How important are “school mum friends”

[SpinningFloppa]

I’ve never made any mum friends at my kids school despite everyone saying once my kids go school I would have loads of mum friends, I’m shy and socially awkward so unless I really forced myself it hasn’t happened naturally, no one really speaks to anyone and there isn’t a class WhatsApp (only heard about them on here!) play dates don’t happen and dd year 1 has never had a party invite though she does have friends, i just don’t think these are things at their school as it was the same for my older children. Anyway moving on how important are mum friends? Does anyone still stay in contact with the mums their kids were friends with at primary school when they leave school? I don’t know anyone who does still have a friendship with mums their kids went to school with so just wondered?

I have 3 DC and a mix of school mum friends and school mum acquaintances associated with each DC. I've found this an invaluable source of support over the years. It's great to have a community, and a network who are willing to step in and help with lifts or last minute childcare crises, and obviously I am happy to do the same (and have done on many occasions).

My eldest DC is now in Year 10 and I'm still good friends with 4 mums I got to know when she was a baby in nursery! Our children are all at different schools now but we mums still get together for dinner or drinks every couple of months. I value our long history together, and always enjoy catching up.

My Mum in her 60's is still close freinds with sevrak "mum freinds", but then again she is still freinds with several people from her childhood Sunday school group! So she maybe is just thd type of person who who keeps in touch over the years.

She made freinds with people at our two primary schools, and the secondary my younger siblings went to, parents from youth group and guides but didn't make any long term freindships with the private school mums at my secondary, I don't think she felt she had much in common and was never keen to hang around at the school or school events.

We home educate but my "Mum freinds" are important to me. I Kept in touch with some toddler group freinds, freinds from the kids clubs or groups or who I've just got to know while dropping them off, or by meeting in the park, church or locally. So none are actually school mums and you can meet Mum freinds in other ways too. However some of my best freinds don't have kids the exactly same age as any of mine.

Honestly most of the people I meet at school gates are among the most boring people I have ever come across. I get on with them enough to be polite but prefer finding 'friends' some other way.

I now have my youngest in year 13 so I’m coming to the end of my school parent years. When I look back I met some great people along the way, most with whom I had zero in common apart from having given birth at roughly the same time and contact didn’t continue beyond that time. We’d be on friendly nodding terms. However from 22 years of school contact I have gained three or four friends who have remained very good friends even after our children went on to different secondary schools and universities etc and I think they will always be friends.

I also met some who I couldn’t stand and I’m sure there were many who couldn’t stand me either. There were cliques when the children were younger that I found tended to be made up of people who didn’t have older children pulling their attention away from their particular year group or school, but I could be wrong about that. I tend to swerve that kind of thing. Some cohorts (of parents) don’t gel, they’re not unfriendly but don’t have time or don’t do drop offs or have work or other calls on their time, or for a variety of reasons don’t do play dates, all valid and not personal.

When my oldest was in year 3 we had a well known celebrity’s children join the school. She was lovely but it brought out some very strange toadying behaviour and manipulation of seating arrangements and party invites I’m told (it didn’t really affect me), that was interesting!. At the end of the day it’s all just human behaviour that can be found in any place where humans are thrown together on a daily basis I guess. For me the purpose of school is to teach our children and any friendships formed between parents are a bonus.

I have a very close group of mum friends from DDs school and I find it vital for me tbh. We help each other out with pick ups/drops off, there's plenty of meet ups for social reasons, play dates and parties...
I met one of my very best friends through her school.

That being said, if you're not that way inclined to be social in the playground then that's your personal choice and no one will judge you or treat your child differently due to it. I invited lots of DDs class to her birthday; whether I've spoken to the parents not. I've also had play dates at my house for DDs friends whose parents I'm not that close too.

I think it's important that you facilitate some outside contact for DC though.

I don't really understand the rationale of describing "school mums" as a definitive group of people - even with different sub sets as a recent thread described. (Usually there's an almost slightly derogatory tone on MN threads about school mums)
As most of us on MN have children we will either will be, or have been a "school mum" as in mum of a school age child. No more, or less than that 🤷‍♀️ We're just women all roughly in a similar age bracket with a pretty wide range of situations, relationships, interests, and personalities...?

I've seen several people insist they don't need any more friends and thus don't want to be friends with "school mums" and one pp describes them all as "boring". Sometimes you just click with people and find they are a nice person and become friends even if you didn't need another friend, or set out to make friends. And surely as with any selection of people some will be boring and some might be fun? Imagine chatting with someone, finding them interesting etc, they say shall we meet for coffee and you say "sorry but I already have my full quota of friends"
I messaged someone over fb once about something I was selling, I went to their house, we chatted and just became friends. Now I would say she's a really good friend. (Admittedly that's an unusual situation but in that instance I would never have guessed we'd become good friends from 1 fb message)

I think it's important to be friendly (but not necessarily friends) with people in your community. When your children are at primary school the school is usually a big part of your community.
By being friendly everyone can hopefully be nice to one another, help and support each other etc.
Then more actual friendships may evolve or they may not - but it's good to have support.
@SpinningFloppa does your school have a PTA? That's a really good way to make 'school mum' friends.

Like @MotherofPearl (and apparently in the minority here...), I find the class WhatsApp group and having the support of other parents invaluable and well worth any small investment of time on my part. It's too early to say whether any real friendships will develop as opposed to general practical and social chit-chat, but I found our nursery parents WhatsApp equally useful especially on the rare occasions I was running late or needed help with something and I have helped others in return.

