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 think the use of "clique" reflects the person using it, rather than the people being described 😏

DC starts school in September. I sincerely hope no one expects anything of me. My focus will be on DC.

If I do happen to make friends (organically) at the school gate, fine. If someone makes a judgment call on that, they need to seek professional help. If I don't make friends at the school gate, I will stand a much better chance of getting to work on time. That's where my head is at.

If my son makes friends, his friends will be invited over. If DH and I get on well with certain parents, they're more likely to have more invites. If son's friends' parents are psychos, invites are unlikely and playdates will be limited to neutral territory, at best.

Some people posting on here are just tooooo much. No wonder you feel excluded - you exclude yourselves by your batshit crazy assumptions and entitlement.

I am guessing that a clique gatekeeps who joins it? I think there are some, at some schools - but usually it is just a strongly established group of friends - either grew locally, live in the local village/school catchment area, maybe were in the same NCT group.

I don’t think most intend to exclude other people, but many are busy, stressed, juggling return to work and don’t have time to expand their network. You always encounter a Queen Bee type - but they are usually running the PTA and - in my experience - best left to get on with it with occasional acknowledgements of appreciation for that they achieve at the Summer Fayre.

I am guessing that a clique gatekeeps who joins it? I think there are some, at some schools - but usually it is just a strongly established group of friends - either grew locally, live in the local village/school catchment area, maybe were in the same NCT group.

But again, if I have made friends at an NCT group 5 years before the child starts school with three other women, and we have formed a tight group between the 4 of us, supported each other through lots of life shit, why on earth would we be on the lookout to encourage others to join in? It's not "gatekeeping", it's just being happy with the status quo.

Why is everyone on MN just a f***g bitch, the defensive nasty responses are insane 🤣

Sorry who is this directed at?

This.

What a bizarre and… highly ironic, comment

Are you OK? Would you prefer 'It's OK, hon, you're lovely and the nasty ladies in the playground are only ignoring you because they're jealous'?

The handful of posters insistent that there are cliques and these cliques are comprised of bitches who gossip, look down on others, force their children not to invite certain children to parties; and aren’t really friends (I mean, how the hell would you know that?)… sound so bloomin unpleasant. If being in a “clique” means not standing with these posters at the school gate… then sign me up!

Just because you haven’t experienced something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Conversely it would be argued that those bitching about “cliques” haven’t experienced a group of friends before. And they can’t fathom that some people get on, enjoy one another’s company and aren’t sneering at other “trying to make themselves feel better” etc. to them this is a clique because they haven’t experienced being a close group of friends before.

We daily have threads on here about school bullying. Workplace bullying is acknowledged as something that exists. So do in-group an out-group practices in every other human grouping - hobbies, political groups, sports, church groups, parish councils etc.

How is it that this ONE place - the school gate - is somehow magically exempt?

Explain the logic of denying and mocking anyone who brings it up. Like, what exactly is it about raising this particular topic that generates so many mocking and mean denialist replies.

Not mocking but in the example I gave a woman accused someone she had last spoken to 2 years earlier of excluding her/ avoiding her as she had watched her arrive and then walk actoss a school playing field to meet up with her friends
its extremely unhinged to think that is in any way bullying/ excluding
Obviously bullying should be reported to the head / govenors but the best remedy is to stop chasing them
Time and time again Ive questioned why they are chasing such seemingly unpleasant people?

Wouldn't have known a school parent if I fell over them.
Drop child.
Leave 30 seconds later.

Never understood the school gate drama or why anybody cares.

Is that something to be celebrated?

Well it's preferable to all the angsty pish about cliques and who likes who and who is giving dirty looks and why .
So yeah, I celebrate not giving a toss about school gate politics as its spectacularly dull.

Well, in my experience there is no school gate drama. I dropped and ran at DS’s first primary, which wasn’t friendly, but that was fine. At his second, all his class’s parents got on pretty well, and a few of us became good friends and still see a lot of one another, long after they all went to different secondaries.

I think wherever you go there will be people who create and thrive on drama
They need it like oxygen, probably recreating a chaotic home environment growing up
Likewise some people create situations where they are always the victim or others have to rescue
Always its " bullies must stop" but actually bullies can only create their havoc ,Im not denying they arent thoroughly awful btw, if people step forward into the victim role.
This is why I have asked the question again and again
If they are awful cliquey bullies then why are you still chasing them?

I would guess it's because there is no obligation on anyone to be communally minded at the school gates. The examples you have given, on the other hand, concern practices / places where people are there to be communal in some way, whether it's to work together, participate in a shared hobby or whatever.

Being at the school gates is (sort of) simply required by law... Children have to be in education ergo, if they're not home educated, there will be a drop-off / pick up. Parents are there because they have to be because of their child and other people have absolutely zero bearing on that or they on them.

If looking at how those people end up being in the same spot, I'd say it's more akin to going to the supermarket... Two people shopping in Waitrose (deliberate choice of supermarket 😉) choose to shop in Waitrose, not be part of some form of community with other Waitrose shoppers.

I think what irks a lot of commenters is that some people expect some sort of civic approach to the school gates, whereas many do not feel that way and see it as their own private experience.

I’m bemused so many are acting like cliques at the school gate/bitchiness dosent happen. When dc1 was in reception I tried to get along with the other mums (for dcs sake not my own may I add) I had dc at 16 so most of them were 20 odd years older and just didn’t want to know me.
Dp never did the school run because he’s working so I suppose they assumed I was a single mum until one of them spotted me and dp on the weekend so spread the rumour that I was committing benefit fraud by pretending to be a single mum (when I never even said I was one to begin with)

Like anywhere really you can come across some nasty people it’s strange to deny it happens at the school gates

We are talking about women chatting to their friends, spotting their friends and walking across a field and arranging social meet ups though which is perfectly normal behaviour being interpreted as exclusion, nastiness and personal attacks on others which is madness

You’d only think there were cliques if you are standing at the school gate day in and day out with no one to talk to and so you just stare at the groups of women chatting and convince yourself that they are bitches.

If you have friends at the school gate and chat with them, you are not noticing what others are doing are you.

In fairness, I spent Reception to Year 3 alone in the playground doing drop offs and pick ups, without deciding the other parents were bitchy ‘cliques’. Was it
lonely? Yes. Did it mean there was something wrong with me or them? No, it was just a fairly insular place where everyone else already knew one another, and weren’t really up for meeting blow-ins. I made overtures, joined things, issued invitations. Nothing took, but I realised quickly it was just a poor match of person and environment. I wasn’t their type and they weren’t mine. No hard feelings. They certainly didn’t owe me friendship. I did work hard to ensure DS had a decent social life, regardless.

Because you are a well rounded person who has not struggled with friendships before and indeed has her own group of friends.

Those persisting that these cliques dominated their playgrounds and ascribed all sorts of psycho analysis on them (one poster even said they aren’t real friends who ever see one another beyond the school gate!) are likely to have never been part of a close friendship group.