Moms role in social engineering in Middle School

[Anonymous]

Oh, dear God. I'm the PP who only has girls, neither is a queen bee and one is suffering from queen bee bitchiness. I'm a SAHM. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mom of single DD here. Like all generalizations I think this one has a kernel of truth, much as it kills me to admit it. Must be why almost all my mom friends are the mothers of boys only, much to DD's chagrin. "Why do all your friends have boys?" in my experience, they are more relaxed and they have less time for bs politics, which I like.

the one conflict that's come up with another mother was with a mother of 2 girls. She was a total social engineer as described previously - trying to fight her kid's battles etc. I'll go further though and say in my experience, it's mainly SAHMs of girls who social engineer and create cliques - the rest of us are too busy for that kind of bullshit.

*waits for the screams of outrage*

SAHM here. Not outraged, just kind of amused since work status doesn't seem to define the social engineer moms at our school. WOHMs, SAHMs... doesn't seem to matter. The Queen Bee factor doesn't seem to discriminate, at least not based on work status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mom of single DD here. Like all generalizations I think this one has a kernel of truth, much as it kills me to admit it. Must be why almost all my mom friends are the mothers of boys only, much to DD's chagrin. "Why do all your friends have boys?" in my experience, they are more relaxed and they have less time for bs politics, which I like.

the one conflict that's come up with another mother was with a mother of 2 girls. She was a total social engineer as described previously - trying to fight her kid's battles etc. I'll go further though and say in my experience, it's mainly SAHMs of girls who social engineer and create cliques - the rest of us are too busy for that kind of bullshit.

*waits for the screams of outrage*

I'm sure you don't ooze any of that sort of attitude towards your daughter at all now, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very sad. I teach middle school in MoCo (sick today) and it is rampant at my "W" feeder. Parents request schedule schedule changes to keep cliques together and all the Queen Bees in one class. Then I have to split up "the Squad" whenever we have group work or nothing gets accomplished except idle chatter and mean gossip. As a result, I get emails saying "Larla, Larlina, and Larlette are really upset that you won't let the work together. They have been BFFs since they were in pre-school and over the years have developed a very special way of working together. Having to adjust to other group members' learning styles cost all three girls a lot of valuable work time today."

I have to laugh! I've got kids with SN and one of the things we work hard to prevent is 'entrenchment' - meaning the kids get used to one way of doing/eating/seeing/handling things and then can't do it any other way. I'd love to counter that mother with 'I'm so glad you brought this up. I could tell the girls have become rigid and inflexible because of the shallowness of their educational experiences. Being able to develop positive working relationships with others is a critical life skill. I'm glad to help them learn to work with diverse and differing groups. They'll find it challenging and I'm sure you'll hear more grumbling but what a fabulous opportunity they have here."

That's really impressive, PP! You are good at this.

This IS perfect! I am stealing it. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have seen it and heard about it tons in Bethesda and Potomac at my kids' school and also others. Please don't, parents. Please let your kids make their own friends, make their own plans, and pick who they want to spent time with, please, it's terrible for your kid and also the others around them.

And this is why I love my PG county elementary school. None of this bs going on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Broad generalization, but rings true in my life; beware the mom of all girls or just one girl.

I have two girls with a boy in the middle. Somehow a DS brings some balance and sanity.

In thinking about my close "mom friends" those I've met through preschool, ES, MS and now HS, all have at least one DS.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the Queen Bee moms of all girls are the biggest social engineers - and this encompasses their own social life; are very cliquish themselves.

If gender plays into this at all I'd bet you'd see a stronger correlations with the gender of the Mom's siblings rather than their children.

I've got only girls and am about as far from a social engineer as it's possible to get. But I've also got a brother and no sisters and am a bit of a tomboy. And I think having a brother had far more to do with shaping who I am as a mother than the fact that my kids happened to be girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:mom of single DD here. Like all generalizations I think this one has a kernel of truth, much as it kills me to admit it. Must be why almost all my mom friends are the mothers of boys only, much to DD's chagrin. "Why do all your friends have boys?" in my experience, they are more relaxed and they have less time for bs politics, which I like.

the one conflict that's come up with another mother was with a mother of 2 girls. She was a total social engineer as described previously - trying to fight her kid's battles etc. I'll go further though and say in my experience, it's mainly SAHMs of girls who social engineer and create cliques - the rest of us are too busy for that kind of bullshit.

*waits for the screams of outrage*

I'm sure you don't ooze any of that sort of attitude towards your daughter at all now, do you?

