Cliquey parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Im the mom of one boy who had social struggles in early elementary and wasn’t super athletic. I was friendly with some other moms but in general I was taken aback and how cliquish the moms of kids in his grade seemed to be, and felt sort of left out of many things. Then in rolled my second kid with his easy confidence and his superior athleticism and the moms of kids in HIS grade were so surprisingly friendly! We were invited to everything! Everyone was so welcoming! I was added to so many group chats!

I knew better though. If my second kid had been my first kid I would have thought our school was just so welcoming and nice and then I’d have been devastated when my second kid rolled in and we were shut out of stuff in his grade. I also know those moms will drop me as soon as my kid decides he actually doesn’t want to do travel soccer anymore he wants to do the chess club. So I stay above the drama. I recommend it

This. I went through this with just one kid. She was the "weird", small, awkward kid who was bad at sports and really limited social skills until 4th grade. She struggled to make friends and the other moms avoided me or talked to me with pity in their voices because they felt bad for us. Then in 4th, DD, who is actually an awesome kid who happened to be socially awkward, started winning every academic award the school offered and the other kids discovered she plays the piano and violin really well. Suddenly the kids liked and respected her and started inviting her to things, and the other moms got much more friendly. But my kid didn't change and neither did I. It's just the way they viewed us changed because they discovered my kid has hidden talents when they'd assumed we were all just losers.

I was never impolite and of course I encouraged my kid to accept those offers of friendship. But I also recognized it all for what it was -- shallow. People tell on themselves every single day.

Why is it shallow? Honest question- if my kids aren’t friends with a kid at school, I don’t invite them to play dates and activities. Just like other families don’t invite my kid to stuff. But then kids change, become friends with different kids, etc. So then I would invite someone to that.

It’s completely obvious how shallow it is. I showed up at a new school, I’m cute and my kid is good looking and the mom cohort acted like I was some kind of celebrity welcoming me. Then at the first basketball practice my son is the worst on the team and burst into tears at one point. (I had no idea the other kids would be so skilled or I wouldn’t have encouraged him to join!) After that they acted like I had leprosy. Three years later they completely ignore me.
My second kid is better socially and I’m on all the group chats and invited to everything.

To me, it seems perfectly natural that you'd naturally fade from sporty mom clique if your older kid wasn't actually sporty. And a boy randomly crying at open gym is super weird. Sorry, I can see how that would rattle new families. Just being honest.

You’re basically defining shallow friendships with this. Your older kid isn’t actually sporty so you immediately get faded out of a group whose sons are sportier. That’s shallow. It has its place- I have plenty of shallow, convenience based friendships of mom friends- but don’t try to pretend it’s a deep friendship as opposed to a shallow one if it is based on what travel sports team one of your kids makes vs doesn’t make.

How in the world is it "shallow" for the parents whose kids are in the same activities to bond? It's perfectly natural. This forum is full of loner weirdos.

It isn’t. But it’s shallow if you abandon that friendship as soon as your kids aren’t on the same team anymore. It means you were only friends because your kids were in the same team. Not because you actually bonded and became friends. That’s fine as long as everyone is on the same page! There’s a mom who I sit by at every soccer game who is hilarious and I love sitting by her. But we have not much in common and don’t live near each other and if her kid quit the sport I doubt I’d talk to her again. That’s fine. But it also means we aren’t close friends clearly!!

The group chats are titled "moms of team x" and you want the group ruined and people's privacy jeopardized so parents with literally no affiliation to the team can lurk in them? And you're taking it personal that you're removed from a group you have literally no ties to (anymore) because... you wanted to keep tabs on them or maybe get jealous and leak screen grabs and gossip? You people are strange. You think you're the FIRST and ONLY parent they've ever displaced after your kid was cut or left the team? This is totally delusional thinking.

It's like trying to join a Nextdoor or private Facebook group of a town or neighborhood you don't live in and getting mad that you can't or were kicked out when it was discovered you don't actually reside there.

