This might sound a bit odd but two years ago my first child started school. Obviously it’s a big thing and all very new when your child starts primary school and in my case, I don’t know many mums or parents at the school. My sister and a couple of friends had warned me prior to all this about being wary which School mums I made friends with and how they can be a ‘different breed’ etc. Obviously you can’t generalise like that, but anyway... My child started school and began to be invited to parties almost straight away in the first year and it was mainly at parties that I got to know a few ‘nice’ School mums. In particular, there were 4 of us who I thought had formed a good friendship as time went on and in between working we would get together for coffee and in the school holidays all get the kids together etc. It was nice. Anyway, advance to nearly the end of the first year at school and it all changed. One of the group of 4 was not being treated very nicely by the other two, who had started to talk about her behind her back and be quite bitchy and nasty. I didn’t like this and wasn’t keen on what was going on. Basically two of the mums became like a very bitchy two faced two-some who seemed to all of a sudden have a real problem with the other mum. Then there was me stuck in the middle. One of the mums went as far as reporting the other mum in our friendship group to school over neglect of her child, which really was outrageous. I don’t know what happened or why it became like this but it became clear to me by the end of that first school year that I didn’t want to be part of any of this and that these women were not people
Who I wanted to be friends with. I am still friends with the one mum in the group who got reported and who was very clearly sort of ‘picked on’ by the other two mums. I completely distanced myself from the other two and then it was school holidays and I didn’t see or contact them but they did contact me to ask why I was ignoring them
and I was polite about it and said I had been busy etc but sort of made it clear that I didn’t want to be friends. Nothing nasty at all, just that I’d prefer not to meet up or socialise with them anymore. That was the end of that.
It’s a couple of years on and I have made new school mum friends who are lovely. However, nothing is straight forward with School mums. I can’t even explain it. There is one who I consider a really good friend but something really drives me mad. We all have quite boisterous kids and we walk to and from school together each days. Our kids can be sillly at times but they’re all the best of friends. They are typical boys and push and shove each other at times. They don’t hurt each other. Today walking home from School I was watching the kids and one of mine was pushed by my friends child and then my child pushed the child back. So my child was pushed first, and retaliated. When my child pushed hers, he burst into loud exaggerated tears and yet he had pushed my child first. I of course made my child apologise and told my child they shouldn’t be doing that and we walked home separately from them. But there was a few of us mum friends stood together at the time and the child who burst into tears was cuddled by his mum and she was giving it ‘my poor baby’, while another of my mum friends was looking at my child like they had done something terrible. This is always what happens. Basically my child got pushed too but because mine doesn’t cry like a baby, he always comes off looking worse or like the bad child. It happens so often on the walk to or from school as kids mess about and I feel like it’s aleays this good friend of mine who thinks her kid is an angel when it’s just not the case.
I’m sorry for the long story, I just feel disappointed that it seems it’s so hard just to meet and make a few new School mum friends to have a cup of tea with or get together with now and again.
Is it always like this with School mums? Are they a breed on their own or is it just me? I just felt so fed up of being looked at like the mum with a naughty kid that we walked home on our own. Can anyone else relate at all to this?