Mom Cliques. I had no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

See I’m not hearing that at all. sounds like the knew they were being exclusionary and it was obvious. If anything cracking a joke about it diffuses the awareness.

How many people have to be invited to not be exclusionary? The whole class? Entire grade? All school? What is the rule here you seem to be applying?

DP but I think you are missing the point. It's not about the exact number, though it is relevant it was a pretty large group. OP obviously knew enough of the women, or some of them well enough, that it seemed weird she hadn't even been invited. Thus, the awkwardness. It could have been just a 4 or 5 women and it would have been awkward if OP thought she was fairly close to all or most of them. Or it could have been 50 women and it would have been awkward if just one of them was a close friend.

It's exclusionary because OP appears to have been excluded. It looked like something she could/should have been invited to but wasn't, and thus it appears she was left out either on purpose or by accident (both of which feel bad). Thus, it was awkward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just hang out with different moms. The clique stuff abates later on.

No, it does not. These groups actually expand and solidify. The DC will join the same travel teams with dad coaches. Carpools form. Then exclusive sport specific summer training camps. Girls Weekends. Multi-Family Vacations. Social engineering: the DC will take each other to Homecoming, Prom. Parents will join same church. Parents will host huge parties for each other (40th/50th). Kids will serve as bartenders.

DCs will be the Mean Girls/Guys.

I am so glad that this is not actually true where I live. This is a small town or very insular suburb thing. My kids are not going to go to high school with the exact same group of kids they rode the bus with in early elementary, and everyone in my community has broader horizons than what you describe here.

PP and I’ve lived in the same suburb for nearly 25 years, sent 4DC through FCPS.

I know of what I speak. I do have my own group of friends, but it took a very long time-we found each other about the time our DCs were graduating.

Cliques form in/around schools/neighborhoods and then youth sports. I’ll throw PTA leadership out there, too. Nearly a cabal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll never understand people who think any group of friends is a clique, and that everybody has to be invited to everything. If you have a dinner party with 3 other couples, are you a clique because you didn’t invite every couple you know? If you have a sleepover and only invite 2 kids, are they a clique? No. Get a grip.

I don't think anyone is saying that. It sounds like OP is hurt because this specific group felt like a clique that excluded her. I don't think she included all the nuance as to why she felt that way. But there was something about this specific group that seemed exclusionary, probably because she thought she was good enough friends with the other women in the group to have been invited but wasn't. Only OP knows enough about the situation to know.

The problem is that OP asserted that these women were being clique-ish and she was hurt, and then a bunch of posters decided OP was overreacting and it obviously wasn't a clique and oh do you think anytime people get together with friends it's a clique?!?! People are assuming all this stuff about the situation, including what OP is like and the backstory of her interactions with other people in this group, based on nothing. Probably just projecting their own issues onto it.

My assumption is that if the situation seemed exclusionary to OP, it probably was. Sure, OP might be overreacting, but also might not. No way to know, so might as well just take OP at her word because what is the point in bickering with her about her own experience. I don't know her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just hang out with different moms. The clique stuff abates later on.

No, it does not. These groups actually expand and solidify. The DC will join the same travel teams with dad coaches. Carpools form. Then exclusive sport specific summer training camps. Girls Weekends. Multi-Family Vacations. Social engineering: the DC will take each other to Homecoming, Prom. Parents will join same church. Parents will host huge parties for each other (40th/50th). Kids will serve as bartenders.

DCs will be the Mean Girls/Guys.

Is it really mean if you are not invited to every event? Do you invite everyone? And I am more likely to be the person not invited and honestly I am ok with that! It does not make my neighbors 'mean' women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just hang out with different moms. The clique stuff abates later on.

No, it does not. These groups actually expand and solidify. The DC will join the same travel teams with dad coaches. Carpools form. Then exclusive sport specific summer training camps. Girls Weekends. Multi-Family Vacations. Social engineering: the DC will take each other to Homecoming, Prom. Parents will join same church. Parents will host huge parties for each other (40th/50th). Kids will serve as bartenders.

DCs will be the Mean Girls/Guys.

I am so glad that this is not actually true where I live. This is a small town or very insular suburb thing. My kids are not going to go to high school with the exact same group of kids they rode the bus with in early elementary, and everyone in my community has broader horizons than what you describe here.

PP and I’ve lived in the same suburb for nearly 25 years, sent 4DC through FCPS.

I know of what I speak. I do have my own group of friends, but it took a very long time-we found each other about the time our DCs were graduating.

Cliques form in/around schools/neighborhoods and then youth sports. I’ll throw PTA leadership out there, too. Nearly a cabal.

