AIBU - are all prep school mummies judging?

[sunshine11]

Our first foray into prep school - dd started this academic year (y7) - she loves it but I'm feeling the pressure. I'm struggling to ingratiate myself with the other mums and it feels like they are super judgemental.

1. DD is going to an all girls for senior not a high flying school like Beneden (sneers from other mums)
2. We don't ski "you don't ski?!" (sneers from other mums)
3. I drive an old soft top whilst they are all in brand new Range Rovers (sneers from other mums)
4. I arrive late for the recital as I was visiting my dementia suffering mum in her care home (sneers from other mums)

Is this normal behaviour from prep school mummies? I do find their children quite pleasant but hate the judginess of the mums. It's completely not how I live my life.

AIBU or is it them? Is there a common ground? Have I made a massive F up with our school choice or is it early days?!

I’m sure they’ll be unsneery mums there ... you’ll just have to find the ones who don’t have time for that shit. I reckon there are sneery mums at every school tbh, they just judge you on different things

Well, stop trying to ‘ingratiate’ yourself for a start. And why do you think this might be behaviour typical of female parents at a specific kind of educational institution, rather than some unpleasant groupthink specific to this specific bunch of people?

Very normal imho. I was a parent at a school like this and started in Yr3 when most had been together since the kids were age 3/4, so had already formed their ‘group’. Joining in Yr7 would be even more difficult I expect. I did find my tribe, but it took a good year - there will be some down to earth/ fairly normal parents there I expect. I endured a year of school pick ups where it was only really the nannies and au pairs who spoke to me, but then made a lovely friend who then introduced me to her lovely friend x

Christ what school is that? I’ve not met many like that - quite the minority ifs fact.

Yuck. Hate that shit. Are you sure that some of it is not you misinterpreting / being hyper sensitive? If not, then you may just be focusing on a particularly nasty crowd or you may just be unlucky with your year group. Chances are any bitchiness comes from a place of deep insecurity. The mean girls are probably worried you're going to steal their friends! As a pp said, hang in there and chances are you'll find some like minded people.

It is only for 2 years, so who cares! It is difficult to integrate when others have been together since their dc started together. However among the apparently sneery mums will be a few similar to you if you can identify them. If your dd is sporty/musical/bright it may also have put some noses out of joint, as the established pecking order will be disturbed, but at least you will find common ground.

No, it's not normal (except perhaps dislike of people arriving after a performance has started)

You can - in any school - find a little dominant cabal of unpleasant parents. The group you have encountered so far may well be one (clean Range Rovers are always a bit suspect)

You spot who else they shun (it'll be nearly everyone, btw) and talk to them instead

This happens in state schools too - cliques form and newbies may be repulsed Remember that you are now in a kind of crossover between primary and senior years - parents are usually more detached as DC move up, so perhaps try to see yourself as that type rather than trying to make primary-type links

I have found that the Rangie mummies tribe tend not to work, have (obviously) very rich husbands and must be bored out of their brains. I also found that when they start getting grey hair and wrinkles they get obsessed about their looks and exercise. Of course this is a generalisation but this is really not unusual from what I have come across.

I’ve also met great, down to earth business owners, surgeons, psychologists, business owners, senior managers and government advisers who drive minis, grumble about uniform costs and worry about if their child is doing ok at school.

