To think most “mum friendship groups” are just thinly veiled cliques?

[SharpMintReader]

The school-gate groups and WhatsApp chats often look less like support networks and more like exclusive cliques. AIBU to think “mum friendships” are too often politics in disguise?

God, I'm sick of these stupid posts. They seemed to stop for a little while, but now they're back.

There is nothing worse than the playground mafia. End of. I was so glad when all that toxic childlike bitching was out of my life!

Indeed.

My friends and I are a friendship group.

Those other women are in a clique.

🙄

Yes. Grow up, OP. ‘Mums’ are jist women who have children. ‘School gate mums’ are just women with children at the same school as yours. Not some hostile subsection of humanity with an axe to grind.

If you have a child at school and are a woman, you’re a ‘school gate mum’. If you regard your friendships as a series of venomous political manoeuvrings, that is on you.

Wh can’t they just be a group of friends? Not a support network, or a clique. Just some women who met each other at the school gate, make each other laugh, then meet for coffee.

Women hanging out together just to exclude you? Ever considered It’s not all about you…maybe they just get on with each other!

fgs Most of these “cliques” are just people passing the time of day with people they see twice a day for years. People read way too much into everything.

So OP are you saying that all the school gate mums have to be friends with all the other mums? You can't have a group of closer friends, who get on well and maybe even - shock horror - start a WhatsApp group, because that would be a "clique"?

I think if you dismiss cliques as non existent and irrelevant then you’ve clearly never been the victim of exclusion from one and you’re likely in the school gate Queen Bee Clique already.

They do exist as they exist everywhere. Work. School. Uni. Hobby clubs.

If you’re lucky enough to be “popular” and included then obviously you don’t reflect or care how it’s like for others who aren’t.

Some people meet due to circumstances, make friends and then hang out together. This happens in every walk of life; work, neighbours, clubs, groups. But only when it happens at school it is a VERY BAD THING

The very nature of a friendship group is that it only includes people who see each other as friends. And that when a friendship group is formed it will have a variety of functions beyond 'support', exchange of news, advantaging each other in various ways, exercising influence on each other, and on the wider context. If you see those things as cliquey and political, then I suppose you're right. But what's the viable alternative? That no one ever forms friendship groups? If you're on the outside of a group you want to join and your efforts to join have been rejected, you need to either form another group from people in a similar position, or get perspective and learn not to care. There's a big long life away from and after the school gate, and one day you'll look back and wonder why on earth you were so bothered about people you can barely remember the names of.

They can be that and that’s great when it happens. But I’ve also seen situations where the group becomes exclusionary - even subtly. It’s not always about laughter and lattes; sometimes it’s about social hierarchy, even among mums.

But it’s only at the school gates that people seem to think that friendship groups must be open to anyone, if they fancy.

People seem to also be obsessed with joining a friendship group, rather than setting up their own. Again, this only happens at school. Maybe it’s because they want their DC inserted with DC they consider popular.

Of course it’s not all about me, that’s kind of the point. It’s about how group dynamics can unintentionally create exclusion, even when no one’s trying to be cruel. You can name it without assuming it’s personal.

I don't get these posts. People make friends. Not everyone is friends with everyone. It's usually not malicious, you just get on with who you get on with.

It's not "exclusion" to not be friends with absolutely everyone.

Of course not - friendships form naturally. But there’s a difference between organic closeness and social setups that become exclusionary or political. I’m just saying the line between close-knit and clique gets blurry fast in some mum circles.

Surely a clique is just another term for a friendship group?

I used to just take m kids to school drop them off then pick them back up, maybe say hi to a few other parents, I didn’t want to be best friends, i didn’t want to chat to them and I didn’t want to hang out with them either. I have other friends.

The only difference is that most friendship groups aren't in the line of sight of those who aren't part of them. So there's no resentment.

Groups of school mums who are friends, are very visible to the rest of the mums as they occupy the same space twice a day.

That doesn't make the friendship groups cliques, it just makes them apparent to others.

Go on then, what's the difference?

But your sense of exclusion isn’t other people’s problem. If you want to make friends in any situation, approach people, be friendly, decide whether there are people you like. Don’t stand about on your own, looking sulky, and complain no one is including you.

Fair take and I agree, friendship groups are natural. But when those groups dominate a setting like the school gate and shape who’s included, informed or supported, it’s not just harmless bonding anymore. It does affect other parents. The issue isn’t friendship, it’s when access, influence and inclusion start to hinge on being in the inner circle.

So sick of it.

When men have a friendship group its "bonding" or "networking". When women do it its "bitchy, cliquey, school gate mums". It's so depressing and infuriating.

So many women seem to struggle with the idea that other women can form friendship groups without feeling that they are deliberately designed to exclude. Its such a paranoid and self-destructive attitude.

Women are allowed to make friends with other women without having to include everyone in the entire class/known universe. They are allowed to choose who they befriend. It's not a conspiracy against you -- it probably has nothing to do with you whatsoever. It's just women exercising their own choice over their network.

And school isn't designed as a ready made social life on a plate for women who haven't bothered to keep their own networks up after they got married and had kids. If you don't have any of your own friends, do some work to try to understand why that is and work to build up your own networks. Rather than lashing out at other people forming harmless friendships of their own.

Do explain. Or are you simply someone who struggles with friendship and who has decided it’s easier to blame other people?