I think you’re talking about my post about getting deleted from a group chat when my kid got demoted to the second team? If so, the group chat was not titled anything, and it didn’t include the entire team, as I stated. It included just a handful of moms whose kids happened to be on the team- we met due to the team, we all lived within a mile or so of each other, and we all hung out a ton outside of the team. As soon as my kid got demoted, the chat disappeared for me. That means that it was not a true friendship , it means these women just wanted to be “coppermine soccer moms!” together (different club but same idea). I am actually saying there is nothing wrong with that either but that it’s harsh to realize it when it happens to you, that you thought you had a real friend group but in reality it was just a shallow convenience “friend” group, and that I learned to keep sports moms at arms length emotionally with my next kid.

Your rant is weird.

To be clear, your kid is literally not on the team and you think you should still be in the player moms' group chat? You are nuts!

OMG my point is that I didn't realize it was a shallow "player moms group chat" I thought we were all actually friends, who happened to meet at youth soccer for our sons, since we talked about plenty of other things and hung out plenty unrelated to soccer. With my second kid, I knew better. It's fine to have a shallow "player moms group chat" that's solely tied to your kid's soccer team. But that relationship is literally the definition of shallow. I have no idea how you can argue otherwise. Shallow is not synonymous with evil or wrong. It's just shallow. It means it's not deep. As in, it's going to evaporate into thin air when your kid is no longer on the same soccer team as the other woman's kid.

You’re the one who thought it was deep. How could you not tell the difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

[Anonymous]

I have laughed so many times reading this thread. So many hilarious observations. “Sports moms are just out of shape women with athletic kids who socialize together”
I think there’s a lot of gray area. I am social and have many friends and plans, but also fell lonely and worry my kid isn’t included at times too. It’s a weird time of life and you worry your actions or inactions will affect your kid. In the 80s my mom didn’t step foot at my school and I had a robust social life. Weird how parents are expected to do so much now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

We knew nobody at first. It takes time eventually you will make friends too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.[/quote

I so agree with this. Also people have mixed up the concept of friends with the concept of community. Parents of your child’s classmates are (should be) community - people who you see regularly and have a shared sense of purpose with. Some of them may become friends too but first they are community.

https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/the-differences-between-community-friendship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are FCPS parents so gatekeeping; cliquey and competitive? Obnoxious at our school.

They are?

I suspect it’s just you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

We knew nobody at first. It takes time eventually you will make friends too.

Not the issue -- I have friends at my kids' school. The issue is people who are unable to engage in baseline community building because they think it's an imposition to interact at all with anyone other than established friends.

When I got to school events, I talk to a broad range of people. There are a couple parents I consider friends and I will often talk with them, but usually not exclusively -- we'll gather with a variety of parents from our kids' class or grade even if we don't know most of them well to talk about the kids or how the year is going or things happening at the school. I also make an effort to introduce myself to people I don't know. This happens most often when my kids greet other kids and I don't know the parents. I'll take a minute to just shake hands, introduce myself, and learn a little about them. I'm not doing this because I hope they will become my lifelong friends. I do it because I like to put a name with a face, because I know that next time we run into this family at school or a playground or an after school activity, we will have recognition instead of aloofness. It just makes the community feel more like a community.

It has very little to do with my social life or finding people I can hang out with 1:1 or families we can travel with or whatever. It's about creating a connected web of adults around the school and the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

I so agree with this. Also people have mixed up the concept of friends with the concept of community. Parents of your child’s classmates are (should be) community - people who you see regularly and have a shared sense of purpose with. Some of them may become friends too but first they are community.

https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/the-differences-between-community-friendship

This! People fixate on personal friendships and while it's fine if those happen, what the school and the kids need is community. The cliques aren't a problem because they limit individual friendships. It's only way they get in the way of community building that they become troublesome. If the cliques only existed outside of school and didn't influence how parents interact with each other in school settings, I actually don't think most people would care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im the mom of one boy who had social struggles in early elementary and wasn’t super athletic. I was friendly with some other moms but in general I was taken aback and how cliquish the moms of kids in his grade seemed to be, and felt sort of left out of many things. Then in rolled my second kid with his easy confidence and his superior athleticism and the moms of kids in HIS grade were so surprisingly friendly! We were invited to everything! Everyone was so welcoming! I was added to so many group chats!

