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?!

happygardening you seem to have been so busy creating stereotypical groups of people that you missed the two major ones at preps. The well off who own 5-6 bed homes with big gardens. Probably don't have 2nd homes but do have 2 premium cars. Might fly business class but often economy. Husband and wife went to university. Dh prob works in the city. Dw used to work in a professional job but it was better for the family that she stopped and raised the family. No real financial pressures but not the 9 bed multi home owners you have created. And the level just below that where both parents work in professional jobs. Dw might have gone part time. May have an au pair. One top of the Range car and one run around.

This is most people in independent schools. Not the crazy chick lit characters you have created.

Having read many of happygardening's posts over the years, I daresay that the "crazy chick lit characters" she describes do indeed exist and HG has come across them during her sons' education.

talktoo lighten up this is partly a bit of fun although I have to say over 6 years my DS’s spent at boarding prep I saw all the groups I’ve described your two fit into the last group the MC’s and everyone else group.

I don’t really see any of the other parents much but they don’t seem to sneer. The only one of the things in the OP I can imagine resulting in sneering would be being late to the recital - and that would only be if you walked in when someone was playing (which is very rude, whatever your reason)

I honestly can’t think I’d notice someone sneering at my car. I mean, how would you know?!

My son was at an independent Pre-Prep/Prep from Reception until Yr 4. There were always some mums like that but certainly plenty of others who were fine. I'd say don't give too much of yourself away but just be friendly. You will get to know them when your child makes friends with their children. Although, it's far less easy to get to know parents as children get older and dropping off and picking up involves less hanging about. In state secondary we hardly know anyone parentswise but it doesn't matter.

Regarding cars, as I remember it, genuine rich, old money has a beat up old car; working mum has any old vehicle; property developers have soft tops (wife), SUV (hubbie); other new money has SUV and dog; modern trendy has cargo bike and only us had shankses pony or taxi! I recall a very small, very make up and hair perfect mum, with a kinda matching (but no make up dog) had a huge SUV which she literally slid out of and landed like cat making on the ground but with 2 feet. No mean feat in high heels. Just take this as in the lighthearted way I mean it, no offence intended.

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
Omg that's me

What are MCs?

That's definitely me - working mum, smart or scruffy dependent on the day, variety of cars, I always got friendly with one or two of the different crowds as I don't have time for cliques or groups. You find they all regularly fall out and always bitch to you about each other. 😆

I have been sneered at but mainly as a result of moving schools and not fitti g with a stereotype - some schools are definitely better than others in this respect!!!

I think if a DC joins a prep in y7, then you are only there for one thing, CE entry at 13 plus. You are no different to anyone else and you probably sneer at the unfortunate children in the bog standard comp you have avoided!

Mominatrix and cake, London school runs can be fun!

I agree that each nationality can be pushy in its own way. The French can do it so elegantly, and I also like the way the Russians do it so honestly.

I am not sure I spotted anyone sneering at kids in the local comp. My feel is that London is tough for most people, so there is no room for smugness. A fair proportion have only gone private because local state alternatives are challenged. Indeed I reckon, based on conversations about tutors, a good proportion of my daughters secondary had narrowly missed Grammar, and this will apply to some of those who enter Preps at Yr7. If we had been in another part of the country private would not have been on our agenda, and even in London it was because we did not want to go down the god, renting or tutoring (often all three) routes that our friends who opted for state invariably had to do.

The great thing in London is that no one sees your car (ours is 13 years old) and by Yr 7 it is not cool to be taken to school by parents. No one really sees your house either (redecoration was something that had to wait as we prioritised fees), plus a small flat/house does not tell you much. For all you know there is also a country estate or a chateau. Most mums at DCs prep seemed to work, many because the money was needed. (Not true of all preps, but then each school seems to have its own culture.)

I have heard that outside London the school run can be different. That people rock up in huge tractor like cars and talk about the golf club, kitchen islands and spa days. I would not have fitted in, but then mine would have been at the "bog-standard" comp so it would not have been a problem.

