Can anyone help me understand this social situation not sure what to do!

[Alysskea]

Honestly I feel like I’m in high school all over again trying to navigate the world of other toddler mums. Just wondering if anyone can help me work out what the heck is going on and if I’m the problem.

I take my 2yo to a sports session every week on my day off. She absolutely loves it. Afterwards the mums all go to a cafe and we’ve been tagging along because a) they invited us the first week and then said oh we come here every week b) she really enjoys going with the other kids and c) saves me having to try and feed her when we get home.

My issue is, these mums seem to go out of their way to exclude not only me but my child as well. Of course they all know each other better than they know me and I’m not asking for them to go out of their way to be overly friendly or anything, but we usually sit there for an hour and a half and they’ll talk to each other and ignore me completely. Don’t think they’ve ever asked me a question about my life. Fine, whatever. They also exclude my child! Last week one of them took out colouring pages and pens and handed them to each child except mine, and that’s just one example!

I am not sure what to make of it tbh. I have a few working theories

• they never actually wanted me there and asked me along to be polite. But this seems weird as I don’t know why they’d do this or how our presence takes away from their enjoyment of the experience
• they look down on me as I’m slightly less middle class than them. Honestly I’m highly educated and have the same job as one of them but I’m not quite on their level finance wise. You can tell that by looking at me. This makes me sound class obsessed but honestly I’m grasping at straws here.
• they for some reason don’t like me or my child’s personality. But again, I don’t understand why especially as they’ve never spoken to us!
• they’re just really cliquey and treat everyone this way. But I can’t understand how a grown ass woman would do that. It’s just nice to include people who YOU have invited out with you.

Honestly I find it quite upsetting taking my child along and seeing her excluded. She’s so good natured and describes them all as her ‘friends’ when they basically don’t interact with her because their parents have given them all toys and activities to do and not her. But she’d also be really sad if I said we couldn’t go eat with her friends anymore. It would make her even sadder if we didn’t go to her class anymore.

i am sure I’ll get crap for this post and get called paranoid and entitled, but I honestly just feel kind of puzzled and saddened by the whole thing. I am neurodivergent (I have ‘severe’ ADHD that is not medicated currently). But I generally get on well with people and have a broad group of friends including neurotypical middle class mums who seem to think we’re not beneath them lol. This just comes across to me as plain rudeness and seems kind of deranged 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Just go to the activity and then go elsewhere afterwards. They don’t talk to you or your daughter. I find it sad that grown women behave like that. I feel for you, pre school and school mums can be awful.
move on and find some nicer people

Aww, I’m sorry OP. What a rubbish situation to find yourself in. But you need to stop joining them. Your child is only 2 and will soon forget 💐

Then they are clearly incredibly rude and I am not sure why you would want to keep sitting with them or being part of your group.
I would definitely keep going to the activity but I would probably skip the cafe. If I did go to the cafe I would make sure I arrived after them and I would sit separately. If they did ask why then I would perhaps say I wasn't sure whether we were invited each week.

Not excusing it but likely they are an established group of friends who can talk freely between themselves but are inhibited by a new member.

They are middle class English women under 50 so will not be able to actually say this so they are saying it with their actions. It’s rubbish for you but sorry I am surprised you didn’t get the message sooner. Most of us are very attuned to when we are not wanted and absent ourselves fast at the first sign of it. You have prolonged the unpleasantness and now your Dd is being subjected to it.

This is one of the strangest things,I've read on here.
You walk to the cafe with them every week and sit together or they come and sit with you but then they TOTALLY ignore you?

Are you sure they think they are sitting WITH you or are you at the side and they don't think you are part of the group?
Where are you in relation to them?

On another thread a while back and the Mum was literally watching another Mum walk across a playing field and couldn't understand why the other Mum was blanking her-it was pretty obvious that she was just catching up with friends etc

There are 2 options

A. You are misreading the situation and they don't think you are part of their group

B.They are being very unpleasant

Why are you chasing them if you do think it's deliberate unpleasantness?

So your DD said she wanted to do colouring and you repeated it ?
To them?
Did they respond ?

It's all very odd.

Yes I don't quite get the colouring bit either. Surely someone said something when there wasn't enough colouring and the child said where's mine. Wouldn't the mum handing it out say '(sorry) I was only thinking there would be 4 children, not 5' or for someone to say their child could share.
It sounds like quite a tumbleweed moment if the child is asking a question and literally no one says anything.
What happened when you said something as you said you repeated it? Did they also say nothing to you?
I really don't understand how the wouldn't say anything at all and if this really is the case then I wouldn't want to be their friend.

