Finding it hard being an older mum at school

[DazedAndConfused2024]

It’s an odd one: I don’t have an issue with my age in itself (I’m 49), or that life turned out the way it did with me having children late in life (at 42 and 44)
I’m finding it hard trying to relate to other mums at school - most seem to be 30something and just at a very different point in their lives.
I try to be friendly and approachable but I have definitely noticed that my older child is definitely getting fewer play date invitations and I’m definitely not in the post drop off mummy clique.

It doesn’t really bother me personally, it’s more the impact on my children that’s concerning, in terms of less social interaction.

Just wondering if any other older mums had encountered this?

I was around your age with my kids. Funnily enough I wasn't that much older than some of the other parents, though with others there could be 10 to 15 years difference. My eldest is ND and that caused me more issues than age. Also, although I am reasonably sociable, I tend to prefer one on one friendships, so find large established groups harder to deal with.

There was a large group of mums in my eldest's class and actually some of them did their best to include me, but I always felt slightly uneasy with them en masse, due to my child's behaviours, never knowing how well they all knew each other and disliking the large group dynamic. I was rarely 100% myself with them.

Youngest's class was easier to manage - my child was liked well enough, fewer of the families socialised with other parents and there were no pre- established groups, so it was easier and more relaxing to become part of one - which also involved our partners, as half the group were dads taking their children regularly to school - I knew them better than I knew their female partners. They tended to be less close to my age but that didn't matter at all.

I don't think age should be an issue really, unless you're talking about 20 somethings maybe.

Absolutely this

I've been both a younger than average mum (with my son) and an older than average one (with my daughter). So seen it from both sides, and never quite managed to fit in with the majority! But I'm not a natural school gate socialiser anyway, I don't think.

It’s a shame you feel this way. When my DD started school, the oldest Mum was 51 (had DS aged 47) and the youngest was 19! We all got along and it was a very multicultural school too. Maybe it’s the culture of the school.

I had my DS at 29 and was on the slightly younger side of average at the school gates, but I’m still not part of the clique mainly because I have a busy job, work full time and am only at the school gates once or twice a week, DH is a SAHD. He’s not part of the clique either, because he’s male, obviously. There seem to be very many reasons for not being part of the clique at our school, too old, too young, too career focused, have a child who isn’t into football, too religious, not white enough, not a native English speaker ... honestly it’s much nicer on the outside! There’s a few parents I know quite well from DS doing activities with their child or being good friends with their child, and at 8 going on 9 he’s now getting beyond the age where friendships are determined or heavily influenced by the parents so it really doesn’t matter.

Perhaps this is just a school gate clique thing? And not completely related to age. I've found the school gates cliquey but some of it is my perception.

My issue with setting up playdates is that most of the mum's work full time & seemingly have no space to organise playdates, or at least organise playdates with mum's who are low priority like me. I also see little cliques. I'd love to be in one lol but it's not happening...yet, who knows, I have DC2 school years to come and I might get lucky then.

I also do worry about impact on DC social life & it's frustrating because I'm geared up to help my child with their social life so I'm glad to hear they will be doing this themselves down the line.

Hang in and you will find "your people". With my eldest now 14 I had to force myself to be really sociable because he's SEN and different so I needed to explain a bit to make parents explain to their children. It definitely helped him with other children being more understanding and even inviting him to birthday parties (and the mums understood why I had to stay to make sure he didn't go into crisis mode). If your DC is neurotypical he/she will make friends and you will need to talk to their mums in order to invite them. But don't stress it, you don't have to be friends with them:). Personally I was happy when my youngest got invited to an "older" mum's house because I thought she seemed mature and I trusted her. I don't tend to trust younger mums which is not very nice but when my DCs were younger I needed to be able to trust the parent for them to take them on an outing... So I would have been happy to let you have my child:)

I was always the “older” mum at school- I ended up becoming good friends with one of the younger mums- I think I may have been like an older sister figure to her (she couldn’t be bothered with the young mum drama that ended up happening) and I just really liked her! 7 years on and the other relationships over the years have fizzled out and we are still friends- there are 14 years between us. I don’t think age matters so much- it’s defin to do with experiences and how you were brought up/ beliefs etc.

