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 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Any sort of social situation where you go from a public event (kids activity, party, festival) to a private event (cafe, restaurant, someone's home) requires an explicit verbal invitation every single time. Or it needs to very clear from collective body language that they expect to you join, such as everyone waiting at the door for you to finish and come with them. Even if someone mentioned offhand that you were welcome to join them anytime, it was just a form of polite conversation and not an actual invite because it wasn't spoken on that day.

Unfortunately this is a common ND trait of taking plans incredibly literally without time constraint. DH has high-functioning ASD and made plans with a friend to play a sport every Tuesday. This was 2 years ago and he expected that friend to commit to this every single week, into infinity. The friend eventually started to cancel a lot and it was obvious their sport date had run its course but DH didn't get it. I had to directly point it out to him that it seems like his friend doesn't want to play anymore and it was totally fair considering they've done it for over two years.

Their openly rude behaviour was probably the result of them not understanding why you always came along without being invited. Mum groups are tricky to begin with, especially ones who have know each other for a long time tend to have their own gossip and conversation topics that are hard to include a newcomer with. You also mentioned your main motivation was so your daughter is fed and happy which is fair, but it might have made it harder to truly integrate into the conversation or know what they're talking about.

I have older kids now, and my experience is that you‘ll come across these little pockets of cliques all the way along. It’s much more simple to be friendly, but to (on the whole) keep your adult friendships separate to your kids and their activities. Watch what people show you - in my experience these mums often have kids that power play and are cliquey too.It’s amazing when you have that detachment from all the playground politics what you observe going!

It’s not the same, is it? These aren’t a group of best friends.

2 year olds don't really care about friendships that much, so don't feel bad about stopping joining them on her account

Honestly this story is as old as time. My kids are much older but I saw exactly the same. I was working full time so it didn’t bother me as much as it did some people. I think it was normally done because the clique mums wanted their ow kid to be best friends with the popular and clever kids.
i would just make an excuse and stop going and find something else to do after the activity. It will be a different group when your child starts school. At 2 he will not care less about this group.
i think its all rather childish and pathetic.

Any chance you could go to the cafe but sit at a separate table? I would bloody LOVE this scenario as I’m an antisocial bitch and any opportunity for people to reject me is marvellous as I get to legitimately be by myself 🤣

Cafes are open to all. Personally I’d still go to the cafe but sit in another table and do my own thing. That gives the children an opportunity to interact if they want to but the parents don’t necessarily have to. This is what I used to do in a similar situation. Sometimes people in the other cliques would talk to me sometimes they wouldn’t but it didn’t stop my DD having a good time. It’s ok to feel sad about it though. Toddler years are hard tbf

A one-off invite doesn't equate to infinite weekly invites. They don't want you there and it is evident by their body language/non verbal cues that your presence is making them feel uneasy. It has been over 2 months and you are yet to assimilate into the group, you need to stop imposing yourself and your daughter where you are not wanted. Those with ADHD/neurodivergence often need to be told such things explicitly, however we are British and this is unlikely to happen.

Leave them to it lovely.
Don't fall into the trap of over analysing where you went "wrong", you didn't.
They are mean, they lack grace and they are the ones with poor social skills.

I have tons of friends, just not mum ones, those groups are not for me! I'm hardly being mean. I take a kill them with kindness approach. I just carry on being my normal friendly, chatty self 🤷 People shouldn't exclude others. OP has been invited, she wouldn't be doing anything wrong by talking to people.

You can't win. If you sit there, you'd be accused of not making an effort. If you join in, that's apparently annoying. Like please 😂

I spent my entire childhood excluded as I was painfully and chronically shy and come across offbeat due to undiagnosed neurodivergence. I won't be that person anymore. I'm now the extravert adopting the shy people, because I remember how it felt. I used to feel like an alien socially, and still do really, but I'm a master at masking it now. Being mum is hard. If you've invited someone somewhere in a pre-established group, speak to them and make them feel welcome.

Can you take an actual friend along with you? Excluding you in this way is rude but if they could be more grown up, and use their words instead of being passive aggressive, they'd tell you they don't want you and your daughter with the group. Please either go with someone else or another day or something, because your daughter is learning a bad lesson here. I'm not saying you or your daughter is to blame btw but you are being rejected and you need to have some self respect.

My assumption, from OP's posts, is that they are a close group of friends. But maybe you're right, they don't know eachother well. In which case the social dynamics are lost on me - I don't understand why they would be making small talk with eachother and not OP. And I would avoid them in future.

Sounds like Motherland on BBC

Just stop going - they sound very infantile x

You will find your own tribe :)

I wasn't meaning to suggest introverts can't be polite. I can definitely be polite if I have to socialise but it takes it out of me. If I don't know someone well it tips social interaction from "tiring but worth it" to "just exhausting."

As another parent with severe ADHD...sometimes I can feel excluded due to my own insecurity or when I just need to make a bit of effort, and then it's fine.

Not saying they're not all horrible, maybe they are, but I have been to plenty of birthday parties and events where I feel ignored until I actively make the effort to chat, jump into a conversation 'oh yes we have been there as well...' 'I've seen that on sale on this website...' and then it's fine. It's actually been very rare that, after making the effort, I have still felt excluded.

So either don't go to the cafe if you don't want to, or I might try going once more and trying to shake off the preconceptions (they don't think I'm good enough, I'm not the same social class as them, we don't fit in, etc). If it fails then no harm done, if not, you have found a new group for you and DD.