In my experience Beneden is seen as a lovely school. Not all parents have Wycombe Abbey type daughters, and I suspect few parents see this as a bad thing. Similarly visiting the dementia suffering mum normally promotes envy, especially for expats who worried about parents in another country/continent who are struggling. While ski trips don't get mentioned for fear that you get top trumped by the parent with a Swiss Chalet.

The golf club??!! Not at all! Art shows in London, restaurants, interior decorating, holidays, dinner party guests are more likely topics of conversation.

Parents at our prep had a variety of cars. It depended on income and interest in cars! Porches, Aston’s, Range Rovers, Mercs and a variety of 4x4s and sports cars were DS iured but also10 year old BMWs and smaller cars bought for the nannies and housekeepers. Just a mixture really. Quite a few use collection companies and drivers to ferry DC to and from boarding school.

If you are not in the Times Rich list or you are not obviously rich (5 DC all going to boarding school and it’s still pocket money) then you tend to mix. Although DD and I became friends with a mum and DD in the top 100 in the Rich list. There wasn’t anyone who wasn’t rich as DD2s senior school! No scraping fees together there and no aristocracy with beaten up cars either! All smart.

If you turn up late, it’s bad manners really no matter what you are doing. Most people are busy in one way or another. Some do extensive charity work.

DS is at prep school in Oxford (ie not London).
90% of parents are lovely and not judgy in the way you describe. I am a total mess in terms of appearance and this is tolerated.
I'd say the majority of the other 10% - mum's in particular - are the tiger mum who drives their kids forward and is always there to make sure they are at the front/get the opportunity etc. I think this just reflects badly on them.
A very very few are rather sneery. These are all yummy mummies who I just avoid. They avoid me too, probably in case they or their ds catches something!!!

"Art shows in London, restaurants, interior decorating, holidays, dinner party guests are more likely topics of conversation. "

Then not like London at all. Bubbles I know you are a lawyer. I assume even in the posher bits of the suburban Home Counties it is normal for women to have careers. How do they find the time for dinner parties or indeed interior decoration. I think the closest I ever got to interior decoration was to clear up discarded school kits, bags etc from the hallway.

I am getting an awful vision of well coiffured women driving large cars and talking about kitchen islands and ensuites, with little better to do than sneer at the less well off, especially those in bog-standard comps. If that is the reality OP faces....run! (Or just ignore them. The son of one of the more obnoxious mums we knew, became a drug dealer. The tables turned: at infant level she made very clear DD has not socially good enough for playdates.)

Dd goes to a well thought of private school. Last convo I had with a mum was about how terrible b team netball were (both our dds are in it), how lovely the Spanish teacher was , the new ottelenghi cookbook and how our jobs were going. I drive a Citroen, she has a discovery. She's thin with dark hair and isn't going skiing this Easter. HTH

I once had a conversation with Yasmin le Bon about nits. We were both waiting for our children standing next to a large poster warning parents that nits were rife.

Gosh - what a fascinating window onto the world of private education this thread is! I realise as SSP (state school parent) I have no right to comment . . . But I would just like to take issue with needmoresleep re. assumption that in London "god, renting or tutoring (often all three)" are de rigueur if you are venturing into the state sector . . . Crap crap and even crappier nonsense!
The 30 children in my DC's state primary Y6 class are now in Y7 attending 14 different state secondaries, in 5 different inner London boroughs. Couple are CofE, but not one even semi-selective. Nobody did God or tutoring (why , if not going selective?) though 5 out of the 30 children got places via aptitude tests in music, languages or sport, including at the two CofEs.
Everybody is at a good, high achieving school, vast majority of which (at least 10 of the 14) are Ofsted Outstanding. However, they are also largely bog-standard inner city comps with At Least 50% PP intake; that means, private school ladies, very low income families.