Right, so "insular suburb." Most people have more varied social circles than this. I don't need to create a clique with the parents at my kids' school because I already have friends from before, plus coworkers, plus hobbies outside of my kids where I meet other people. My own kid has friends through school, through a non-school activity, through camp, plus cousins and some neighborhood friends who don't go to the same school. The idea of doing all our family socializing with one group we know through the school, PTA, or a sport just sounds boring to me. I think people who create friendships like this tend to be kind of boring, because they are only able to socialize with people whose lives are exactly like their own, and then all they do is talk about the things they have in common. I wouldn't want to be friends with people like that anyway because I don't want to spend dinner parties and BBQs and joint vacations discussing nothing but travel soccer and the 6th grade teachers at our kids shared middle school.

[Anonymous]

A group of moms from elementary school formed a strong group and although I knew and was friendly with every single one of them, I just wasn’t included in their “tribe.” It hurt at first because they were constantly posting on social media and they kept bringing others into the group. I have no clue why I never made the cut, but I just had to get over it quickly. I have other really good friends and I try to focus on what I have instead of what I don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

See I’m not hearing that at all. sounds like the knew they were being exclusionary and it was obvious. If anything cracking a joke about it diffuses the awareness.

How many people have to be invited to not be exclusionary? The whole class? Entire grade? All school? What is the rule here you seem to be applying?

Calm down, Sheila.

Please. It's only a "clique" if *you* weren't invited. Otherwise it's just people getting together. There are no rules here and OP apparently is laughing her ass off about not being invited so what does she even care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll never understand people who think any group of friends is a clique, and that everybody has to be invited to everything. If you have a dinner party with 3 other couples, are you a clique because you didn’t invite every couple you know? If you have a sleepover and only invite 2 kids, are they a clique? No. Get a grip.

I don't think anyone is saying that. It sounds like OP is hurt because this specific group felt like a clique that excluded her. I don't think she included all the nuance as to why she felt that way. But there was something about this specific group that seemed exclusionary, probably because she thought she was good enough friends with the other women in the group to have been invited but wasn't. Only OP knows enough about the situation to know.

The problem is that OP asserted that these women were being clique-ish and she was hurt, and then a bunch of posters decided OP was overreacting and it obviously wasn't a clique and oh do you think anytime people get together with friends it's a clique?!?! People are assuming all this stuff about the situation, including what OP is like and the backstory of her interactions with other people in this group, based on nothing. Probably just projecting their own issues onto it.

My assumption is that if the situation seemed exclusionary to OP, it probably was. Sure, OP might be overreacting, but also might not. No way to know, so might as well just take OP at her word because what is the point in bickering with her about her own experience. I don't know her life.

OP is making jokes about it. It doesn't seem like she really cares all that much does it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

See I’m not hearing that at all. sounds like the knew they were being exclusionary and it was obvious. If anything cracking a joke about it diffuses the awareness.

How many people have to be invited to not be exclusionary? The whole class? Entire grade? All school? What is the rule here you seem to be applying?

Calm down, Sheila.

Please. It's only a "clique" if *you* weren't invited. Otherwise it's just people getting together. There are no rules here and OP apparently is laughing her ass off about not being invited so what does she even care?

Lol +1

[Anonymous]

Really just trying to understand. What makes a friend group "cliquey"? It seems like by definition any friend group would not include everyone. It also seems expected that some people in any friend group will (one hopes) have friends outside the friend group. So if you have a friend who is in a different friend group than you, and doesn't invite you when that friend group gets together, is that automatically "cliquey"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really just trying to understand. What makes a friend group "cliquey"? It seems like by definition any friend group would not include everyone. It also seems expected that some people in any friend group will (one hopes) have friends outside the friend group. So if you have a friend who is in a different friend group than you, and doesn't invite you when that friend group gets together, is that automatically "cliquey"?

I think clique status depends a little bit on how people conduct themselves within the broader group. If you have a setting with a large group of people (an office, a school community, etc.), of course some people are going to form friendships within the bigger group and will sometimes get together with those friends without inviting others. I don't think that's cliquey by itself. But how that group conducts itself when they are with the rest of the community could be cliquey. Things like:

- A group of friends in an office who talk about their weekend or evening outings in front of others, or who only ever want to work with people in their friend group

- A group of moms on the PTA who don't invite other parents to volunteer and just do all the events with just one another. Or, in OP's case, if the women who get together for these Friday outings often talk about them in front of her without inviting her (unclear if that happens)

I also think that if a friend group encompasses almost everyone in the broader community except a few people, it's cliquey not to just invite those few people. You might not like it because there might be reasons you find those people annoying or not as fun. But then form a smaller group. If there are 20 moms in the neighborhood who all send their kids to the same school, getting together with 15 of them but not inviting the other 5 is cliquey even if you have a reason not to want to invite them. People still do it, but don't be surprised when it the people who were excluded then dislike you or feel hurt because duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here—I didn’t ask for your kind opinions on my mom clique story. Believe the post asks to share your favorite mom clique story.

