are likely wanting to meet up to talk about school, to organise whole class parties, etc, and can’t be bothered with the extra effort of maintaining a friendship with someone whose child no longer mixes daily with their children and who won’t be able to join in fully with conversations about the local primary school. Were there no parents you got on with better than others? Tbh, I think your only hope is to establish one or two closer, more meaningful relationships with true friends, rather than trying to maintain a friendship group when you are no longer part of the group, because the group only really exists because of the mutual nursery/school connection.

I had something similar when my DDs were at school. When we moved back to the uk our younger two went to the village first school, but we put the eldest, aged 9, into the local independent girls’ school, mainly because it was already her third school so we wanted somewhere she could stay until 18.
The village school mums were all really friendly when DDs 2&3 started - mostly just chat in the playground, but the odd coffee meet up. I never mentioned our older daughter, except in passing and all was fine for the first half term. One day I had to pick DD1 up early so she was with me at pick up for the younger two.
It was pretty much instant, as soon as they saw her uniform. All but three (who are still friends now) stopped talking to me, or even looking at me and I heard from one of my friends how much I was being talked about behind my back.
Luckily, I didn’t give a toss - if they were going to be so small minded and parochial I didn’t want to know them anyway, but it’s tough if you want to be friends.
Give it time and you’ll make new friends at your DS’s new school. If you’re lucky, like me, they’ll become lifelong.