I knew better though. If my second kid had been my first kid I would have thought our school was just so welcoming and nice and then I’d have been devastated when my second kid rolled in and we were shut out of stuff in his grade. I also know those moms will drop me as soon as my kid decides he actually doesn’t want to do travel soccer anymore he wants to do the chess club. So I stay above the drama. I recommend it

This. I went through this with just one kid. She was the "weird", small, awkward kid who was bad at sports and really limited social skills until 4th grade. She struggled to make friends and the other moms avoided me or talked to me with pity in their voices because they felt bad for us. Then in 4th, DD, who is actually an awesome kid who happened to be socially awkward, started winning every academic award the school offered and the other kids discovered she plays the piano and violin really well. Suddenly the kids liked and respected her and started inviting her to things, and the other moms got much more friendly. But my kid didn't change and neither did I. It's just the way they viewed us changed because they discovered my kid has hidden talents when they'd assumed we were all just losers.

I was never impolite and of course I encouraged my kid to accept those offers of friendship. But I also recognized it all for what it was -- shallow. People tell on themselves every single day.

Why is it shallow? Honest question- if my kids aren’t friends with a kid at school, I don’t invite them to play dates and activities. Just like other families don’t invite my kid to stuff. But then kids change, become friends with different kids, etc. So then I would invite someone to that.

It’s completely obvious how shallow it is. I showed up at a new school, I’m cute and my kid is good looking and the mom cohort acted like I was some kind of celebrity welcoming me. Then at the first basketball practice my son is the worst on the team and burst into tears at one point. (I had no idea the other kids would be so skilled or I wouldn’t have encouraged him to join!) After that they acted like I had leprosy. Three years later they completely ignore me.
My second kid is better socially and I’m on all the group chats and invited to everything.

To me, it seems perfectly natural that you'd naturally fade from sporty mom clique if your older kid wasn't actually sporty. And a boy randomly crying at open gym is super weird. Sorry, I can see how that would rattle new families. Just being honest.

You’re basically defining shallow friendships with this. Your older kid isn’t actually sporty so you immediately get faded out of a group whose sons are sportier. That’s shallow. It has its place- I have plenty of shallow, convenience based friendships of mom friends- but don’t try to pretend it’s a deep friendship as opposed to a shallow one if it is based on what travel sports team one of your kids makes vs doesn’t make.

How in the world is it "shallow" for the parents whose kids are in the same activities to bond? It's perfectly natural. This forum is full of loner weirdos.

It isn’t. But it’s shallow if you abandon that friendship as soon as your kids aren’t on the same team anymore. It means you were only friends because your kids were in the same team. Not because you actually bonded and became friends. That’s fine as long as everyone is on the same page! There’s a mom who I sit by at every soccer game who is hilarious and I love sitting by her. But we have not much in common and don’t live near each other and if her kid quit the sport I doubt I’d talk to her again. That’s fine. But it also means we aren’t close friends clearly!!

The group chats are titled "moms of team x" and you want the group ruined and people's privacy jeopardized so parents with literally no affiliation to the team can lurk in them? And you're taking it personal that you're removed from a group you have literally no ties to (anymore) because... you wanted to keep tabs on them or maybe get jealous and leak screen grabs and gossip? You people are strange. You think you're the FIRST and ONLY parent they've ever displaced after your kid was cut or left the team? This is totally delusional thinking.

It's like trying to join a Nextdoor or private Facebook group of a town or neighborhood you don't live in and getting mad that you can't or were kicked out when it was discovered you don't actually reside there.

I think you’re talking about my post about getting deleted from a group chat when my kid got demoted to the second team? If so, the group chat was not titled anything, and it didn’t include the entire team, as I stated. It included just a handful of moms whose kids happened to be on the team- we met due to the team, we all lived within a mile or so of each other, and we all hung out a ton outside of the team. As soon as my kid got demoted, the chat disappeared for me. That means that it was not a true friendship , it means these women just wanted to be “coppermine soccer moms!” together (different club but same idea). I am actually saying there is nothing wrong with that either but that it’s harsh to realize it when it happens to you, that you thought you had a real friend group but in reality it was just a shallow convenience “friend” group, and that I learned to keep sports moms at arms length emotionally with my next kid.

