Mom Cliques. I had no idea.

[Anonymous]

There is a great mom in my son’s grade who is in the center of the mom clique but just opens up small gatherings to the whole class (or just the boys, etc.). Super clique-y birthday party that her kid got invited to? She kept her kid home. It makes a huge difference to have someone like that on the “inside” - especially for a small class.

[Anonymous]

Is this a private school, by any chance, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom cliques are real and they drive mean girl behavior in their daughters. Little girls don’t become exclusionary by themselves. They copy.

Ok so unless the while school is invited, small gatherings are evil cliques and exclusive and wrong. There is zero chance you live by this rule in your own life.

15 women isn't a small gathering. I doubt OP would have had the same response to 4 or 5 moms from the school having lunch. It sounds like initially it was just a few moms and not awkward but as more and more people started arriving, it became clear it was a very large group and thus more awkward that she had apparently not been told anything about it.

I find it weird how many commenters can't seem to accept the idea that in SOME instances, failing to be more inclusive with invites can be viewed as clique-ish or rude. It's not a very out there idea. If you worked in an office and all the other women in the office got together for lunch but never invited you, would you find that cliquish? If a neighbor had a BBQ and invited every family on the block but you, would it hurt your feelings? I mean, come on.

She isn’t friends with 13/15 (like 85%) of the group and has the audacity to think she should have been included? Should all invites from now on be open invites to the entire school parent community and then of course they should feel free to invite other friends lest anyone in their entire social circle be excluded and so on. I mean it’s literally insane that some people are saying group events are cliquish. And if I found out a group of coworkers went to lunch without me I would somehow survive with my feelings intact and without embarrassing myself with a snarky text message.

I’ll add that I have multiple friend groups in the DC area and am busy with plenty of social plans of my own. I expect that my friends are busy interacting with people besides me as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this a clique? They probably had each others phone numbers and the person organizing it invited everyone they knew. It sounds nice that so many people were invited.

You sound aggressive and mean.

Calm down with calling someone names that you don’t even know. There is no way she “sounds” aggressive or mean.

Maybe the kids were all from the same class. What was rude is no one asking her to join them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a great mom in my son’s grade who is in the center of the mom clique but just opens up small gatherings to the whole class (or just the boys, etc.). Super clique-y birthday party that her kid got invited to? She kept her kid home. It makes a huge difference to have someone like that on the “inside” - especially for a small class.

Not to brag but I will. I am like that although I’m not in the center of a mom clique. Once a month on early release day I would invite all the girls to the movies or indoor plaything or just home to play. I invited the whole class from preschool to 6th grade for birthdays.

My daughter was new to the school in elementary school and from the first day two mean girls, or popular girls as the teacher claimed, globbed onto her and they were her friends. For three years I got calls from her teacher letting me know that they got a lot of complaints about Anna and the other one. And even though the teacher told me that my daughter never bullied anyone or called anyone awful names like they did she but it was kind of guilt by association.

Anna was the worst and excluded 1 or 2 girls all the time out of a small group. So in the spring when Anna was excluded from birthday parties, my daughter wouldn’t go even though she was invited and Anna’s mother would bring them out somewhere.

I wasn’t on the inside because there was no big clique but I taught my daughter about empathy and people’s feelings.

[Anonymous]

If you worked at a company of perhaps 600 employees and you went to a winery and saw 15 of them there together, would that be something you considered to be a clique? Probably not. You wouldn’t and couldn’t expect an invite to every single gathering any combo of those 600 employees could possibly have.

That’s essentially the equivalent to me of OP’s stories. Every family at your kid’s school is a loose colleague, at best. You might know them by name and chat when you say hi but you can’t reasonably expect to be invited to every gathering or event that any of them might have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom cliques are real and they drive mean girl behavior in their daughters. Little girls don’t become exclusionary by themselves. They copy.

Ok so unless the while school is invited, small gatherings are evil cliques and exclusive and wrong. There is zero chance you live by this rule in your own life.

15 women isn't a small gathering. I doubt OP would have had the same response to 4 or 5 moms from the school having lunch. It sounds like initially it was just a few moms and not awkward but as more and more people started arriving, it became clear it was a very large group and thus more awkward that she had apparently not been told anything about it.

I find it weird how many commenters can't seem to accept the idea that in SOME instances, failing to be more inclusive with invites can be viewed as clique-ish or rude. It's not a very out there idea. If you worked in an office and all the other women in the office got together for lunch but never invited you, would you find that cliquish? If a neighbor had a BBQ and invited every family on the block but you, would it hurt your feelings? I mean, come on.

