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?

I made mum friends even though i was rarely at the school. We're we a clique, because we choose to see each other socially? I guess it would have been easy, on the occasions I was there, to see other groups as a 'clique', but often it was because they were women who knew each other for a long time already and I was just x's mum.

I suppose there are also 'cliques' at my gym. A bunch of people who go to lots of classes and see each other socially. I'm not in it, because I'm a casual gym goer. And maybe I'm just not someone who would fit with them. That's just life.

I guess you could also say the old people on my street are in a clique. Or maybe it's just that they've known each other a long time and have lots of shared experiences. They're friendly enough, but friendlier with each other.

I'm very far from popular, don't have a large friendship group and never engaged with anyone at the school gates apart from maybe a nod. But I never considered that the groups of parents that were friends were exclusionary or a clique.
In fact when I did go to class catch up it just appeared they were friends - some went to the same university even, a couple worked together etc. Possibly others met through the school and found common interests - but not sure why that is exclusionary.

It's what you make of it, a chat about school, how the children are doing, what the teachers are like, a bit of child care on play dates, an odd coffee, or a lasting friendship, who knows where these random meetings end up.

I worked (more than) full time while kids at school but often had a few minutes waiting at the gates for a chat or a coffee dropping off or picking up or hosting play dates, a few trips to theme parks, nothing very heavy.

I don't think its necessarily a SAHM thing but I do think it correlates heavily with women who have given up their social life at a stroke when they find a bloke, settle down and have kids.

I'm convinced its the same people who post about how friendships are too much "drama" and they'd rather spend all their time with "my little family".

Then five years on when their kids start school it dawns on them that they've forgotten how to talk to other adults outside their family and they get huffy because other women still have friends.

I couldn't agree more, I always found this to be the case.

Errr no it isn’t.

There are always groups of mean girls. They grow up to be mean women at the school gates.
They are in the minority.

Most groups are normal, close knit friendship groups. They won’t be excluding people deliberately. They just don’t want to change the nice dynamic they have by adding more people.

So it’s probably not easy to infiltrate the groups of school mums and that’s difficult if you really want a group of school mum friends, but I don’t think most have a mean agenda.

Look at the other people standing on their own. Maybe they don’t have the confidence to make friends and they may be feeling like you do.

Exactly.

I really can't get my head around being bothered by it.

Do the dads who play 5 aside football, for example, get accused of similar or just the mean mums? What about friends from work, are they ok?

Thank you. Have a blessed day 💕

Most of similar threads has an op who stands on her own at the side, on her phone, glaring at 'THE CLIQUE' in absolute fury that they aren't dashing across with open arms, insisting she must join them! Whilst of course ignoring all the other school mums around that the OP is also ignoring...

Is that like the US Southern 'Bless your Heart'?...😆

I suppose it boils down to some people thinking women should 'bekind' and its 'nice' to he friendly to everyone and being a people pleaser and it coming as a shock to realise that others have boundaries.

As someone else said, they're friends not people offering a public service.

I’m with those saying they’re just friendship groups.

I mean I get it to an extent. The school gates are somewhere where you’re forced to be every day (or not if your work full time, but forced to be at least sometimes, and there’s the WhatsApp) and see / deal with frequently. So you can’t just go away and not see people who you don’t get on with again.

So it does leave the door open for some people to act like they’re at school again themselves.

And there’s the added pressure because it impacts your DC to an extent, or can do.

But people are allowed to have friends.

I think adults just have a duty to act like adults when it comes to things they might organise in the name of the school. We didnt have all this business at my kids’ school, or not in their year. People have lives to get on with.

I have no idea what kind of opportunities or information you think people are gatekeeping.

Anything regarding the school should be sent from the school. Some parents will be closer to others, same as the children are and indeed all kinds of relationships in any group in every situation.

And its also possible to work and have time for school gate chats, being too busy to stop and chat doesn't make you superior

Exactly this. Can’t we stop this stupid misogyny?? Are groups of male friends full of supposedly toxic politics and exclusion or does this just apply to women?

For the record my “school gate mums” friendship groups consist of lovely, mutually supportive women who helped each other through some tough times and who I still see now my kids are young adults.

Can't say I felt it my child is older now looking back we just felt like the mature intelligent grown ups that we are who were too busy for childish dramas and just got on with whatever we had to do

They are AI generated. The replies are so obviously chat GPT, it’s laughable.

Always a user name made of 3 words too.

Aren't all friendship groups basically cliques. Either these people are your friends or they aren't - you don't become friends just because you gave birth at roughly the same time.

I was so wary as someone with few friends who was bullied at school but I decided to take a leap of faith for my daughter when she started school. I just said yes to parties and play date offers. I stayed for coffee if offered and I reciprocated in kind. If you do your share of picking up and dropping off it seems to work. My daughter is 18 and still friends with many of her classmates and I have the joy of making new friends and healing the pain I felt at school. I always watch out for people on the fringes of groups or those standing on their own. They might not want to join in or be too busy but I try to ask just in case due to my own school history.

Ah the old AI dismissal when you get posts you don’t like and struggle to respond to, treading a little close to the truth are we.

Oh god I missed the 3 word username (with a colour in it as well )!!

I think getting involved can make a difference. The 'popular Mums' were on the PTA - so they just knew each other from there and were friends at some level. Not really a clique, just people who had got to know each other by being in the same things. I tend to gravitate to people I have things in common with too.

I work full time so there would be groups of Mums talking in the playground who I wouldn’t automatically join (and it would be odd if I just sauntered up) because they see each other every day and have formed friendships I necessarily wasn’t part of.

When I was there, I would talk to people I knew if they were there or if not I didn’t. I often ended up chatting to the grandparents who were usually very lovely and easy to chat to. And the people I knew included dads as well as mums.

And I was the PTA class rep! I didn’t have a clique.

I did have Mums I was friends with (still am post primary) but they wouldn’t always be there as most people I know also work. Or might be chatting to someone else!