Bitchy mums at the school gates

[duckduck1992]

Does anyone else experience this?? It’s like mean girl behaviour from 40 year old women and I hate it. I’m not the target and it’s nothing to do with me really but I can’t bare seeing it!! It’s like grow up please whose going into school you or your 5 year old?????

I did the school run for years. Never really noticed bitchy mums at the gate. Perhaps it depends where you live.

Same. It always feels like one of those MN things. There are definitely groups of women who know each other well and are clearly friends but I don't see any bitchiness. And that's at two different primaries.

Nope. Never experienced it and ive been doing it for decades! If it doesnt involve you just dont get involved?

There were some bitchy parents in DD class, it was apparently one of the worst year groups they’d ever had for mean girls (not surprising) I made it clear I was not interested in talking negatively about other children or their parents and they quite quickly stopped talking to me.

Not something I’ve personally come across, no. The other parents at DS first primary weren’t at all friendly (rather insular village and they’d nearly all been to school together and weren’t up for befriending newcomers), but no one bitched. And his second primary was great. I made some very good friends in the yard there, but everyone was nice.

It's always perceived "bitchiness" because of your own insecurities. It's usually the group of mums who like to stand together chatting to themselves and don't bend over backwards to greet and welcome every other parent they see, that get labelled as bitches. People assume they are talking badly about other parents when in reality they genuinely don't give a shit about what other mums are doing.

By labelling other mums as bitchy, you are literally no better than them. It's obvious that a everyone loves a spot of gossip so even if they were talking about the frumpy mums or ones who can't keep their feral children under control in class, it's clearly fair game.

Never experienced this. I suspect it might be more prevalent in areas where parents already knew each other before their DC started at school.

I think only 4 children at DS’s class live in catchment so pretty much everyone was new to each other when they started there. That meant everyone including the parents started from fresh and got ton on own each other all at the same time. It made it much easier.

I never experienced this when I was collecting my DC from school. I did make a few friends but was never in one of the larger cliques, possible because I didn’t do drop offs and only collected 3 times a week.

I don’t get it either, I don’t even get out of the car when I drop my dc off, when I collect them. When I collect I wait in the car, I see them come out, I walk over and shout them and then we walk off. No hanging around necessary. I know this is not the case for you, but I just don’t understand this hanging around the school gate malarkey.

Nope. I made some good friends over the years of doing school runs, but mostly it was a nodding acquaintance with parents of similar aged children and no strife or drama.

My experience is that those claiming they experience bitchiness or exclusion are projecting issues from their own school days onto adults who are just getting on with their lives.

Bitchy mums: “oh i didn’t see your son at so and so’s bday party on sunday, how comes he did not go?” When she knows fully well he wasnt invited.

bitchy mums: i walk past them minding my own business, two mums chuckle and say “we are better dressed than you” and laugh some more while looking at me - WTF??

bitchy (racist) mums: the day after the brexit referendum, shout at me from accross the street: “pack your bags!” How rude!

ive survived tbose years, made some good friends with some mums and my kids are doing well. Now when one of the bitchy mum says hello on the street, i simply ignore them and dont reply. I have my own friends, i have zero incentive in pretending to like you.

Nope, not my experience.

We moved to a new area when DS was 5 and I made an effort to get involved in local events, joined clubs and hosted play dates etc. We’ve been here over 10yrs now and I know a lot of people of all ages.

I don’t stand around feeling sorry for myself but I do chit chat to anyone and everyone. Yesterday, I donated to a fundraiser in the super market and chatted to the youngsters sat at the table and discovered that one of the teen girls was in my son’s Music class.

Any more misogynist slurs you care to throw at other women?

Does everyone like a bit of gossip ?
Can’t ever say I’ve stood outside the school gate & gossiped about anyone EVER , always too busy getting myself to work on time, & even if I wasn’t , standing outside a gate at school with other grown ass women talking shit about other people just would never be my thing, thankfully !
I like to smile & be nice , it costs nothing .

I only came across it with my youngest child's class.It definitely had a detrimental effect on myself and my child being invited to parties etc !
Only way I can describe the parents were 'would do if they could do'ie chip on their shoulders because their children were at state rather than private school.A complete PITA !
This was 15 years ago but can remember the vibe so clearly!

To be fair I never really got involved. We are wearing better clothes than you? I would raise an eyebrow and not say anything.

Oh come on, bitchiness happens everywhere and it's usually the nasty ones who are insecure, who do that kind of behaviour.

It isn't just school gates, it happens in offices and work places. I know because I've heard them and our ex manager was the worst one.

It's being deliberately obtuse to suggest that it's due to other's insecurity. Secure people do not go around slagging other people off and calling them horrible names.

I don’t doubt there are ‘bitchy’ mums, but if grown ass women are standing there with nothing better to do than be awful about someone else then they’re probably a bit thick. Or batshit. Neither of which would worry me because I just wouldn’t give it any credence or be around it.

People put too much emotional investment on their social standing with a bunch of randoms who just happen to drop/pick their kids up from the same location on a daily basis.

I didn’t experience fhis, are you there in the group when it goes on and saying nothing? I can’t see how else you’d know?

My offspring are all in their 30s with schoolchildren of their own, but I well remember the primary school gate. It was a small village school and the two most unkind children had the mother with the loudest and most savage opinions.

It’s just people in general- some will be lovely and some will be nasty. I think a lot of bitchy behaviour results from jealousy. It’s there problem.

sorry, but gossiping about other mothers being 'frumpy' is definitely bitchy behaviour, and would suggest that the gossipers themselves are insecure. really strange that you think everyone is doing it

Women calling other groups of women that they're not a part of, "bitches"

It's really quite bitchy

Agree with this

I had a run in with a particlar group of women via school but even saying that, i wouldn't say that "bitchy mums at school gates" is a thing.

I think what does happen is that people are forced into close proximity with people they wouldn't otherwise hang out with and the only thing in commonis children at the same school. It's not even like at work where, broadly, even if you don't get on brilliantly with all your colleagues you do have a basic shared goal/objective (albeit one handed down to you by your bosses). And so there's opportunities to clash becuase everyone assumes that everyone else thinks the same as them and some people get quite upset when they don't.