Older mum here too.
Thankfully there were a few oldies.
My daughters friends were largely eldest, where she was youngest.
The plus side was I had an empty house to do plenty of great playdates and she built up a great group of friends.
I liked all the mums but actually didn't look to them for friendship.
My daughter is nearly 18 with a fantastic large circle of friends some going back to montessori.
When they move from primary to secondary they often don't take any friends with them, but my children have.
I think the benefit of play dates and socialising is that it gives them practice and confidence in many aspects of friendship, which can't be a bad thing IMO.
Go easy on yourself.

Are you sure it’s an age thing, or are you just not compatible with this particular set of parents?

DD1 is in reception and out of the group of parents we meet up with there are mums ages 36, 37, 38 (me), 41 and 49. We only know each others’ ages because I mentioned that DH and I were planning a trip for my 40th. Before that, it’s just wasn’t an issue, we just hit it off at kids parties - not even at drop off, I’m a teacher so never at the gate.

Our children aren’t best friends; get along fine, but have other friends at school that we’d just message to arrange play dates as needed, regardless of how well we get on as parents. If your oldest is 7 OP, couldn’t you arrange drop off play dates anyway? So it wouldn’t matter if you were part of ‘the group’ or not?

I was the same age roughly as the majority of mums in DDs year and barely clicked with anyone. I just don’t think I fitted in, it was a large village and lots of people had lived there for years or already had their friends.

Anyway, I enrolled my daughter in various clubs not near the school and she made good friends at those and I found friends there too.

She is now a teen and best friends with totally different people (from her primary school) to the people she was previously best friends with there, and she didn’t have one playdate with any of them.

If you can’t maintain a light friendship with people based on their age then that’s on you. If you have children the same age you are in a relatively similar life stage regardless of age surely?
Can you not maintain conversation with people of different ages at work or other situations?

Out of interest, OP, where are you based? I don't think you'd particularly be an older mum where i am in London.

I'm 32 and only talk to a couple of the mums. I'm also glad they don't get invited to houses, a lot of parties yes but it would be a no to play dates / over for tea no chance when I barely know the parents or who lives in / comes and goes from that house. Some had sleepovers in reception!

Just to give an alternative perspective in the year that my child is in at primary school in London the younger mums are in the minority. When starting reception most parents were late in their late 30s to mid 40s and some of the dads were in their 50s.

I was pregnant with my first at 17, baby born days after my 18th. I was friends with a mum at school who could have been my mum. She was telling me one day that she was sad as her DD had said she wished she had a young mum like me. I laughed and told her my son said I was embarrassing and he wished he had an older mum like her. He used to inspect what I was wearing to school events to make sure they looked "suitable."

Twenty years late I had another baby, a doctor said, "Well you had one when you were too young and now you are having one when you are too old." I asked him how specific the right age is, I mean is is 20s, 30s or is it 25 years 7 months and 2 days. He shuffled off and said no more.

For me age didn't come into it, I had mum friends older than me with the first, younger than me with the last. Maybe you just haven't fitted in and it isn't to do with age but if it is age there isn't much to be done about it. As your children get older they will organise their own social life and it won't matter in the meantime can they do something after school? Brownies/cubs/sport and get their social contact that way?

Older mum here too (43 when I had my youngest)

Its a no from me too due to the gulf between me and them but to be totally honest, I learned a ton from my eldest.

Turns out I’m shite at digging any deeper with people whose kids just happen to be in the same building as mine.
My kid wasn’t bothered in the slightest about being invited to all the parties which settled it for me.

He forged his own friendships and went to their parties, occasionally went for tea and to play, we had those kids back.
It was still extremely surface politeness between me and the parents. I have my group of carefully picked friends thanks, I’m not interested in any more.
Caveat being unless they are super nice, super chilled, easy to converse with and who I naturally clicked with, then they were welcomed in with tea and cake.

Im too old, too long in the tooth, to fucking tired and too busy to be arsed with anything that wastes my time, so it’s drop off and piss off for school. I don’t get involved.

The WhatsApp group was deleted in the first few weeks, no, just no.

When my kids were at school most mums were early to mid 20s, there was one older mum who was probably 40s and yes she did stick out a little, but everyone still chatted with her, and her kid got invited to as much as anyone else.