My daughter did say she wanted to do colouring. They ignored her. I repeated it back to her loudly and they ignored

Then what happened? So all the mums are sitting together talking (except you) and all their children are colouring (except yours). What then?

Did you stay? Doing what? Did you go back the next week?

Ok so you all sit together, do they acknowledge you, is there a ‘hello, how are you?’ And then they chat amongst themselves or are you invisible? I’m starting to think you may not be the only ND member of the group!

Sounds extremely odd, unless as a group they made a collective decision to freeze you out because you offended/upset one of them/ all of them. It sounds as though they have decided they can’t stop you from using the cafe but don’t want to know you…I’m guessing you dropped a clanger somewhere along the line. Maybe joking about not wanting to make food for your daughter and giving her a Greggs freaked them out.

Go to your child's sport session and then go home, or take your child to a cafe alone. look for some new friends. I wouldn't give them the time of day quite frankly. Its one thing leaving you out but leaving a child out is spiteful and mean. They don't want you there for whatever reason, and surely you must sit there feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

Oh how I hate that sort of shite! My brother had a similar experience when his children went to school. They live in a place that has regularly been voted "the best place to live", but my brother did not grow up there. They had a group online and used to send out invitations to outings/parties/meals, and include all the parents, but the Queen Bee admins told a few "undesirables" that all places were filled any time they replied positively. In the end they laughed at the pettiness and simply did the same, forming their own sub-group, and rejecting the BS bestowed on them by the supposedly well-bred, wealthy and 'cultured' cliquey shite parents.

In the same village my brother cheekily said "Good morning * * * " to a guy, after taking a guess that his number plate bore his name. Said guy queried if they'd met, saying that he thought not because he'd been living there 18 months and not a soul had spoken to him before. Let's just say that his skin would have been the wrong colour for the delightful villagers.

They may we wealthy, and they may be smart, but they are ignorant, and sure as hell NOT better than you.

Do you ask them questions and try to interact. I’m just saying because I travelled a lot when my kids were young and had to constantly make new friends. One girl who was really off ended up being a friend. You just have to put yourself out there. It’s hard and takes time.

I was an older mum and by the time Dd arrived all my friend's children were senior school age. Out of necessity I attended several baby groups so I could meet some 'baby mums', I soon learnt which groups I liked and which I didn't, and also which were cliquey and exvlusive. I left them to it and didn't go back, I soon found my 'tribe', don't waste any more time on them, find somewhere you and Dd are comfortable and can make friends, rather than spending time with this nasty bunch.

There’s no lower form of life than cliquey mums. Selfish, rude, entitled, the list goes on.

Do not go again! They do not want you there. This has happened to me before, also in a preschool mums setting. It's sad that adult women can be so awful, but I will never stay where I know I'm not welcome. Don't sacrifice your dignity--plus if they're cruel to kid as well? Ixnay.

This sounds exactly like something from a sitcom, specifically Motherland. Do they make you sit at the small table by the toilets?! I’ve been that person before when I had no self-confidence but I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of bullshit now. Grown women acting like mean girls at school is pretty pathetic and you don’t need people like that in your life.

Honestly

I once had the misfortune to encounter a group like this, one of them was an absolute bitch and made it so obvious she didn't want me around that I kept going just to see the look on her face every week. It would be a cold day in hell before I stopped taking my kid to a class they enjoyed, but don't put yourself through the afters. Take your daughter somewhere else, she's only little, she'll get over it.

This. It sounds horrid and a weird group

Aww I’m sorry this has happened to you and your toddler, they sound ViLE. Maybe go somewhere different if you can find somewhere ? I find it really upsetting that one of the bitches excluded your little one , how vile is that. You don’t want people like that in yours or your little ones life 😕

I commend you for trying! I’ve had this at an established NCT group where I was invited to a couple of meetings then contacted and told to try another group. I gave up due to PND.

Stop going,
you will show your 2yo how to find good friends as these mums are clearly not. Walk away :)

Take your daughter to a different class. I am appalled at everyone saying they don't want you there. They are wankers End of. Be happy with your daughter. They are all probably very unhappy and it's how's in their behaviour. I would have asked if there was colouring paper for your daughter as they seem to have forgotten one. Then walked out.

Your daughter is only two if you go somewhere else she will soon forget and make new little friends you too will enjoy it and find friendlier people to spend your time with.
Honestly I wouldn't put yourself through this they sound cliquey and rude they're beneath you to make you feel this way x

Mum and baby groups can be brutal.

I remember many a morning driving home crying because everyone ignored me, even when I tried to make conversation.

Our kids are older now and it’s still just the same.

If you enjoy the group, keep going. But keep it at that.