Your rant is weird.

To be clear, your kid is literally not on the team and you think you should still be in the player moms' group chat? You are nuts!

OMG my point is that I didn't realize it was a shallow "player moms group chat" I thought we were all actually friends, who happened to meet at youth soccer for our sons, since we talked about plenty of other things and hung out plenty unrelated to soccer. With my second kid, I knew better. It's fine to have a shallow "player moms group chat" that's solely tied to your kid's soccer team. But that relationship is literally the definition of shallow. I have no idea how you can argue otherwise. Shallow is not synonymous with evil or wrong. It's just shallow. It means it's not deep. As in, it's going to evaporate into thin air when your kid is no longer on the same soccer team as the other woman's kid.

You’re the one who thought it was deep. How could you not tell the difference?

That is literally exactly what I was saying, when I originally responded to someone about this and told this story. I said I was the only one who thought it was a real friendship, and that with my subsequent kids, I knew better. It’s a discussion about shallow mom cliques and someone said that certain women wanted to jump right into deep friendship stuff even though they barely knew you, and I was like I totally agree and gave the example of this group chats long weekend vacations together and how it fooled me into thinking these were real friends. I couldn’t tell the difference because I was naive and it was my first kid and the moms were inviting me to non shallow friend things like long weekend vacations. I feel like I am sort of repeating myself here when maybe you didn’t actually read my original response?

[Anonymous]

of course they didn't. They were just trolling threads to find a way to be obnoxious. I honestly think some posters just do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

We knew nobody at first. It takes time eventually you will make friends too.

Not the issue -- I have friends at my kids' school. The issue is people who are unable to engage in baseline community building because they think it's an imposition to interact at all with anyone other than established friends.

When I got to school events, I talk to a broad range of people. There are a couple parents I consider friends and I will often talk with them, but usually not exclusively -- we'll gather with a variety of parents from our kids' class or grade even if we don't know most of them well to talk about the kids or how the year is going or things happening at the school. I also make an effort to introduce myself to people I don't know. This happens most often when my kids greet other kids and I don't know the parents. I'll take a minute to just shake hands, introduce myself, and learn a little about them. I'm not doing this because I hope they will become my lifelong friends. I do it because I like to put a name with a face, because I know that next time we run into this family at school or a playground or an after school activity, we will have recognition instead of aloofness. It just makes the community feel more like a community.

It has very little to do with my social life or finding people I can hang out with 1:1 or families we can travel with or whatever. It's about creating a connected web of adults around the school and the kids.

Maybe because people don’t really want to be at any of these community events so they make it bearable by catching up with the few people they know. I solved this by not going to these events if I can get out of them. If I go I can usually find someone to chit chat with but, really, nobody wants to be there in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im the mom of one boy who had social struggles in early elementary and wasn’t super athletic. I was friendly with some other moms but in general I was taken aback and how cliquish the moms of kids in his grade seemed to be, and felt sort of left out of many things. Then in rolled my second kid with his easy confidence and his superior athleticism and the moms of kids in HIS grade were so surprisingly friendly! We were invited to everything! Everyone was so welcoming! I was added to so many group chats!

I knew better though. If my second kid had been my first kid I would have thought our school was just so welcoming and nice and then I’d have been devastated when my second kid rolled in and we were shut out of stuff in his grade. I also know those moms will drop me as soon as my kid decides he actually doesn’t want to do travel soccer anymore he wants to do the chess club. So I stay above the drama. I recommend it

This. I went through this with just one kid. She was the "weird", small, awkward kid who was bad at sports and really limited social skills until 4th grade. She struggled to make friends and the other moms avoided me or talked to me with pity in their voices because they felt bad for us. Then in 4th, DD, who is actually an awesome kid who happened to be socially awkward, started winning every academic award the school offered and the other kids discovered she plays the piano and violin really well. Suddenly the kids liked and respected her and started inviting her to things, and the other moms got much more friendly. But my kid didn't change and neither did I. It's just the way they viewed us changed because they discovered my kid has hidden talents when they'd assumed we were all just losers.