They are also vast majority non-white-British ethnic-immigrant-refugee-family intake, and no, your Russian oligarchs/Chinese apparachniks wouldn't count.
So there you have it; what most of us Londoners have to contend with, while you are wrestling with your tigermums (we have a few of those too) skiing holidays and 4x4s. Just the flipside, to put your fascinating thread into a little context . .

I think I would have casually talked about nits then blurted out "ILOVEYOURHUSBAND"

Marytuda, I think this is specific to the bit of London I live in, and perhaps when my kids were applying. There was a crisis in places that meant that DS did not get offered any state school, and some kids from the local estate, already in the state system had to wait till late June before something was found.

I did not say it was de rigour. I would continue to assert that people I was friendly with did at least one of the three. And indeed all ended up at out of borough schools. It is lovely that where you live there is not the same pressure. But that does not mean your experience is any more universal than mine.

More parents use private schools in London than elsewhere. For many it is not because we are richer than people elsewhere, certainly not after mortgages and transport, but because the state options for some are so unappealing (and for us the god/renting/tutoring alternatives) that it is worth prioritising fees before other things. Which then leads to an odd mix of super rich, and the cash poor. And Simon obviously.

But fine. Not much of the obvious snobbery that Bubbles describes. Nits, whether the Head is having an affair with one of the mums, the poor performance of the netball team, oligarch ostentation, and the state of lost property perhaps, but interior decoration and dinner party guests, sneering at the local comp or other people’s secondary school choices. No. Grim.

Not in London but also do not recognise the interior design/sneering at comp children chats. Grim indeed.

In all the schools i have known, its nits, lost property, general chit chat and maybe holidays.

The extent to which parents at my dc’s school conform to the stereotypes of prep school Home Counties parents has disappointed me. My main crime is having a full time career, and being more “important” in a professional sense than my husband. This is not done, it seems. Also driving old cars. Small people, small worries I guess

I've never felt the need to join the 'mummy brigade' at ds school. It's not an independent school but they are all quite 'uppity'. In fact one day recently myself and dd1 were going to buy ice creams to cheer her up because she has tonsillitis. We were nearly mown done on the pedestrian crossing by a ( probably drunk) yummy mummy from the school in her Chelsea tractor( Range Rover) so really don't give them a second thought.

I think there is a set of these mums in most schools, private or otherwise. They tend to be insecure themselves and need others they can effectively dismiss to make themselves feel better. They also tend to fall out with each other a fair bit. Just unpleasant.

In my experience, the wealthiest are actually generally the nicest and most grounded.

And quite odd they are all at it.

This.
Op are you sure you aren’t seeing slights when none was intended?

Whatever school, there will be nice mums and nasty mums. I think the chances of finding someone you can chat with easily is increased if your kids go to a school where others are socially similar (but that's my crappy opinion).

When DS was young, we considered the private school route. One look at the pics of parents in the prospectus told me we weren't going to fit in (think picnic with champagne flutes and parents wearing Barbour gear/women wearing Alice bands - nowt wrong with that but not my scene).

When DS was safely and happily installed in local primary school, I realised I had definitely made the right choice. I was running in Battersea Park during the school day and the car park was stuffed with shiny clean 4 wheel drives. I thought there was a 4 wheel drive convention. When I got to the the running track, I was told it was booked out for a school sports day. The school was a top prep school.

There will definitely be nice parents, just like in any school. You may need to be patient to find them and maybe the nice ones don't hang around where you've been. (I know this sounds utterly contentious and therefore written as to what I would do but if my kids did go to a private school, I would feel the need to dress better, put some make up on and speak properly).

Perhaps I had lived a sheltered life, but before my DS started at a prep school, I had never met people whose behaviour towards you was dictated by their perception of your position on the socioeconomic ladder. It was certainly an eye-opener to finally experience it after never coming across it in the workplace.

With DS at secondary school now, those days of feeling judged and found wanting at the school gate are thankfully over.

But I shall always be grateful to a small openminded dog, a playground regular, who never failed to provide a welcoming tail wag to offset the froideur.