I am not particularly good company at the school gates and so I don't expect the same from other mums and wouldn't categorise them as 'boring' just because our chat at the moment centres on school uniform, lunches, book bags, after-school club and after-school tantrums. That's just the mundane stuff of life that we all have to deal with and sometimes it leaves very little time to be fun or amusing. If parents still have energy to be friendly and helpful to others despite all the other crap they're dealing with, then all respect from me.

I'm not sure the correct description is 'important' ... I have a number of 'school mum' type friends I met when DS joined a new primary school in Y5 ... we are still friends now and our DC are 21! But I have other friends whom I met through hobbies, volunteering, work etc. Interestingly our DC aren't particularly friendly with each other any longer .
Do you find it hard to make friends generally?

I don’t get any other opportunities to make friends? That’s why everyone said I would make loads once they started school

Well I think you'll be ok if you don't have any but here's what I've gained from having them (at primary)

After 3 years at the same school I've found a mum to car share picking up my dc with.

If I'm stuck with how to do hw I can ask them

If I have anything that confuses me at school I just ask them instead of being forced to ask school and wait.

If any dc claims to have problems at school I can ask a second opinion before going all gun blazing

Plain out sympathy for each other about how shit it all is 😄

I never really get this, you never see blokes going how important are dad friends.

friends are important, real friends. Fellow parents at the school yard. Not so much. Social niceties move on. If you need to rely on your kids school to provide friends then it’s a concerning situation.

Could perhaps try to have some play dates? Not possible for everyone, I know.

Many on this thread seem to? School mum friends have been described as vital life lines?

Generally speaking, men do less and are responsible for less when it comes to kids. There are a few dads dropping off and picking up at my DC's school, but this is amongst a sea of mums. And women seem to bear responsibility for coordinating and calling in favours when the family support system fails... it's almost always the mum putting out a plea for help on the whatsapp group. And usually help from "mum friends" not "dad friends".

Of course women are going to see their "mum friends" as more important than men see their "dad friends" in these circumstances, even if they are more acquaintances than real friends.

You seem to be implying that making friends through your children at school is somehow a second rate way to meet people or that the people you meet are deficient in some way

That's clearly nonsense, parents at the school gate are people exactly the same as people you might met in another context

If my child goes to the same school as yours and I work with you am I somehow a more worthy friend if we click at work?

If I can't work so only meet people on the school run how else might I make friends?

Oh I’m not implying it I’m stating it clear. It’s generally based on mutual convenience, seldom real friendship and usually ends when the kids move schools

so yeah. Second rate

No parties or playdates because you're nor friend with the parents?

I would laugh but I know it's true, it's like a covern at the school gates and the kids are in friendship groups facilitated by their parents who like to get pissed on playdates. I think it's because they're lonely and live their lives through their kids.

That doesn't make any sense, how is the quality of the person dictated by how you meet them?

I agree that when the dads get on really well and become friends, that is quite a big factor. I guess it's because you then see each other more as whole families, rather than just the mums getting together for a night out, go on holidays together, go round each others houses for BBQs, the dads go out together as well as the Mums.

I think its that that made the.biggest difference in how close I am with the two sets of Mum friends of my two DCs classes.

Most of the parents at Primary were in the media, law or banking so I didn't have a lot in common with them. They worked office hours, I work shifts. They couldn't understand why I worked Bank Holidays for example. I also found they were always going on holiday to far-off places, and talking about their latest expensive purchase, which I couldn't relate to at all. So I made one friend, but I'm no longer in touch with her. I'm a shy introvert too, which doesn't help. DD is now in Y11 and her best friend's mum is an introvert like me! So it's not much of a relationship because we struggle to talk to each other!

But how is it different to any other setting you would make friends in?

In life you come across people in all sorts of situations (primary/secondary school, work, hobbies, through mutual friends etc) and some of them you happen to realise you enjoy spending time with. Why is coming across someone at your kids school any different?

When my kids were at primary, I got to know the parents of other kids, did play dates and got on with the parents ok. I wouldn’t have classed any of them as friends though. Many were competitive and had more drama between them than their kids, not my thing at all so kept things on a superficial level. Now my kids are at secondary and college, I hardly see any of those parents, just if see them around, there’s an occasional text from a couple of the nicer ones but that’s about it. My kids aren’t really friends with most of those kids anymore either. I have a close group of friends that I’ve had for years, most from university and hobbies.

I had a small number of good friends I met through my kids primary school. We moved last year and I now have just one mum friend in the new place. I don’t do drop offs or pick ups and on the rare occasion I do no one speaks to me.

I’ve always worked so only knew a few, and although there are WhatsApp/FB groups they are totally transactional and not ways of getting to know the other parents.

I miss knowing people to say a cheery hello to and a quick chat! I miss sticking around for a play date and chatting. I’m quite lonely for lack of that sort of day to day socialising.

But I still have my old friends and have met a few people in other ways. School mums aren’t the be all and end all.

Surely it's like in any area of life, some people you get on with, some you don't. It obviously helps to have something in common first ... that might be because you meet at the gym, at WI, at Church, in your local political party .... or at the school gate. It just helps to have something initially 'to break the ice' ... there's plenty of 'school mums' that I just nodded to or said good morning, and quite a few who obviously didn't want to make friends, but that fine ... most of us find our own 'tribe' eventually.