+1

[Anonymous]

If the mom from the original story making the rounds pulled that shit with me, I'd call her on it and speak to whoever was in charge. That "reserved" seating would be be gone in about 2 seconds. Grown women have no business acting like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the mom from the original story making the rounds pulled that shit with me, I'd call her on it and speak to whoever was in charge. That "reserved" seating would be be gone in about 2 seconds. Grown women have no business acting like that.

Sure you could do that, then your DD would be the girl who prevented the friends from sitting together so now your DD is left to deal with that while you leave and go home all smug.

[Anonymous]

I was not popular in high school. I guess you may have considered me one of the outcasts. But it turns out that I was a late bloomer.

These kids who blossom in middle and high school can fizzle out pretty early in life. A perfect example was at age 30 I wondered into a diner. By this time I am gainfully employed in my dream job and recently married to a doctor. We sat down and who comes over to wait on us but the queen bee in high school, Patti Miller. Yes, the homecoming queen was serving me my bacon and eggs. Gotta love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was not popular in high school. I guess you may have considered me one of the outcasts. But it turns out that I was a late bloomer.

These kids who blossom in middle and high school can fizzle out pretty early in life. A perfect example was at age 30 I wondered into a diner. By this time I am gainfully employed in my dream job and recently married to a doctor. We sat down and who comes over to wait on us but the queen bee in high school, Patti Miller. Yes, the homecoming queen was serving me my bacon and eggs. Gotta love it.

How classist!

Working in a diner is honest labor. As a teacher in Bethesda, I see too many kids who think that having a white collar job is a sign that you are one of God's Chosen People. Perhaps the woman you dislike so much works in a diner because she is charismatic (a good trait in a waiter) and enjoys having time free of paperwork to engage in hobbies or volunteer. Maybe her parents couldn't afford to send her to college.

Right now, I think you're not much different emotionally than my seventh-grade students. Try some self-work to get past high school social drama and recognize that adult blue collar career choices are not karma for adolescent popularity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mom of single DD here. Like all generalizations I think this one has a kernel of truth, much as it kills me to admit it. Must be why almost all my mom friends are the mothers of boys only, much to DD's chagrin. "Why do all your friends have boys?" in my experience, they are more relaxed and they have less time for bs politics, which I like.

the one conflict that's come up with another mother was with a mother of 2 girls. She was a total social engineer as described previously - trying to fight her kid's battles etc. I'll go further though and say in my experience, it's mainly SAHMs of girls who social engineer and create cliques - the rest of us are too busy for that kind of bullshit.

*waits for the screams of outrage*

Would you settle for an eyeroll of disbelief? Because here's what you have:

("mom friends" who happen to have had boys) + (assumption that girls = drama) + (this one mother who did stuff) = MOTHERS OF GIRLS ARE QUEEN BEE DRAMA LLAMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Broad generalization, but rings true in my life; beware the mom of all girls or just one girl.

I have two girls with a boy in the middle. Somehow a DS brings some balance and sanity.

In thinking about my close "mom friends" those I've met through preschool, ES, MS and now HS, all have at least one DS.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the Queen Bee moms of all girls are the biggest social engineers - and this encompasses their own social life; are very cliquish themselves.

I never thought about this, but this seems to be true in my life as well! I have two boys and one girl; all the Queen Bee girls at DD's school come from families of all girls. Interesting!!

No. The common thread among queen bee moms is that they are insecure and immature. Their own self worth is wrapped up in their progeny- it's just that it can't be fully expressed through their sons.

Yup! But it's much more fun to bang the drum of boys are better/easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was not popular in high school. I guess you may have considered me one of the outcasts. But it turns out that I was a late bloomer.

These kids who blossom in middle and high school can fizzle out pretty early in life. A perfect example was at age 30 I wondered into a diner. By this time I am gainfully employed in my dream job and recently married to a doctor. We sat down and who comes over to wait on us but the queen bee in high school, Patti Miller. Yes, the homecoming queen was serving me my bacon and eggs. Gotta love it.

How classist!

Working in a diner is honest labor. As a teacher in Bethesda, I see too many kids who think that having a white collar job is a sign that you are one of God's Chosen People. Perhaps the woman you dislike so much works in a diner because she is charismatic (a good trait in a waiter) and enjoys having time free of paperwork to engage in hobbies or volunteer. Maybe her parents couldn't afford to send her to college.

Right now, I think you're not much different emotionally than my seventh-grade students. Try some self-work to get past high school social drama and recognize that adult blue collar career choices are not karma for adolescent popularity.

I rather enjoyed having her wait on me...truly!! She grew up in the rich area of the town and always had beautiful clothes and tons of friends. I grew up on the poor side of town and had 2 or 3 outfits. Love how the tables turned.

[Anonymous]

^^^You're happy that a person who had a rich family and lots of friends in high school was working at a diner 12 years later. Maybe think about what that says about you?