There are parents (usually mothers) like that everywhere - at school and at out-of-school activities. My DCs go to a ballet afterschool near us. I am a single mother and I heard the sniggering too. We live in a council-owned block of flats but they don't know I am a leaseholder. When they sniggered, I always thought to myself, "I'll have the last laugh." I own my home outright, no mortgage, nothing because it was cheap enough to buy and I needed to be in London. It's now worth upwards of half a million pounds. My DCs were first at state schools before moving to indies but most of the others were from the same prep school. I was also privately educated from 8 and my DCs are bright and we knew we didn't need to pay for their education early on and they would do well regardless of where they were. So while these mums were probably feeling superior, I was busy planning a secure if not flashy life for my family. Fast forward to now - current economic issues and illness that means one of them can't work and the stress of keeping it all together means she has aged dramatically. Please note, I am not mocking but telling a story for learning. I am divorced but I am lucky to have come from a divorced home so I learnt early in life how to ensure financial stability.
OP, don't let them bother you. Do you. There are people who put themselves in financially precarious positions just to keep up with the Joneses.
With choice of schools, I've let my DCs choose as I believe they have a better feel of whether they'll be okay at a school. So far we've done well. We instructed them to not care about where friends are going or which is the top school. Most indy schools have a similar ethos and level of teaching with 5 million other weekly activities so parents can feel their money is being spent well. A bright child like my DS will do well anywhere but my very bright but anxious DD needs good pastoral care and activities to keep her occupied so she doesn't have the time to dwell in her mind which is always coming up with worst case scenarios. Only your family will know which school is best for your DD. Don't let anyone or anything make you feel you have made the wrong choice. I always use a holiday scenario which always makes my DCs smile. Today, we are going to Cape Town on holiday. Some got to the airport by car, some by bus and some by train. We'll all get on the Airbus. Some will be economy, some premium economy, some business class and rarely first class. We'll all end up in Cape Town. All of us who want to go to Cape Town will get there regardless that some came from Ruislip and some from North Yorkshire. A happy child is what you want and that child at any school will flourish and get to her destination.

Dd started Private School in y7, I haven’t come across any of that sort of behaviour but we are in Yorkshire which may be the reason
There will be people who aren’t like that but to be honest you probably won’t have a lot to do with parents with a Y7, they tend to make their own arrangements and you are just required for taxi duties. As long as the kids are nice I dont much care about the parents anyway

I’m my experience of prep school parents they fall into the following categories:
Old (big) money, heridatary peers, Sunday Times rich listers they have nothing to prove so they'll talk to anyone, frequently drive clapped out cars, look scruffy have cheap holidays as well as expensive one etc moan about the fees.
The very wealthy 8-9 bedroomed houses one in central London one in the country swimming pools a holiday cottage on the north Cornwall coast, a chalet in a ski resort etc but not in the same wealth bracket as the above usually Range Rover drivers well dressed and ignore those who don’t fall into the same category. Usually mum doesn’t work. They congregate together on the side of the pitch (often with the heads wife) and all look to my mind surprisingly similiar same clothes haircuts etc.
Russians Asians very wealthy but also ignored by the above. Usually clad in high end designer labels and will happily talk to anyone who makes the effort.
Those who have come from poor background but now have lots of money they wear furs diamonds and drive Rolls Royce’s etc. They are also despised by the second group and will also talk to anyone.
Everyone else the MC’s those on bursaries etc mum often works juggling a job children a dog a couple of horses elderly parents etc always in a hurry drives a variety of cars can look scruffy or smart turn up late or even more common on the wrong bloody day as the skimmed the email rather than read it. Occasionally attends matches etc knows the second group smiles and waves but that about it. Their children may be going to “high flying schools” so like the first group feel they have nothing to prove on that front. Also moan about the fees.
AnotherNewr often at 13+ preps parents stay involved for longer especially at boarding preps.
It’s only two years just smile and wave and keep moving is my advise never never ingratiate yourself no one likes that.

My daughter was privately educated from the age of four and I've never come across this sneering, so in my view it's totally abnormal. And quite odd they are all at it.

HappyG doesn't live in London.

Add very wealthy European familes who are now based in London. Immaculately groomed Mothers are habitually dressed in the kind of bloody expensive outfit I would wear for the wedding of a close relative and moan about the cost of for years afterwards. Spend summers in home country dividing their time between their city home and the family summer house on a the beach or on a lake. Spend vast sums of money on their DCs and really don't care what any of the other groups think. e.g. brand new mercedes SUV for DC when pass their test at 17 ( how does that work for insurance?) and hold amazing parties to celebrate milestone birthdays without worrying abot looking flash or tacky. They prefer co-eds as they find the idea of single sex schools odd but will make exceptions for top schools. And the mothers all look like supermodels and daddy looks like the older male model wearing the very expensive suit in a mens magazine. I love this group.

By year 7 I just used to drop dd off at school. When she has friends round is the only time I communicate with other mums. Apart from that, it was open the car door every morning and wave goodbye. Perhaps things are different in state schools, but I just let dd get on with it.

Why not join a group with an interest or hobby you like and integrate there if this group of skiing enthusiasts are not to your liking? Just give them a cheery "Hello", whenever you see them. People find being judgemental difficult when faced with obstinate optimism.

Is your dd making friends and fitting in?

