Swim mom cliques

[Anonymous]

My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Not only in NoVA.

I will say that I'm a parent of an A meet swimmer who has gotten very close to other A meet moms. Not to be exclusive, but just because we spend so much time together. That said, amongst our A meet group, some I like and some are super judgy about what their club team does (even thought *gasp* their elite swimmer isn't doing any better than the non elite club swimmers).

I am friends with anyone at the pool who is kind. As I tell my kids, you find your tribe. Ignore those who are unkind. You don't want to be friends with those in the cliques who don't include others.

[Anonymous]

Volunteer. Become a USA swimming official. It is so much more pleasant than sitting in the stands. When I sit in the stands I am horrified by my fellow parents. When I volunteer I am busy, enjoy spending time with other officials, and the meet flies by.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I’m going to come at this from a different angle. I want you to ask yourself, are you talking sh!t about the fast kids and snidely saying it’s not like they’re going to the Olympics or something (insert eye roll). My kid is a fast swimmer and honestly the jealousy and nonsense from the parents of swimmers who may not be as fast is annoying. Oh, she’ll burn out, she’s not going to the Olympics, this is just for fun Larla really focuses on X, high level meets are just a money grab, etc. This is why I am friends with the moms of other high level swimmers, in addition to the fact that we end up at travel meets together, the kids are pretty tight, etc.

[Anonymous]

I second the recommendation to volunteer, better than just sitting there listening to bored moms yammer.

[Anonymous]

I never talked to other moms or dads at club swim. Most were nutballs. Summer swim is different since you all belong to a social club. There are a couple of people I avoid, but, for the most part, I do socialize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

Did you move to Mclean? If yes you picked a competitive area and something drove you to pick an area with a lot of competition. If not, you know that most of the kids on the swim team aren't the fastest in the region and there are plenty of moms of non fast swimmers and the fast swimmers are probably the ones who aren't the norm at the pool.
Volunteer and be friendly and your kid and you will make friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I’m going to come at this from a different angle. I want you to ask yourself, are you talking sh!t about the fast kids and snidely saying it’s not like they’re going to the Olympics or something (insert eye roll). My kid is a fast swimmer and honestly the jealousy and nonsense from the parents of swimmers who may not be as fast is annoying. Oh, she’ll burn out, she’s not going to the Olympics, this is just for fun Larla really focuses on X, high level meets are just a money grab, etc. This is why I am friends with the moms of other high level swimmers, in addition to the fact that we end up at travel meets together, the kids are pretty tight, etc.

No. See- you assume my kids are slow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Volunteer. Become a USA swimming official. It is so much more pleasant than sitting in the stands. When I sit in the stands I am horrified by my fellow parents. When I volunteer I am busy, enjoy spending time with other officials, and the meet flies by.

Yes, I definitely volunteer and keep busy at meets. It does help some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I’m going to come at this from a different angle. I want you to ask yourself, are you talking sh!t about the fast kids and snidely saying it’s not like they’re going to the Olympics or something (insert eye roll). My kid is a fast swimmer and honestly the jealousy and nonsense from the parents of swimmers who may not be as fast is annoying. Oh, she’ll burn out, she’s not going to the Olympics, this is just for fun Larla really focuses on X, high level meets are just a money grab, etc. This is why I am friends with the moms of other high level swimmers, in addition to the fact that we end up at travel meets together, the kids are pretty tight, etc.

Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I’m going to come at this from a different angle. I want you to ask yourself, are you talking sh!t about the fast kids and snidely saying it’s not like they’re going to the Olympics or something (insert eye roll). My kid is a fast swimmer and honestly the jealousy and nonsense from the parents of swimmers who may not be as fast is annoying. Oh, she’ll burn out, she’s not going to the Olympics, this is just for fun Larla really focuses on X, high level meets are just a money grab, etc. This is why I am friends with the moms of other high level swimmers, in addition to the fact that we end up at travel meets together, the kids are pretty tight, etc.

No. See- you assume my kids are slow.

I assume it because this is something that happens all the time. You see it here too with the snide comments about why would they spend all this effort and energy into swim practice, they are just going to burn out, etc. I volunteer as much as possible to avoid the BS but when I sit in the stands I hear some pretty appalling things about fast swimmers (particularly the girls and comments about whether they went through puberty early) that is clearly coming out of their own jealousy and insecurity.

[Anonymous]

Summer swim is not like this at my PG MD pool thankfully!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children love swimming. I’m struggling with the mom cliques, who base their worth and choose their friends based on club swim groups and the speed of the children. I’m appalled at the fakeness and superficial nature of these parents. I’m reluctant to talk to other swim parents because it is so bad in summer swim and club swim. Does anyone else notice this? Any tips for dealing or avoiding?

Is it like this in other geographic areas besides NoVa?

I am not dismissing that mom cliques exist, they do, and it sucks. That said, I will admit that I probably presumed that some swim moms were exclusively tight and unfriendly when in reality, I was defensively avoiding them. As another poster said, swim parents spend a lot of time together traveling and at meets. It’s a lot of bleacher time and meals together and relationships form. it’s not always intentionally at the exclusion of others, it just happens organically due to constant togetherness at meets. So it’s more likely that these friendships will form based on speed of kid, as they’re attending the same meets. I’ve come to be friends with several women that I originally thought were cliquey, but turned out to be very welcoming once I put myself out there. It sounds like you have a kid that’s attending fast travel meets, so I’d encourage you to give those moms a chance. Some probably are crazy and cliquey NOVA moms and some aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Interestingly my kids elite club has been welcoming and down to earth but our summer swim team (referring to the parents here) not so much, except for the folks I already knew before he joined summer swim. I do, however, think the issue is that some of the summer swim parents have simply been at this for years together and have pre-established friendships. Vowing to keep an open and friendly mind this summer! Love the advice to keep busy and volunteer as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

Second the volunteer idea!