Are all parents who help in school seen as busybodies by other parents?

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How are parents who help in school seen by other parents? What is your view of a parent who is on the PTA and helps with reading but only in their own child's class and is also the class rep (a busy parent) who also spearheads the class mums clique viewed? Are they really popular and admired by other parents or do you think they have other motives?

The weird attitude towards the PTA does seem to be a particular MN "thing". But you also often have threads about school mum friendships which are littered with comments about basically how sad it is to want to make friends in that way, why would people want to do that, I have enough friends already thanks very much and don't know why anyone would want to try and make friends with fellow parents. It's so odd

If volunteering for the PTA or whatever isn't for you that's fine. But there's no need to mean about the ones that do.

I do find the comments about making friends with other parents odd. I don't have many friends but the ones I have are people who I've met at various stages of my life. Sometimes "mum" friends don't last, because you only have your kids in common at one period in time, but sometimes you'll find a kindred spirit. One of my closest friends I made during a particularly arduous wait in an A&E waiting room. I can't imagine ever ruling out a whole subsection of people as friends.

What kind of privileges?

In our school they're typically affluent sahms and all go off to have naice lunches and yoga sessions together.

This comes across as very sniffy and judgy. Lucky them that they are able to be sham's and have time / money to do yoga. But isn't it a positive that they also use that spare time that they're privileged to have to do PTA activities that benefit all the children, not just their own?

@MissBuffyAnneSummers I know I'd love to know about these privileges too! The teachers at our school were certainly grateful about the work the PTA did but that was all.

Oh no not at all. I'm grateful they have the time to do all they do for the school. They are quite an exclusive bunch and tend to cut out the sahms who don't quite fit the bill though, as far as I've noticed.

@Leafysuburb surely that's just a bunch of friends hanging out with each other - nothing to do with the PTA.

Well they're all on the PTA so there's at least a nice little venn diagram going on there of sahm, people who go to yoga and people on the PTA.

I agree. I might even reconsider volunteering as I didn't know there were privileges. 😂

@Leafysuburb but are they doing any official PTA business while at Yoga? I doubt it.

I don't know, I heard that they plan the raffle in between downward dogs

When you find these privileges, please send them my way - I could do with some alongside the sending 200+ emails & letters asking for raffle prizes/decorating the village hall/manning a gazebo in freezing temperatures, torrential rain & yellow warning wind/fighting off wasps from the scones etc.

I think they make other parents:

Feel grateful
Feel guilty and inadequate
Feel puzzled as to why they do it
Feel indifferent

Other parents don't give a monkeys what goes on

This is precisely the sort of insecurity I mean. People who have things in common do things together - shock! Parents volunteer for their kids' school - what bitches! Honestly, who has time to worry about this sort of stuff?

Not all parents love the PTA activities as much as people might think...of course you don't stop your child getting involved but not everybody wants to traipse around fayres or think about bake sales tbh. Personally I would have preferred at primary to have just made a one off yearly donation.

But that aside, I didn't say that people who are heavily involved in the school are sad and lonely. They're usually pretty outgoing in my experience.

@DoktorPeppa if your school PTA is being run correctly they will have a dedicated treasurer and bank account. If you want to make a one off donation then go for it. Nothing is stopping you.

How do you know I didn't. That wasn't the point I was making though - it's that we're supposed to be oh so grateful for PTA events when in reality they're often a ball ache for some of us. As a parent of an autistic child I can't tell you how much stress mufti days, fayres, paint runs, discos etc can cause!!!

I've done it. It's thankless.

I would far rather have sat on my arse too, if only parents had made a monthly donation, instead of us rushing around trying to make enough money to cover actual salaries for staff at my kids’ school. The thing is, we asked parents to do that and only 2-3 of 200 odd parents actually did it. Because of that we have to try loads of different fundraisers - selling seats at Xmas play (odious), auctions (equally odious and elitist), summer fairs (unbearable), school discos etc.

I myself make a monthly donation of £20 because I’ve taken a step back from running the pta and volunteer very little time these days. It’s a lot of money for me, but the amount needed is so high. If each parent did that the PTA could chill out a bit!

@DoktorPeppa ok....chill.
At my daughter's school though "mufti days" and discos weren't anything to do with the PTA. The school organised those. Not sure what a paint run is.
(Also a parent of an autistic child BTW)