Am I weird to have no friends from the school mums

[Tonigreen23]

So DS has been in school 2 years now and while im friendly and say hello to the odd mum I've no real friends from DS school. We've been to birthday parties and ive made small talk and contributed in the parents WhatsApp group when questions are asked. Is this normal? I do have nice friends who I can meet for playdates but they go to other schools. My friends seem to be friends with mums from their schools, they meet up for playdates, coffees and message each other. My sister also seems to have playdates and meet ups regularly for her two kids. My DS goes to after schools, attends several activities and groups so I don't feel he is missing out but I sometimes feel like im missing out on having these relationships, having friends at my childs school I can meet up with over the summer and maybe the odd evening. I have attempted to meet, ive messaged one particular mum who is my DS best friend and we met at the park, another time I asked if her child would like to go to an event, she said yes but then was working and her mother brought her child and made little to no conversation with me. None of the mother's have ever asked to meet or asked my child to a one on one playdate just birthday parties. I suppose I want to know if im unusual or is it just bad luck? Should I be doing more? Feeling like I'm no one's cup of tea from the class which is sad

Oh my lovely, it’s tough isn’t it. I have a handful of Mums friends now but that was about 2 years into my kids being at their school. We moved to the area so a lot of the school Mums had been friends for years anyway. Could you maybe suggest a Mums night out on the
group? I became quite close to a couple of Mums from these child free meet ups. It’s worth a go x

Id actually love to go to something like that and if someone else suggested it id go but im worried no one would respond/go! Ive never seen anyone post anything like that in the group so not sure what reaction id get! 😕

It's a bit crap but I don't think it's that unusual. I really only made one mum friend in over a decade of standing at the school gate. On the plus side, she is still a good friend 12-ish years later.

Focus on your existing friendships, and as your DC get older, you can also look to make friends through new hobbies and interests.

But yep, it can feel a bit shit at the time.

I get that. Do you have a chat with any Mums at the gates? You could get a sense if a few seem up for it, and then maybe say you’ll pop something on the group. That’s how I’ve done it before. “So, I was talking to a few of the Mums earlier about a Mums night out in the Summer. A few mentioned a local bar xx, I’ll pop some dates in a poll - let me know if you have any suggestions too”.

No I don't think it's unusual. I've never gelled with the mums at dd's school but I am often too busy to chat at pickup as I have a toddler in tow. DD does extracurriculars every day so there's not much time for play dates, and we'd rather spend weekends and holidays as a family doing trips out.

At the end of the day, they are just other parents who happen to send their dcs to the same school as your chuld, so there's no reason why you'd get on as individuals. Many of them only seek out friendships as they need to lean on each other for emergency pickups or reciprocal childcare, or they have only chuldren so need a playmate (which we don't need). Most primary school mum friendships fizzle out once dcs go to secondary so they are pretty superficial.