Sick of being the default mum

[Defaultmum]

Hello, I’m a mum to two children aged 6 and 11. I am well and truly into the ‘school’ stage of parenting.
I think we can all agree that the primary school stage, together with the children’s extracurricular activities is full on busy - there is a lot going on.

I am a really organised person and am always on top of things, I read the schools newsletter and am aware of school events, out of uniform days, cut off dates for signing up to thing etc- my problem is that mums in my circle are constantly asking me what’s going on and expecting me to let them know what’s going on - they claim they are too busy to read the newsletter etc…

One mum even had a go at me because I didn’t message her about an out of uniform day - and she also asked me to message about close off date to sign up for a particular sport!!!

I have had a gutful of these lazy mums - it’s not my job to keep them informed. Would you just stop responding to their messages- I think that’s what I’m going to do!!!!

anyone experienced anything similar??

Would you just stop responding to their messages

Are you otherwise friendly with any of these women? Would flat out ignoring them make anything awkward? If so, I think I'd always reply with something like "sorry, I can't remember. I think it was in the last newsletter though, the newsletters are online/reception will probably know." until they got the message that you're not responsible for remembering these.
If not, then yes, I'd ignore the CFs!

Start asking them the questions

You don't take on this role.

If they ask you act vague. Say you think that information was in the newsletter but you're not sure. Suggest they read it to see if it's there.

If they ask you to do it say sorry, I don't really have enough spare time to do that. I'm busy enough organising and remembering things for my own kids.

You were not forced to do this you chose too so just stop

We used to have a class rep which was a parent volunteer who from time to time circulate reminders of key events etc. While no one had expectations that the rep will
be available for our questions 24/7 she was the go to person for clarifications. It was ok to contact her because she officially put herself out there as the 'knowledge' hub.

In secondary school we now have WhatsApp group. Anyone can post questions and anyone can chip in with information. Something more collective like this will
take the focus of you.

Warning!! WhatsApp school chat can be intense and before you know it you'll get 20-40 odd messages a day depending on the topic (and our class is small!). Over the years It gets less and less and very focused.
Just keep it on mute!

Good luck

If I was the one reading everything the school circulated I would be more than happy to share that knowledge with whoever asked. Everyone has different strengths, some people aren’t good at navigating too much information. I enjoy helping people though