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Original poster

OK. Does anyone actually come across these competitive snidey mothers the media are **obsessed** with?

102 replies

oliveoil · 15/11/2006 13:44

There was an article in Times 2 yesterday (which I would link but my computer is still misbehaving - maybe someone could?).

Going on about playgroup mafia mums who rule teachers and parents and fight for the best for their children blah blah blah blah. Alphas mums.

I do not know anyone like this. My friends who have children at school do not know anyone like this.

Is it a southern thing or a myth created by journalists?

OP posts:
Hallgerda · 16/11/2006 08:03

This thread's getting me paranoid. First it went for the chess players, now custardo's started on the cricketers (DS1 and DS2 do both).

I can assure you all that I'm not in the playground mafia and gave up ironing tea towels years ago (I only ever did it because they were the only things I could iron successfully).

However, I got into a conversation with my buddy reader the other day about eating beansprouts (we were reading a food chain book about eating tiny shoots), so maybe that qualifies me as an alfalfa mum .

Bagpuss30 · 16/11/2006 08:18

Plenty of them in Cheshire. In fact dh has a week off work this week and is doing the school run because I so don't want to see any of them . They annoy me a lot. ds1 and dd's school really attracts them though because it is top of the league tables for the area. There are lots of normal parents though which balances it out a bit.

ds1 is 6 and likes chess . His dad is teaching him so I don't think that counts as lessons.

speedymama · 16/11/2006 08:51

I iron my tea towels.

My 2yo9m old DTS know all the planets in the solar system because DH and I have imposed on them our interest in astronomy. I guess some one see that as alpha parenting behaviour but I don't care!

Azure · 16/11/2006 09:08

I live in deepest Boden territory (am wearing a rather nice Boden jumper today myself) but was very relieved when DS1 started school not to come across any alpha mums at all. I have to admit that DS1 really wants to join the Yr1 chess club (lunchtime) from January, though - hell, it's only a game.

figroll · 16/11/2006 10:15

Well, I think I may have come across one of these at my dds primary school. She started off as the chair of the pta, then went onto the board of governors, then secured a job at the school. If anything at all went wrong in her dds class (which was the same as mine) she would rush to the teacher/headteacher to complain and ensure that her dd got the best in all cases. Both her kids were Mary, and the youngest had major roles in nearly every play I ever saw at the school. She used to reserve front row seats for herself and family at every event. Her house was a shrine to her children with paintings that they had done at nursery up on the wall when they were 12 - how embarrassing for them.

The thing I didn't like the most about her though was the way she always gossiped to me about other mums at the school in a really nasty and vindictive way. No one really liked her though - so although the children got all the treats they didn't get a lot of the friends which was a shame.

She is the only one though.

figroll · 16/11/2006 10:22

Just reading through the thread again - funny how reading books seem to cause such a lot of agro at primary schools. Over the years I have heard such a lot of - what book is yours on, and they only send a new one out once a week, or they never read with them. I am sure it goes on in playgrounds across the country - are these the playground mafia who bully the teachers into putting new reading books into their kids bags? Give me a book or else!

joelallie · 16/11/2006 10:46

yeah...what's wrong with cricket?????

fullmoonfiend · 16/11/2006 11:09

I do know what they're on about, I have met some.
One mum who had her dd's hair and make up done 'by a professional' for a ballet class show!
The pta mums who organised a school 'ball' for the yummy mummies (at 40quid a ticket it's beyong many of our grasps so is imediately divisive IMO)
The mum I met in a waiting room who confessed that she was having an assessment at the dyslexia institute - even though she knew her child wasn't dyslexic - because they did a full educational assessment and she suspected her child had a high IQ and wanted it proving with a bit of paper! (why???)
The three mothers who spent 2 hours at a party telling anyone who would listen how the year 2 SATS weren't at all important - interspersed with exactly what level their darlings had scored. I also knew that they had all bought those 'practise papers' workbooks for their children

our state school seems to have a relatively high proportion of m/c poncey parents...

expatinscotland · 16/11/2006 11:13

I've not met anyone like this. If I did, I'd probably just shrug my shoulders and move on.