Unless you ask the small child if it was nice to have grandpa bring you to nursery .

In my defence - it was dads family #2 and the older sibling often brought him to school and she was almost 30! Dad laughed his head off (thank god).

I also remember one very unpleasant mum who barked orders at everyone and had a nanny for each child. She didn’t work and bullied her poor husband mercilessly. She hit 40 and began to run, took up tennis and yoga, always off to get her hair and nails done. She told me that she was the age of his first wife when he left her for her (his then assistant) and she was a bit concerned about his current assistant. She sat next to me on awards day and bitched about the parents and insulted the children (ohhh that one is so fat! Look at him! That teacher - I don’t like one, too ugly...). I was recording it at the time.

The snootiest, cliquiest mums I ever came across were at a state infant school in the home counties. The sneeriness was just astonishing. We moved away to Sussex and DS started at a fairly unamazing prep in our new area - where there is no snootiness whatsoever.

Good lord, of all the schools I’ve been through I’ve never encountered anyone as judgmental as some of the posts on this thread

Yes I am also finding this very judgemental!

The kind of people your child would hang out with was surely something you thought about when you picked the school? We did not look at our nearest prep school as it is very ra with non working mums and we wanted something more industrious. We have gone a bit further to find a school where, in our class anyway, all the mums work and do only 1 range rover .

If your child is happy chalk it up as a success. I think you are being quite sniff about the other parents. Tbf you are joining in year 7...

Judgey cuts both ways and most parents do try to be on their best behaviour at open days.

Plus schools - where we are - do change. When we started it was very French, then a load of Russians arrived, and the receccion hit so a lot of Europeans left.

You tend to look at the achool and facilities rather than other people’s cars. It doesn’t really occur to you that adults can act like school kids in their cliques.

Outside London and the home counties prep schools find Sunday Times rich listers and Russian oligarchs are thin on the ground.
Op I don't really know what you mean by sneery, you can find people you get on with everywhere. Not every parent will care whether you ski surely. Thus must be an examination. A good way to get to know people is to join the pta equivalent, they welcome help with open arms and it's easy to chat whilst serving tea or whatever. People will soon get to know you.
Or... Pretend you are a Russian oligarch yourself, wear a fur coat adopt a fake accent. Be mysterious 😉

Maybe the group that the OP has met are around more because all the others are at work or busy?
I personally wouldn't join the "PTA equivalent" usually stuffed with the sort of people the OP details as everyone else is too busy, the famous Groucho Marks quote springs to mind.

OP do you need to talk or have much to do with to mums, its surprisingly liberating when you decide you dont! Just get on with your life, your friends etc, in less than 2 years time when your DD moves to senior school and you'll never have see them again. You say she's happy there surely that's all that matters.

I am not judgey, I am jealous. I love the European group, they are warm, kindhearted and fun as well as being amazingly beautiful. I would love to be that immaculate but I won't put the time and effort in. The inadequacies I feel when I see them are all down to me and my insecurities, I know that. They are very friendly but I don't hang around them because they make me feel scruffy and dull. To be fair I usually am quite scruffy, dog walk ready is my default, its 100% my fault.

We are tribal, we like people like us. I gravitate towards the scruffy and underdressed, that is my tribe. But I would love to be part of the European trible.

DS is still in nursery, we probably won't be able to put him in prep school or anything, but I already see the difference between me and the other mums.

I'm the scruffiest. I drive a city car which get washed twice a year.

And I'm European (but not from the East, which probably makes the difference).

I hope to find like minded people as I'm full of insecurities!

Cake , . I recognise that group. I seem to be accepted by them as DH is European and eccentric and they are fun. I, too, am usually in dog walking/running gear, but clean up acceptably well. However, knowing them, I also realise that they are as sharp elbowed, if not more, than the more overt tiger mums. It is assumed that I am one due to my ethnicity and the schools my sons go to, but I am far from one and the looks of shock on their faces when I tell them I refuse to snowplow them....much worse then if they saw me in my most scruffy end-of-run worst.

Mominatrix - I work pt from home so rarely need to be smart and always need to walk my dogs, so I share your pain but at least you clean up well. I remember a time when another scruffy parent asked me if I knew that X's mother was a former Miss Italy. I looked towards the group and asked which one she was, they are all so gorgeous it could have been any of them. I love looking at beautiful people.