Mom Cliques. I had no idea.

[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.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The worst part is OP its making it unnecessarily hard for her kid(s) to socialize. And even if your kids are prefectly nice, one wants to engage with the Red Flag Mama [/quote]

Red Flag Mamas are a hard no for me. Their kids can be really nice but I only let my kids play with them at school because I don't want to have to coordinate a playdate with RFM.[/quote]

Nice projection, Red Flag “Mama”!

p.s.: Mama? Really?

[Anonymous]

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.

+1

[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.

+1

She could have just let it roll off her back and been as unbothered as she claims.

[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.

The only information we have is they all have kids at the same school. This doesn’t sound like everyone on her street but her, all the other girl moms in the class, all the team moms but her, all the PTA moms but one, etc. 15 moms from one school means a whole lot of people were excluded.

[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.

+1

She could have just let it roll off her back and been as unbothered as she claims.

She could’ve done a backflip with corks in her ears too, but this is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Everyone’s being a little hard on OP. I can imagine scenarios where it would be clearly clique-y - what if half of that group is at the OPs bus stop or some other type of group, where they all planned something together & saw OP that morning but did not extend the invite? We don’t know the details, if OP feels there was an awkwardness about it, I believe her.

No, you don’t have to invite everyone to everything. But there are people who can be clique-ish, & this may be one of those situations. It can be tricky navigating adult friendship groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The only information we have is they all have kids at the same school. This doesn’t sound like everyone on her street but her, all the other girl moms in the class, all the team moms but her, all the PTA moms but one, etc. 15 moms from one school means a whole lot of people were excluded.

DP. It very much sounds like something similar.

[Anonymous]

I’ve gotten to the point in my life and self acceptance that I honestly don’t care if my kids’ friends’ moms are hanging out without me. I’d rather not anyway. As long as my kid is included. That’s the part that sucks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone’s being a little hard on OP. I can imagine scenarios where it would be clearly clique-y - what if half of that group is at the OPs bus stop or some other type of group, where they all planned something together & saw OP that morning but did not extend the invite? We don’t know the details, if OP feels there was an awkwardness about it, I believe her.

No, you don’t have to invite everyone to everything. But there are people who can be clique-ish, & this may be one of those situations. It can be tricky navigating adult friendship groups.

+1 Except that she has people on her side too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The only information we have is they all have kids at the same school. This doesn’t sound like everyone on her street but her, all the other girl moms in the class, all the team moms but her, all the PTA moms but one, etc. 15 moms from one school means a whole lot of people were excluded.

+1

OP, you need to arrange you own group, and stop worrying so much about who is doing what without you, OP. Chances are, you are not missing anything at all. If you think you are, arrange your own group for coffee, tea, drinks, dinner, whatever. Why is that so difficult? You are an adult - time to adult!

As long as your intent is good and not devious, sneaky, underhanded, manipulative, etc.

Some moms are just social, and accustomed to being around big groups of low-drama people. OTOH, some (other) moms want to be included to align their kids up with certain other kids, or maybe slide their kid in where someone else's kid might be (to the other kid's detriment). Or sometimes they let someone else be invited/slide in that would not get along with an original invitee, and cause unnecessary drama, because they like drama, whether or not they admit it.

I have seen both, and the moms that do (the latter) inevitably feign oblivious, but tend to fault others for imaginary slights or grievances. THAT would be really low, OP. As long as that is not your intention, as long as your intentions are good (and not looking for drama), go ahead and socialize to your heart's desire!

You have to control your own life, no one else is going to arrange your social calendar for you.