I think I’d take the hint and try to go to another place for lunch.
Have you got a friend with a toddler who would go with you in future?
Some people are just horrible I’m afraid.

I’ve had several children and been through many many of these kind of groups. You may want to take the advice and withdraw from this lot, but what is the situation? Does every other parent go with this cliquey group or are there several different groups? Could you chat to somebody else who isn’t in the group and maybe do something with them after the class? Is there an opportunity to talk to individual parents while the class is going on and get to know them a little bit that way? Otherwise I would not go for a a few weeks and then have a restart by saying “do you mind if I join you?” one week. Then rather than waiting for them to ask you something listen to them and say nice things about whatever they are talking about. It’s amazing that when people think you’re listening to them and paying attention they suddenly believe that you’re a nice person to talk to. I have found over the years that you really don’t need to say much to other people if you want them to like you, just being present and looking as though you appreciate what they are saying is enough.
On the other hand, you may decide that you can’t be arsed with them and that’s a perfectly valid response too.

It was ever thus.

OP, stop going. The leaving your DC out of the colouring book thing was the writing on the wall.

They don't deserve you.

Why do you assume they were well brought up? They don't sound it to me. They seem ignorant and cliquey.

Yes they should be civil and certainly never exclude your two year old, that's monstrous.

Your daughter is still not much more than a baby, she'll get over it if you say you cannot go with the others after the club and I'm sure not everyone goes anyway.

Carry on going if your little enjoys it but do try to find somewhere else and don't get involved with other mums, it's not worth it.

Ok so “feel free to join us” isn’t something I would take as an invitation tbh, it’s a polite nothing, they didn’t actually say they wanted you to join them, just that you were allowed to - it’s a fine distinction but worth noting for the future as you navigate school mums etc.

Unfortunately it sounds like they don’t like your company and don’t know how to tell you. I’m ND and don’t always pick up on the signs! Maybe when they first invited you they thought you would fit into the dynamic better than you have, or maybe they were being polite in saying they come every week but didn’t expect you to literally come each time. Obviously their behaviour is rude but it sounds like they are trying to send you a message that they don’t want you there and that it’s going over your head so they are getting more and more extreme; obviously handing out toys to every child but one is horrible behaviour. If they’re getting to a point they are trying to exclude your child because freezing you out hasn’t worked you really do need to stop going, it’s not fair on your child to keep putting her in a situation where adults are singling her out and excluding her. She’s only 2, I’m sure she’ll soon get over not joining them, take her to do something else fun instead like a picnic in the park, take her to a cafe and buy her a comic on the way to read when she gets there or take her to a cafe where she gets to choose a special cake or have a babycino or something else exciting. As long as you’re doing something she sees as fun/ special she will soon get over not going for lunch with them.

OP, have you revisited this perspective, given the number of posters who've explained that you've misread the polite comment by one individual in the group to believe that you are welcome to join them each and every week?

The reality is that you're intruding into an established group of friends with whom you don't have much in common, other than your offspring attending a regular but separate event. Of course they aren't going to bring colouring books for your child! Why would they? Why would you even think they should?

As ever, I leave threads like this feeling like the NT world is a steaming pile of shite. If they didn’t want the OP there after literally using words to invite her, I am sure they could have found a more direct and appropriate solution than pointedly handing out crayons to every 2yo except OP’s.

And we’re supposedly the ones with social communication difficulties. Ha.

Honestly sitting with people ignoring you sounds like absolute torture to me. They sound horrible .

Yes it sounds like they don't want her to sit with them but why? The op is just another mum with a kid...Is her sitting with them really that awful? Of course it isn't.

I suspect most of them if they thought about it wouldn't mind the op joining in, but group think means they feel they have to join in the exclusion because they are scared of being ostracized themselves. It's cowardly bullying.

Op...a group of mums were vile to me once...DH told me most people are absolute cowards and terrified to go against a group. It's pathetic when you think about it.

It's not you. Its them. Fuck them and find some people who are less horrid

Keep going to the sport session, but don't go to that cafe after. They have been unkind to you and your daughter.

They definitely invited you, told you that it was effectively an open invitation and have since tried to freeze you out rather rhan admit they are being cliquey. Stuff them.

It happened to me once. Joined a baby and toddler group when DD was only a minth or so old. To get me out the house and try and make some friends in the new town qe had moved to. They were friendly. I thought I was making friends. I told them when my last day would be as I was going back to work when DD was 6 months old. They all told me how they would see me that day, sad I'd be leaving, but they would all be at the group to say cheerio.

None of them turned up to the group. It was me and my baby sitting in a church hall room for over half an hour. On our own.

Turned out the de facto leader had organised a wee trip to a farm and purposefully not told me. None of them told me. I'd seen them in the high street between telling them I was going back to work and that last session. They all decided not to show up.

Then the Christmas meal that had been organised a few weeks later, that I had prepaid for my meal like evening else, was cancelled because people were struggling to make it. I got an email from the de facto leader to tell me and she gave me my money back. I was gutted. And then I the night, in Facebook, up popped the photos of them all at the meal. They hadn't cancelled it, just cancelled me.

It's upsetting because while I thought I was making friends. Turns out I was just being tolerated.

Anyway, it's not you @Alysskea it's them. They have been unkind and don't deserve any more of your time outside of the class. I'm sorry you've had to experience them acting like that.