I was never impolite and of course I encouraged my kid to accept those offers of friendship. But I also recognized it all for what it was -- shallow. People tell on themselves every single day.

Why is it shallow? Honest question- if my kids aren’t friends with a kid at school, I don’t invite them to play dates and activities. Just like other families don’t invite my kid to stuff. But then kids change, become friends with different kids, etc. So then I would invite someone to that.

It’s completely obvious how shallow it is. I showed up at a new school, I’m cute and my kid is good looking and the mom cohort acted like I was some kind of celebrity welcoming me. Then at the first basketball practice my son is the worst on the team and burst into tears at one point. (I had no idea the other kids would be so skilled or I wouldn’t have encouraged him to join!) After that they acted like I had leprosy. Three years later they completely ignore me.
My second kid is better socially and I’m on all the group chats and invited to everything.

To me, it seems perfectly natural that you'd naturally fade from sporty mom clique if your older kid wasn't actually sporty. And a boy randomly crying at open gym is super weird. Sorry, I can see how that would rattle new families. Just being honest.

You’re basically defining shallow friendships with this. Your older kid isn’t actually sporty so you immediately get faded out of a group whose sons are sportier. That’s shallow. It has its place- I have plenty of shallow, convenience based friendships of mom friends- but don’t try to pretend it’s a deep friendship as opposed to a shallow one if it is based on what travel sports team one of your kids makes vs doesn’t make.

How in the world is it "shallow" for the parents whose kids are in the same activities to bond? It's perfectly natural. This forum is full of loner weirdos.

It isn’t. But it’s shallow if you abandon that friendship as soon as your kids aren’t on the same team anymore. It means you were only friends because your kids were in the same team. Not because you actually bonded and became friends. That’s fine as long as everyone is on the same page! There’s a mom who I sit by at every soccer game who is hilarious and I love sitting by her. But we have not much in common and don’t live near each other and if her kid quit the sport I doubt I’d talk to her again. That’s fine. But it also means we aren’t close friends clearly!!

The group chats are titled "moms of team x" and you want the group ruined and people's privacy jeopardized so parents with literally no affiliation to the team can lurk in them? And you're taking it personal that you're removed from a group you have literally no ties to (anymore) because... you wanted to keep tabs on them or maybe get jealous and leak screen grabs and gossip? You people are strange. You think you're the FIRST and ONLY parent they've ever displaced after your kid was cut or left the team? This is totally delusional thinking.

It's like trying to join a Nextdoor or private Facebook group of a town or neighborhood you don't live in and getting mad that you can't or were kicked out when it was discovered you don't actually reside there.

I think you’re talking about my post about getting deleted from a group chat when my kid got demoted to the second team? If so, the group chat was not titled anything, and it didn’t include the entire team, as I stated. It included just a handful of moms whose kids happened to be on the team- we met due to the team, we all lived within a mile or so of each other, and we all hung out a ton outside of the team. As soon as my kid got demoted, the chat disappeared for me. That means that it was not a true friendship , it means these women just wanted to be “coppermine soccer moms!” together (different club but same idea). I am actually saying there is nothing wrong with that either but that it’s harsh to realize it when it happens to you, that you thought you had a real friend group but in reality it was just a shallow convenience “friend” group, and that I learned to keep sports moms at arms length emotionally with my next kid.

Your rant is weird.

To be clear, your kid is literally not on the team and you think you should still be in the player moms' group chat? You are nuts!

OMG my point is that I didn't realize it was a shallow "player moms group chat" I thought we were all actually friends, who happened to meet at youth soccer for our sons, since we talked about plenty of other things and hung out plenty unrelated to soccer. With my second kid, I knew better. It's fine to have a shallow "player moms group chat" that's solely tied to your kid's soccer team. But that relationship is literally the definition of shallow. I have no idea how you can argue otherwise. Shallow is not synonymous with evil or wrong. It's just shallow. It means it's not deep. As in, it's going to evaporate into thin air when your kid is no longer on the same soccer team as the other woman's kid.