Uninteresting. Dull as dirty dishwater. Too many other intriguing things in the world out there.

morningpaper · 16/11/2006 11:14

I mix with zillions of mums and I've never come across an Alpha mum

We all try to show off a bit sometimes (Oooh look she's written her name!), but that's all, surely?

I come across lots of bored mummies, lots of anxious mummies, lots of keen mummies - but mainly lots of women with low self-esteem who aren't sure where they fit in.

Alpha mummies - never

hatwoman · 16/11/2006 11:24

alpha mums are necessary, along with boring mums, sahms, obessesive mums, they are required in order to enable journalist mums to establish their superiority. yes they might have babies but, heaven forbid, they're not like the rest of us. They are Terribly Important and Terribly Clever (notwithstanding arrival of baby). There are, of course, some honourable exceptions to this (some of whom hang around here...). I had lunch once with a quite well known non-mum journalist and she quite simply didn;t believe me and my ordinary-mum friend when we said we hadn't met any alpha mums and found the vast majority of mums to be, erm, nice. surely not

GoingQuietlyMad · 16/11/2006 14:12

Yes, hatwoman I agree. Much of journalism is produced by giving vent to your own prejudices and frustrations in life.

They don't exclusively "own" the truth. Every one of us on here has an equally valid opinion, and personally I am torn between whether I am an alpha mum (or whether people would perceive me as such) or a slack mummy. God knows, depends what mood I am in I suppose.

No-one fits into a simple box IMO.

GoingQuietlyMad · 16/11/2006 14:14

Sorry just need to qualify that I didn't mean that to sound anti-journalist, which I am not, so please don't anyone be offended.

I just mean that everyone has negative experiences and opinions and that they don't all get airtime and taken quite so seriously.

bluejelly · 16/11/2006 14:27

Don't worry I'm a journalist and not offended. However I'm not a Daily Mail journalist, which I think may be a different kettle of fish

CAMisole · 16/11/2006 14:34

Its hard to think of any mums at dd's school who are not alpha.

Except me of course, I don't have a 4x4 and am much, much fatter than posh spice. I wander around saying things like, "I just want my child to be happy".

CAMisole · 16/11/2006 14:38

But I do iron my teatowels, otherwise how do they fit in the drawer

Aderyn · 16/11/2006 14:44

Hmm - I love the way the author says she has interviewed thousands of parents all over the country and then gives two quotes, one from a mother in Barnes and one from a mother in Twickenham. So, all over the country as in London then?

bluejelly · 16/11/2006 14:48

CAMisole
I am an omega mum. My tea towels live on the kitchen radiator

Azure · 16/11/2006 14:50

Isn't the quote from the Barnes mum just awful - "those children who didn't have useful parents wouldn't be invited round". I'm appalled. She is actually named in the article as well, if that is her true name - I certainly would be viewing her in a very different light if my son were at her child's school.

Aderyn · 16/11/2006 14:51

Most mums I meet have a self-depricating sense of humour about their parenting and their child's abilities. I don't know of any mums who use their children to network or live out their own ambitions Or not to the extent where anyone else would notice anyway.

GoingQuietlyMad · 16/11/2006 19:47

That's true Aderyn. Most mums I know are self-deprecating, and very modest about their children, almost to the extent of damning the children with faint praise.

However, I do know the occasional one who comes across as competitive, but always put it down to inner insecurity and worry that other people need to be impressed.

WideWebWitch · 16/11/2006 19:54

Wb, you'll be glad to know I specifically went back to look at your joke and I sniggered. OK?

No, I don't know any alpha mums either, what a loada tosh.

Aderyn · 16/11/2006 20:09

I have come to the conclusion that the one boastful, seemingly competetive mother I do know, who often comments on her child's strengths and other children's weaknesses, is very insecure. She needs the validation. I now feel sorry for her.

jajas · 16/11/2006 20:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

funnypeculiar · 16/11/2006 20:52

I know one - gave up highpowered city job to be SAHM .... and now is chair of the local NCT, on tennis club comittee (or something), organises local playgroups, treats every other mother like a complete idiot child. I really like her
And yes, South again. Think I need to move back home...