Clique school mums

[ernie23]

what is a cliquey mum group?
how would you describe them ? Do you believe that term , have you ever been involved ?

This is no hate, just genuinely what to know what people think of that term or their experiences on why would you call them like that .

I am struggling with a concept that doesn't make sense.

Other mums ARE randoms! If they are not friends, they are just random people who happen to have a child in the same school. There's no reason whatsoever to "include" them more into a group than it would be to include another mum in a cafe because she has a baby too.

Do people feel "excluded" if their next door neighbour has a party in their garden but they didn't get an invitation?

All those talking about “cliques” have a quite astonishing insight into the thoughts and feelings of the women in these cliques, along with a an incredible ability to know for a fact that they aren’t “real friends” and somehow know that they don’t socialise beyond the school gate.

Basically… these posters see this group of friends and it takes them back to school when they were also on the sidelines of friendships groups but trying to convince themselves that the girls were bitches / two faced etc. . History repeating themselves.

interesting how many of these posters adamant that there are cliques seem very quick to throw around accusations of “you’re attacking me!” “You’re incredibly rude” “I bet you’re in a bitchy clique”

and my personal favourite “this is what I call misogyny”

Other moms can be randoms, moms from the same school are part of a community. “Other moms” can still feel like strangers that don’t necessarily need to be included in everything.

If it’s a street garden party yes, otherwise no.

There’s something about the school environment that seems to bring this out in people who wouldn’t care about being “excluded” at work or anywhere else.

My theory is that a lot of the people who see “cliques” everywhere are women who ditched all their friends when they met a bloke and had children, smug in the belief that they no longer needed them.

Then when they learned that having children can actually be tiresome and tedious they suddenly crave the company of adult women and assume that school will provide them with an oven ready social life. Then they get frustrated and stroppy when it doesn’t work like that and that the women who did hang onto their friendships are generally more confident and socially adept and have more friends than they do.

Clique=friendship group.

I think its more that they have poor self esteem and social skills and the need to manage their emotions via others
Creating drama when none exists to play out their nonsense on others and call them awful names

I find it baffling that anyone could do the mental gymnastics to think a women popping across a school playing field to sit with her friends is excluding them on purpose when the likelihood is she is only vaguely aware of who you are.
Its a wierd and self absorbed

I agree; some people are very unsettled by other people confidently managing social interactions because they feel there is some secret “code” they are missing out on.

But school seems to be perceived as a kind of ground zero which will allow everyone to reset their former social anxiety and start again.

When it doesn’t work out like that they are determined to over-extrapolate conspiracies from normal, benign behaviour because they can’t accept that the easy social life they thought they were entitled to didn’t materialise and they need to just work at it like the rest of us.

I am honestly so sick of reading about “cliques” on here. Its so self absorbed and toxic. The clique hunters need to do some proper work on themselves and work out why they are triggered by normal behaviour and just grow up. It’s no one else’s problem but their own.

It is all the assumptions that the posters who see witch like cliques at the school gate make about these women that is so strange.

Despite not being friends with them… they seem to know what they are thinking and feeling, what they talk about and how often then see one another.

" wherever you go there you are "
Sums it up really

A group that dominates the conversation on the class WhatsApp with comments and jokes that they know most people on the group don’t understand.

So now if you talk to your friends at school drop off, you’re ‘bullying’ all the parents you don’t include in the conversation? 🙄😃

I struggled with this massively. It brought back loads of feelings about school and being a very awkward teenager. My kids have friends even though I couldn’t do the playground chat. Not even on my husband radar! He drops off and doesn’t even notice anybody.
I’ve got a few people I’ll say hi to and wave at and maybe have a little chat to.
I never thought it was cliques but some people find this easier than others and I am not one of them.
I was diagnosed with autism a month ago now everything makes sense and I don’t feel bad anymore!

You see this is a perfectly reasonable perspective. You acknowledge that you find it difficult and a bit triggering but you also acknowledge that it's a you problem and not something which other people need to tiptoe around and facilitate.

It's completely understandable that various people for different reasons struggle with socialising at school but it's the desire to constantly make this someone else's fault and to attribute nefarious intent that is so toxic and self-destructive.

Groups of mums talking at the school gates = they are a clique
Someone doesn't acknowledge you when you see her in passing = she "blanked" me
Your child isn't invited to another child's birthday party = it's "bullying"
Some mums go or a coffee and you're not invited = you have to be a "cool mum" to join

In every one of these situations there's always a perfectly benign to neutral explanation but people don't want to acknowledge this because their paranoia gives them a nice narrative to get through the day.

The poster I'm quoting seems to have dealt with this in a mature way and realises the problem come from within herself as opposed to driving herself mad ruminating about "bitches" and "cliques".

this is what I call misogyny

Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or entrenched prejudice against women or girls.

