Mom Cliques. I had no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wow, why did you choose that name? it sounds like you have a personal target and personal vendetta.

Fascinating.

Or they're Australian

Fascinating!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

I don’t get it. You joined pta, you and your kid were included in most things. You feel one woman was rude. What’s with there to see?

You don't get that having person you see daily refuse to acknowledge you or remember your name or your child's name, having a person consistently interrupt your conversations and then exclude you, is rude? You don't see the transparent user behavior of treating someone as an outsider right up until the moment you realize they might be useful to you and then suddenly being welcoming and inviting them to things?

I think part of the problem here is that some people are just extremely socially oblivious. And don't realize that being oblivious and thoughtless in their social interactions is, yes, a form of rudeness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

I don’t get it. You joined pta, you and your kid were included in most things. You feel one woman was rude. What’s with there to see?

You don't get that having person you see daily refuse to acknowledge you or remember your name or your child's name, having a person consistently interrupt your conversations and then exclude you, is rude? You don't see the transparent user behavior of treating someone as an outsider right up until the moment you realize they might be useful to you and then suddenly being welcoming and inviting them to things?

I think part of the problem here is that some people are just extremely socially oblivious. And don't realize that being oblivious and thoughtless in their social interactions is, yes, a form of rudeness.

No, sorry. So there were 1-2 rude moms? Big deal. This PP and her kid seemed to have been included in most things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

I don’t get it. You joined pta, you and your kid were included in most things. You feel one woman was rude. What’s with there to see?

You don't get that having person you see daily refuse to acknowledge you or remember your name or your child's name, having a person consistently interrupt your conversations and then exclude you, is rude? You don't see the transparent user behavior of treating someone as an outsider right up until the moment you realize they might be useful to you and then suddenly being welcoming and inviting them to things?

I think part of the problem here is that some people are just extremely socially oblivious. And don't realize that being oblivious and thoughtless in their social interactions is, yes, a form of rudeness.

No really cares about these auctions. It isn’t like this wealthy school needs money to buy pencils. The auction money raised is fluff. Probably any one of these Moms could just donate that money personally and it wouldn’t be missed. I highly doubt they fawned over her amazing business connections

[Anonymous]

OP, you seem to be reading a TON into this. I mean, YOU went to a winery around noon on a Friday also. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with a group of women becoming friends and doing things together. Not everyone has to be invited to everything (not everyone deserves a trophy). You are the only one who it seems made things awkward. At the bus stop just say hi how was your weekend and be friendly and move along.

[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.

+1. Now everyone knows who not to invite.

Evidence that those mean girls your daughters encounter throughout their lives don’t fall far from the tree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did you go to the winery without inviting them?

OP—I have an event planned at the winery and was meeting up with a caterer/event planner.

Are they invited to your event?

[Anonymous]

So if OP was invited, she would be totally fine with being a “clique” of 16 people, right? If she had been invited along, and had gone, she would be one of the horrible clique moms…right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not likely.

[Anonymous]

I hear you. We're new to a school and it's been hard to break into established groups. I've tried to be social, I've even invited people over, but no one reciprocates and I'm even FB friends with some of them, so I know they hang out but no one ever thinks to invite someone they've only met a handful of times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Ran into about 15 or so moms from our elementary school having wine and apps at a local winery on Friday around noon. I was like WHAT???? I didn’t realize mom cliques are still a thing. They felt uber uncomfortable seeing me there. I texted one of the mom’s later and said I didn’t realize there was an invite only Friday gatherings. Bus stop interactions will be interesting on Monday! LMAO! Share your favorite mom clique story DCUM.

They sound like barely functioning alcoholics. I would consider yourself blessed to not be around these individuals. I bet they're aging like kaka with all that alcohol.

[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.

+1. Now everyone knows who not to invite.

Evidence that those mean girls your daughters encounter throughout their lives don’t fall far from the tree.

Are mean women just avoiding the socially clueless? Life is too short to try to make it work with some people. OP is planning her own private winery event. She doesn’t need these people that she apparently doesn’t click with anyway. Being weird and awkward about it doesn’t change anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Ran into about 15 or so moms from our elementary school having wine and apps at a local winery on Friday around noon. I was like WHAT???? I didn’t realize mom cliques are still a thing. They felt uber uncomfortable seeing me there. I texted one of the mom’s later and said I didn’t realize there was an invite only Friday gatherings. Bus stop interactions will be interesting on Monday! LMAO! Share your favorite mom clique story DCUM.

They sound like barely functioning alcoholics. I would consider yourself blessed to not be around these individuals. I bet they're aging like kaka with all that alcohol.

How so?

[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.

+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.

I’d def invite you.

[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.

Wow, why did you choose that name? it sounds like you have a personal target and personal vendetta.

Fascinating.

I don’t actually know anyone named Sheila. Please continue your analysis.