She isn’t friends with 13/15 (like 85%) of the group and has the audacity to think she should have been included? Should all invites from now on be open invites to the entire school parent community and then of course they should feel free to invite other friends lest anyone in their entire social circle be excluded and so on. I mean it’s literally insane that some people are saying group events are cliquish. And if I found out a group of coworkers went to lunch without me I would somehow survive with my feelings intact and without embarrassing myself with a snarky text message.

I’ll add that I have multiple friend groups in the DC area and am busy with plenty of social plans of my own. I expect that my friends are busy interacting with people besides me as well.

Small groups of coworkers do go out for lunch all the time. It’s completely normal. Imagine every time you want to run to Cava real quick you have to take the time to alert the 30 people in your department and then arrange a time to meet or find carpools and then wrangle seating for that large a group at the restaurant. Nobody does that! You hit up your 2-3 closest coworkers and just go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom cliques are real and they drive mean girl behavior in their daughters. Little girls don’t become exclusionary by themselves. They copy.

Ok so unless the while school is invited, small gatherings are evil cliques and exclusive and wrong. There is zero chance you live by this rule in your own life.

15 women isn't a small gathering. I doubt OP would have had the same response to 4 or 5 moms from the school having lunch. It sounds like initially it was just a few moms and not awkward but as more and more people started arriving, it became clear it was a very large group and thus more awkward that she had apparently not been told anything about it.

I find it weird how many commenters can't seem to accept the idea that in SOME instances, failing to be more inclusive with invites can be viewed as clique-ish or rude. It's not a very out there idea. If you worked in an office and all the other women in the office got together for lunch but never invited you, would you find that cliquish? If a neighbor had a BBQ and invited every family on the block but you, would it hurt your feelings? I mean, come on.

OP doesn’t even know this crowd well, why they were together or who organized it. So why should this have been an inclusive get together of 100 or more? You make no sense.

How are you going from 15 to 100? You are making a bunch of assumptions about the size of the community in order to justify your position. But OP actually Iives there and says it felt awkward, so I guess it was awkward for her to see them together. That indicates that the group was expansive enough that it felt strange that OP wasn't extended an invite.

It's so weird to me that some of you can't take that at face value. The other women were also awkward/embarrassed by it. Even they felt like they were being exclusionary!

+1

[Anonymous]

I’d also feel weird if I went somewhere 15+ other women were having lunch and I hadn’t been included. I think other posters are delusional if they think this wouldn’t affect them in the slightest.

That said I have no interest in developing friendships with other moms from school. I do my own thing and my social life doesn’t revolve around school events, volunteering or my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d also feel weird if I went somewhere 15+ other women were having lunch and I hadn’t been included. I think other posters are delusional if they think this wouldn’t affect them in the slightest.

That said I have no interest in developing friendships with other moms from school. I do my own thing and my social life doesn’t revolve around school events, volunteering or my kids.

I would feel weird too but there are definitely groups of moms who stay at home, work from home, went to school in the same area and married and kids are going to school where they grew up or have social groups from the same synagogue/church etc. Particularly if you’re a full time work out of the home parent, you’re not necessarily going to be plugged into those groups…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom cliques are real and they drive mean girl behavior in their daughters. Little girls don’t become exclusionary by themselves. They copy.

Ok so unless the while school is invited, small gatherings are evil cliques and exclusive and wrong. There is zero chance you live by this rule in your own life.

You're putting words in OP's mouth. I feel, based on all the clues given, that there is some ambiguity about the closeness of some of the friendships, like she miscalculated just how tight she was with the subdivision friends. Also still need clarification from OP about the regularity of this day drinking get together.

No, you are. She said it was only 2 people from her neighborhood. OP was at the winery alone so its not like shes too good for the place. There are no victims in this story.

OP here—we only have three families in the neighborhood attending our elementary school. The other two families/moms present at the gathering and us. Other families are empty nesters or in middle school/high school/home school and privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d also feel weird if I went somewhere 15+ other women were having lunch and I hadn’t been included. I think other posters are delusional if they think this wouldn’t affect them in the slightest.

That said I have no interest in developing friendships with other moms from school. I do my own thing and my social life doesn’t revolve around school events, volunteering or my kids.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this a private school, by any chance, OP?

OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a private school, by any chance, OP?

OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.

Is it your belief that if those other 2 families in your neighborhood ever do anything , even an activity that perhaps neither organized but were invited to, that they must include you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a private school, by any chance, OP?

OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.

I have not read this long string but I’m surprised no one from the lunch group has posted here? Maybe they have.

It’s terrible to feel excluded but it’s going to happen. My kids are teenagers. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more circumspect about it. Sometimes I’m excluded (still feels terrible) sometimes I’m inadvertently doing the excluding (also feels pretty awful)! Best to avoid doing the latter and accept that the former happens to everyone from time to time. Find your people (which can take time) and it won’t sting as much when it does.