Honestly, ridiculous, dramatic hyperbolic statements like this likely made you unpleasant company at the school gate. Hence you not being in any friendship groups (NOT cliques!!)

And the irony that you follow up

“this is what I call misogyny”

with a nasty little bitchy comment!!

Yeah its a particularly twisted logic that allows people who call other women “bitches” to persuade themselves that its the women who have friends who are the problem…

Someone needs to write a PhD on why some women perceive "cliques".

I just think it's really odd that the school gates is the only place where everyone is supposed to talk to everyone else. My kids are past that stage but when they were at Primary school there were clearly women (and men!) who knew each other because they were local and had been at school together, worked together, had older children in the same school, were neighbours etc etc. I knew a few people from pre-school and my neighbour. By the time it came to child 3 starting school I knew a lot more people and chatted to them.

There were often 60 people standing waiting to pick up children at the end of the day, how does it even WORK to try to include everyone? Many mums are wrangling smaller children or dogs, sometimes it's granny picking up or a childminder. If I'm talking to two mums who I know because our older children are friends, am I really supposed to be scanning around the other 57 or more people looking for that one person standing on her own?

It's this expectation that other women owe you friendship. They owe you NOTHING. If you want to form friendships then you have to work at it. You have to proactively approach people and talk. You have to go to PTA meetings or join the local gardening group or whatever and TALK to people. OK it might not work out but frienships do not fall into your lap with no effort whatsoever.

Someone needs to write a PhD on why some women perceive "cliques".

It would be very short.

Because it’s a friendship group that they are not in, and infact they are not in any friendship group.

So I think it is mostly a perception where people believe that people are either friendlier than they really are or that they would be unwelcome. I think that lessens as you gather a few friends/acquaintances and feel a bit happier.

Some friendship groups are quite closed though and I can understand why it can feel cliquey in the scenario where you are friendly with one person on a one to one basis but not really spoken to/ignored when they are with their friendship group in quite an obvious way. Also, as happens in our school, birthday invites only going to children of the friendship group and not RSPVing to any received from outside of it irrespective of the child's friendships. So much insecurity around female friendship dynamics whether you are part of a group or not.

@LaliqueSaltGrinder

Someone needs to write a PhD on why some women perceive "cliques"

Posted about this upthread but I think a lot of women (and it is women) find taking their children to school dredges up memories of their own experiences at school.

If you are socially awkward or anxious then taking your own children to school is a bit triggering. This part I completely understand. What I don’t understand is why people seem to feel that they are entitled to a kind of social “reset” at school where the playing field gets evened out again and everyone is entitled to be included in everything by default.

I do suspect (without having any real evidence other than anecdata) that the people who perceive the “bitches” and “cliques” are mainly the sorts of women who gratefully shut themselves off from their friendships when they have children because they found socialising hard.

After a few years of being in the trenches of child-rearing they try to dip a toe back into the water of being social via school and somehow expect that school will provide them with an egalitarian utopia where everyone is included in everything and of course life isn’t like that. And because their social muscle is weak from lack of use and they don’t get out much they don’t have much to offer socially. So they don’t get invited and they default to assume there is a sinister “clique” conspiracy. When in fact all it is is that sociable people tend to gravitate towards other sociable people. Its organic and there is no conspiracy to it.

The solution, if there is one, is to develop women’s social worlds better so they don’t shut themselves in and become solely focused on their children from a young age.

Its yet another example of where having a good quality social network is a protective mechanism for mental health and social wellbeing.

What happened when you invited them to your house for playdates?

Who are they spreading rumours to, if they are so insular?

I think some would say that its a tight knit mum friendship group or parent friendship group that feels like it maybe excludes others. Or maybe just makes them harder to approach.

We have a tight friendship group of parents in my sons year at school. We live in a village and moved here nearly 4 years ago. The group knows each other from when their kids were small, and before. They do a lot out of school together including nights out, holidays and their kids all play together. Its not that i dont speak to any of them but for someone who is 'an outsider' it feels like they are friendly but they dont need to make new ones. I get on great with one in particular but im not part of their social circle.

Ive made my own mum friends, largely of the mums that are parents of the children my son plays with (all are slightly older, like me and I have no idea why its fallen that way but it has). I'd definitely not call us a clique though. We've not know each other as long and aren't as super tight knit.

Oh, they just temporarily befriend bystanders so that they can spread rumours, or something equally unlikely. Or @Anotherdayofrain knows about the rumour-spreading because she taught herself to lipread and stands in the schoolyard monitoring the lip movements, body-language etc of the 'clique' via binoculars. And then wonders why they're not keen on befriending her...