You’re the one who thought it was deep. How could you not tell the difference?

That is literally exactly what I was saying, when I originally responded to someone about this and told this story. I said I was the only one who thought it was a real friendship, and that with my subsequent kids, I knew better. It’s a discussion about shallow mom cliques and someone said that certain women wanted to jump right into deep friendship stuff even though they barely knew you, and I was like I totally agree and gave the example of this group chats long weekend vacations together and how it fooled me into thinking these were real friends. I couldn’t tell the difference because I was naive and it was my first kid and the moms were inviting me to non shallow friend things like long weekend vacations. I feel like I am sort of repeating myself here when maybe you didn’t actually read my original response?

I think you’re expecting way too much. In my parents’ generation there weren’t so many “community” events and no sports cliques. People hung out with neighbors, relatives, and long time friends their life didn’t revolve around hoping to make best friends with people at school. The expectations people have about their school community aren’t very realistic or practical. People haven’t changed much but schools sure have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are FCPS parents so gatekeeping; cliquey and competitive? Obnoxious at our school.

They are?

I suspect it’s just you.

I have 3 kids. 1 is super popular. 1 is normal well liked kid. 1 is well liked introvert. They all have friends. I have very little to do with their friendships.

Sure, my kids may have been invited to a few extra parties in first or second grade because I knew a couple of parents. By mid to upper elementary, parents really don’t matter.

My kid gets invited to try out for teams bc he is good at his sport. My daughter got invited to a book club bc she likes books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't dislike parent cliques because I want to be in one (shudder). I dislike them because of the vibes. I find it weird when I'm at back to school night or international night or whatever, and the adults act like their are at the homecoming dance their sophomore year of HS, standing in little clumps along the perimeter talking amongst themselves and refusing to make eye contact with anyone not in their crew.

It's just sad. Grow up! Learn how to act in mixed social settings. You are welcome to go have your little wine nights and BBQs among your little cliques later, but you come off so immature in school settings.

So, you don't really know anyone and want people to not talk to people they already know and just talk to strangers?

The people whose kids your kids go to school are not strangers. They can be friends but don't have to be. There are many settings in life where you need to be able to interact with what are basically friendly acquaintances, and your kids' school is one of them. It's similar to work. The problem is that in 2026 a lot of people simply have no social skills and don't feel compelled to work on them, so they silo themselves and engage in childish social behaviors in community settings.

Society is so broken. This stuff is basic if you were raised with any real manners at all.

We knew nobody at first. It takes time eventually you will make friends too.

Not the issue -- I have friends at my kids' school. The issue is people who are unable to engage in baseline community building because they think it's an imposition to interact at all with anyone other than established friends.

When I got to school events, I talk to a broad range of people. There are a couple parents I consider friends and I will often talk with them, but usually not exclusively -- we'll gather with a variety of parents from our kids' class or grade even if we don't know most of them well to talk about the kids or how the year is going or things happening at the school. I also make an effort to introduce myself to people I don't know. This happens most often when my kids greet other kids and I don't know the parents. I'll take a minute to just shake hands, introduce myself, and learn a little about them. I'm not doing this because I hope they will become my lifelong friends. I do it because I like to put a name with a face, because I know that next time we run into this family at school or a playground or an after school activity, we will have recognition instead of aloofness. It just makes the community feel more like a community.

It has very little to do with my social life or finding people I can hang out with 1:1 or families we can travel with or whatever. It's about creating a connected web of adults around the school and the kids.

Maybe you’re funny looking or a minority

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are FCPS parents so gatekeeping; cliquey and competitive? Obnoxious at our school.

They are?

I suspect it’s just you.

I have 3 kids. 1 is super popular. 1 is normal well liked kid. 1 is well liked introvert. They all have friends. I have very little to do with their friendships.

Sure, my kids may have been invited to a few extra parties in first or second grade because I knew a couple of parents. By mid to upper elementary, parents really don’t matter.

My kid gets invited to try out for teams bc he is good at his sport. My daughter got invited to a book club bc she likes books.

This person deserves a cookie