Is this an American mom thing or specific to my kids school?

[Anonymous]

I'm from the UK and I've found that one real barrier to making friends here (or rather to having deeper friendships) has been this one - what seems to be cultural - difference around sharing parenting challenges. In the UK it's tacitly understood for the most part that if you share something that's hard about parenting, unless you specifically ask, you're not looking for advice but more so solidarity or to laugh about it or just to share and feel less alone or incompetent. Among the moms at my kids school I find almost universally that if i share something that's hard, they give me advice. For me personally it's a real barrier to friendships bc a. I often don't need or want advice per se and b. it sort of stops any kind of bonding or even really conversation in its tracks.
Is this an american cultural thing where if someone shares something hard it's assumed they want input or is my school different in some way? would love to find a tribe that I can laugh about my kids imitating youtubers rather than hear a 15 minute diatribe on how someone else is crushing it with not letting this happen.

[Anonymous]

It depends. What kind of school do your kids attend?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like private school.

op - it is. is that the issue?
private schools in the uk are much cheaper so maybe different vibe slightly.

[Anonymous]

It must be specific to the type of women you are engaging with. I’ve never had this experience.

[Anonymous]

Some people aren't up for the casual "let's share our complaints!". I'm definitely the type to just commiserate with you and have plenty of mom friends who are similar. But I've also met people who take complaining as a sign of asking for advice or help. Which I think is fine too. This may be specific to the school or it may be how you phrase the complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like private school.

op - it is. is that the issue?
private schools in the uk are much cheaper so maybe different vibe slightly.

If you are at an expensive school with competitive admissions policies you are going to run into a lot of competitive type A parents. The parents at my kids' public school are much more likely to commiserate about the dumb things their kids do than attempt to offer advice.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s a DC thing where many of us have wonky policy backgrounds and see parenting as a series of problems to be solved. I think you just have to keep trying and find your people. I have one mom friend who I enjoy because we have the same perspective on schools - we’re both kind if tiger-parenty, which is VERY frowned upon in our neighborhood (apparently you’re supposed to go straight from “play based” schools to your child being naturally “advanced,” with no effort). I have another mom friend who shares my take on the nature of tween boys. But a lot of mom friends in between where I would never broach any parenting subject at all, because I don’t know what’s a hot issue with them.

Another cultural aspect is that Americans don’t always understand “taking the piss” … especially about kids! That’s my form of humor personally (maybe thanks to Grandma from Dover?) but a lot of Americans don’t get it. If I heard you complain about your youtuber kids I would get it! But there are a lot of, erm, humor impaired people around here.

[Anonymous]

Americans can be more direct (though I'd probably say posh WASPs private school moms are often from a culture that is not direct at all). Anyway, if they are not personally direct they are used to it.

Try prefacing your vent with "I'm just venting here, it's ridiculous when _______ ." If you do not give the context that this is not bothering you, they might not know that. Who knows, maybe it'll change the way they vent or approach these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like private school.

op - it is. is that the issue?
private schools in the uk are much cheaper so maybe different vibe slightly.

If you are at an expensive school with competitive admissions policies you are going to run into a lot of competitive type A parents. The parents at my kids' public school are much more likely to commiserate about the dumb things their kids do than attempt to offer advice.

DP: I agree with this assessment (though not that it is a public/private school thing) -- it about personality, not being American. You have encountered a particular group that is used to solving problems; they probably do it for a living, and so their reaction is reflex. Also, they are competitive, so they will not share or show anything that could be mistaken for personal weakness, even when it's just normal everyday stuff. They operate a lot from fear -- imposter syndrome, fear of being taken advantage of, fear of public embarrassment, fear of dropping down a peg, fear of failure. These types are everywhere (in the UK too), and yes, they can appear in concentration in certain private schools and in certain public school districts.

But if you step back from them and look around, you will find the rest of us in the same places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s a DC thing where many of us have wonky policy backgrounds and see parenting as a series of problems to be solved. I think you just have to keep trying and find your people. I have one mom friend who I enjoy because we have the same perspective on schools - we’re both kind if tiger-parenty, which is VERY frowned upon in our neighborhood (apparently you’re supposed to go straight from “play based” schools to your child being naturally “advanced,” with no effort). I have another mom friend who shares my take on the nature of tween boys. But a lot of mom friends in between where I would never broach any parenting subject at all, because I don’t know what’s a hot issue with them.

Another cultural aspect is that Americans don’t always understand “taking the piss” … especially about kids! That’s my form of humor personally (maybe thanks to Grandma from Dover?) but a lot of Americans don’t get it. If I heard you complain about your youtuber kids I would get it! But there are a lot of, erm, humor impaired people around here.

op - haha you get it!
yes i find if i ever do the british thing of being honest (eg saying that some of my kids art is terrible and deserves to go in the bin immediately) I get a lot of raised eyebrows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like private school.

op - it is. is that the issue?
private schools in the uk are much cheaper so maybe different vibe slightly.

If you are at an expensive school with competitive admissions policies you are going to run into a lot of competitive type A parents. The parents at my kids' public school are much more likely to commiserate about the dumb things their kids do than attempt to offer advice.

DP: I agree with this assessment (though not that it is a public/private school thing) -- it about personality, not being American. You have encountered a particular group that is used to solving problems; they probably do it for a living, and so their reaction is reflex. Also, they are competitive, so they will not share or show anything that could be mistaken for personal weakness, even when it's just normal everyday stuff. They operate a lot from fear -- imposter syndrome, fear of being taken advantage of, fear of public embarrassment, fear of dropping down a peg, fear of failure. These types are everywhere (in the UK too), and yes, they can appear in concentration in certain private schools and in certain public school districts.

But if you step back from them and look around, you will find the rest of us in the same places.

op - i think this is right. there's also a lot of showing off about kids social prowess which i find beyond bizarre. Like - lady I dont care how many friends your kid has. It's a 10 year old boy that is not my child. Do you think his social life is an achievement of yours? It's so weird to me! Maybe bc brits are generally self deprecating by default so would only show off if kid became prime minister and even then would mention it after meeting you several times and only in passing.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm an advice giver who had to learn to just commiserate. When I hear you express frustration, I want to help and help, to me, means advice. I needed to learn to identify what others needed and adapt to that.

For example, if you say, "my YouTube wannabe kids" and sigh, I would sigh with you. If you go on a long tangent how you don't like how your kids talk like YouTubers and wish blah blah blah, I'm primed to offer advice. Maybe just end with "just
a vent!"?

Also, sorry you're going through this. Being a parent is hard.

[Anonymous]

The other thing is, they see you as a Brit, which means they make certain assumptions about you, and react accordingly.

You know, I actually had this sort of an interaction with a Brit mom recently. It confused me, she didn't come across as self-deprecating in the American sense, she not only said negative things about herself but also weirdly overpositive things about my kid, which seemed fake. In retrospect, she was following her own cultural script of how a mom conversation should proceed. But I don't know what that script is, so it was awkward. (Our boys had zero issues with communication, on the other hand.)

TLDR: My advice is to just be patient, eventually you learn the new scripts, every immigrant goes through that (I have). It has nothing to do with speaking the language (you've at least got a leg up on that).

[Anonymous]

US has a more individual-effort and community-effort culture than UK. People take action to achieve goals, not just moan about it and wait for the government to eventually wander by and fix things.

When someone here hears you have a problem, they assume you want to improve your situation if you can, and are willing to try something.