Your story isn't of a mom clique.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yes, very much so. The deal is that some women never move out of the clique mentality of needing to have a group of women they are a part of that other women are excluded from. To them, this is just how life is and it does not occur to them that there is another way to do it.

The key is to not buy into it, OP. If those women want to go hang out together without you, who cares? You give them power by buying into the idea that they have something valuable that you are excluded from. They don't. Do you really think "Moms wine night" is super fun? It's not. That's too many people, most are probably boring. I'd way rather grab a drink with one of my longtime friends, or even one newish friend, than go spend an evening with 10+ moms from my kids school who I kind of know making small talk.

Adjust your attitude. Think "wow, thank goodness I don't have to come up with a lame excuse not to attend crap like this" and move on. You make it into more than it is by allowing yourself to feel left out. Embrace JOMO (the joy of missing out).

This is a nice response. While I also was put off by OP's attitude a bit, I could certainly empathize. And obviously, the vicious cliquey girls jumped all over it.

This. Some of the responses to this thread have been rational, even while telling OP that sending that text was probably not a good idea. But it should be obvious that many of these responses are actually emblematic of clique, "mean girl" behavior that SOME women love to engage in. People ripping OP apart, saying she was excluded because she's horrible (there is absolutely not enough info in this thread to conclude that, it's just a typical mean girl response "we don't like you because you suck"), refusing to empathize with the totally relatable feeling of wondering if everyone is hanging out without you, etc.

The obvious solution here is to recognize that women who act like this are not worth spending time on. They are playing a game that is rigged for them to win, even if you successfully get them to "like" you, it will always be conditional on them coming out on top and you making them look good. People like this are exhausting.

Being left out of a clique is always, always a blessing in disguise. Because cliques suck! They encourage group think and limit your social horizons, and they are the natural habitat of dull people who are incapable of independent thought and lack the maturity and character to just do their own thing without worrying what other people think of it. Cliques are dull and I don't know why anyone would want to be a part of one, especially after the age of about 25.

+2

[Anonymous]

Op, I'm curious what your upbringing was like? I can't really judge the situation or the tension but what you described sounds innocuous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really just trying to understand. What makes a friend group "cliquey"? It seems like by definition any friend group would not include everyone. It also seems expected that some people in any friend group will (one hopes) have friends outside the friend group. So if you have a friend who is in a different friend group than you, and doesn't invite you when that friend group gets together, is that automatically "cliquey"?

I think clique status depends a little bit on how people conduct themselves within the broader group. If you have a setting with a large group of people (an office, a school community, etc.), of course some people are going to form friendships within the bigger group and will sometimes get together with those friends without inviting others. I don't think that's cliquey by itself. But how that group conducts itself when they are with the rest of the community could be cliquey. Things like:

- A group of friends in an office who talk about their weekend or evening outings in front of others, or who only ever want to work with people in their friend group

- A group of moms on the PTA who don't invite other parents to volunteer and just do all the events with just one another. Or, in OP's case, if the women who get together for these Friday outings often talk about them in front of her without inviting her (unclear if that happens)

I also think that if a friend group encompasses almost everyone in the broader community except a few people, it's cliquey not to just invite those few people. You might not like it because there might be reasons you find those people annoying or not as fun. But then form a smaller group. If there are 20 moms in the neighborhood who all send their kids to the same school, getting together with 15 of them but not inviting the other 5 is cliquey even if you have a reason not to want to invite them. People still do it, but don't be surprised when it the people who were excluded then dislike you or feel hurt because duh.

Also just noting that a lot of this behavior is something prior generations would have viewed as just being a function of manners. Like I think of my mom and my aunts, and they would consider it just poor manners to have a party where you invite 3/4 of the people on the block but not the other 1/4. You might be tempted to do it, but good manners would dictate you be inclusive and also be polite and welcoming to the people you were reluctant to invite. Doing otherwise would be considered tacky, even though it would be easier and certainly more comfortable. You make the sacrifice out of an ethical obligation, in order to promote more social cohesion and avoid making enemies.

I think when we tossed out other ideas about manners that started to seem antiquated (using more formal language in addressing each other, treating men and women very differently, etc.) we also got rid of these manners because people started to dislike the idea of basically forcing yourself to do something unpleasant in the name of being polite. But manners designed to be inclusive and avoid creating factions and bad feelings are actually fundamentally progressive. And the funny thing is that some people DO enforce these manners for their kids, but not themselves. Like a lot of parents will tell their kids "no, you can't invite just 8 of the 10 girls in class to your party -- you can have a small party with just 2-3 friends OR you can invite all the girls, but you can exclude just a couple people." But then they would absolutely do this exact thing themselves when organizing a party of their own. People don't always recognize why their own behavior is rude, and are good at normalizing/justifying rude behavior for themselves even if they could easily recognize the issue with it if someone else did it.