Mom Cliques. I had no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

mom-clique mom has entered the group chat.

you might have been invited to the next one.


Jr. high all over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

mom-clique mom has entered the group chat.

you might have been invited to the next one.


Jr. high all over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.

I knew this was Loudoun. I mean, not hard to decode by stopping by a winery on a Friday and bumping into a bunch of people you know, but also the mom clique vibes.

Do these moms not work and you do? That's a big factor in the mom clique at our ES.

OP—I work full time. I know one mom in my neighborhood works from home. The rest are SAHM.

JFC, OP - is it possible that you weren't invited because they thought you'd be at work? But no, you immediately jump to "it's a clique!!!"

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

Or hyenas…clickety clack

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

This is a great story, thank you for sharing. Perhaps some of "those moms" are on this thread...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

mom-clique mom has entered the group chat.

you might have been invited to the next one.


Jr. high all over again.

Seems very Jr high to be offended and send a snarky text. Normal person would have waved, said hi, moved on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

OP—No. Fringe rural LCPS.

I knew this was Loudoun. I mean, not hard to decode by stopping by a winery on a Friday and bumping into a bunch of people you know, but also the mom clique vibes.

Do these moms not work and you do? That's a big factor in the mom clique at our ES.

OP—I work full time. I know one mom in my neighborhood works from home. The rest are SAHM.

JFC, OP - is it possible that you weren't invited because they thought you'd be at work? But no, you immediately jump to "it's a clique!!!"

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

Or hyenas…clickety clack

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

This is a great story, thank you for sharing. Perhaps some of "those moms" are on this thread...

OP—love the story. You turned negative into positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a great mom clique story. Gather round.

When my DD was in 1st grade, she moved to a new school. This is in DC, where school starts at PK, so by 1st, there are a lot of established family relationships at school. This was also a neighborhood school, and we got in out of bounds via lottery, so were "outsiders."

There was a pretty tight clique of women on the PTA. Normally I would avoid something like that, but the core five women all had kids in my child's grade, including three who had daughters in my child's class. Of course my DD became friends with their DDs. So I was going to be interacting with them no matter what.

I sucked it up, joined the PTA, and decided to kill them with kindness. I volunteered for things, was always friendly. They made it as hard as possible. Or, some of them did. One of them was actually nice and welcoming. But two were absolute jerks. One simply refused to learn my name or my kid's name for that whole first year. This was someone we saw DAILY and our kids were friends. Another one was not that extreme, but would just look right through me all the time, or would come up while I was talking to another parent and start a conversation with them with her back turned to me. Just major rudeness. The message was clear -- you are not one of us.

Then towards the end of that first year, they were doing the annual fundraising auction for the school. They were putting out requests for people to get local businesses to donate to the auction. Well, since none of these women had bothered to get to know me at all, they didn't know that I sit on the board of a local business association and have a ton of contacts with local restaurants and retailers, including some pretty big, popular names. I was able to put together about 20 auction packages to very popular local businesses in like three days, worth close to 20k. These wound up being some of the hottest items at the auction, and the event wound up raising over twice what it had raised the year before.

Suddenly all those women were my best friends. Or thought they were. For my DD's sake, I played nice but always kept them at arms length. We did playdates and I continued to help out with the PTA, volunteer for classroom stuff, etc. But I didn't socialize with them beyond small talk at school stuff, and when they started inviting me to moms nights out and other social events (things I'd mysteriously never been invited to before) I politely declined. They also tried to get me to run for an open role on the PTA, and I politely turned that down too -- I was happy to help out the school as a volunteer but I wanted to maintain the ability to no participate in things.

It all turned out fine in the end. My DD did not maintain friendships with those girls past elementary, largely because we lived in a different neighborhood and then DD went to a different middle school. It was easier to navigate the school once the ice broke with that group. But I never forgot that first year and how unpleasant most of those women were towards me, nor how quickly they changed their tune when they realized I was connected and could be useful to them.

This is a great story, thank you for sharing. Perhaps some of "those moms" are on this thread...

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

mom-clique mom has entered the group chat.

you might have been invited to the next one.


Jr. high all over again.

Seems very Jr high to be offended and send a snarky text. Normal person would have waved, said hi, moved on.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girl pta vibe is heavy handed here. The defensive posture in favor of this group and antagonistic approach to op is wild.

+1, we actually don't get much info from OP here, certainly not enough to draw conclusions. The people who are assuming good intent by this group and hurling insults at OP are simply showing themselves up.

Seems the opposite to me. All we know is 15 women got together for lunch. Nothing nefarious about that. Why are they suddenly a “mean girl” mom clique? Literally nothing sail alludes to this- OP is just peeved she wasn’t invited. Which in itself isn’t mean spirited

It's typical DCUM. People loooove to dog-pile on the OP and project their own issues. The first couple pages are all mean moms telling OP it's her fault and she made it awkward based on very little info. Says tons about them.

+10000

It’s because Op came out swinging against a group of women who dared to go anywhere without her. She’s not going to get the sisterhood rallying around her when she comes out like that.

Swinging seems intense. She wrote a potentially snarky text to a friend. It may have been reactive but not completely deranged like so many are implying. Honestly does no one have compassion or genuine friendships around here?

If a friend sent me a snarky text because I happened to have social plans that didn’t include her, I would not be clamoring to get together with her anytime soon. Who the heck wants to be guilted for having a social life that doesn’t revolve entirely around inviting that one person along to everything.

If I ran into a couple friends out in a big group I didn’t know I would smile and wave. If I happened to be in close proximity I may make pleasantries and ask how the wine is and if there’s anything they’d recommend ordering for my event. If OP had been friendly maybe she would have been introduced to the group and invited next time. She’ll never be invited now after her little tantrum. And would she really even want an invite given out of some sort of guilt trip?

If OP was my friend, I would have waved her over and asked if she had time to join us for a glass of wine.

That is good manners. Many on this board seemingly have none.

If Queen Bee gets mad and casts me out of the inner circle, then so be it. The rest of the wine mom minions can decide to hang out with and be ruled by a 15-year-old mean girl, in a grown adult's body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girl pta vibe is heavy handed here. The defensive posture in favor of this group and antagonistic approach to op is wild.

+1, we actually don't get much info from OP here, certainly not enough to draw conclusions. The people who are assuming good intent by this group and hurling insults at OP are simply showing themselves up.

Seems the opposite to me. All we know is 15 women got together for lunch. Nothing nefarious about that. Why are they suddenly a “mean girl” mom clique? Literally nothing sail alludes to this- OP is just peeved she wasn’t invited. Which in itself isn’t mean spirited

It's typical DCUM. People loooove to dog-pile on the OP and project their own issues. The first couple pages are all mean moms telling OP it's her fault and she made it awkward based on very little info. Says tons about them.

+10000

It’s because Op came out swinging against a group of women who dared to go anywhere without her. She’s not going to get the sisterhood rallying around her when she comes out like that.

Swinging seems intense. She wrote a potentially snarky text to a friend. It may have been reactive but not completely deranged like so many are implying. Honestly does no one have compassion or genuine friendships around here?

If a friend sent me a snarky text because I happened to have social plans that didn’t include her, I would not be clamoring to get together with her anytime soon. Who the heck wants to be guilted for having a social life that doesn’t revolve entirely around inviting that one person along to everything.

If I ran into a couple friends out in a big group I didn’t know I would smile and wave. If I happened to be in close proximity I may make pleasantries and ask how the wine is and if there’s anything they’d recommend ordering for my event. If OP had been friendly maybe she would have been introduced to the group and invited next time. She’ll never be invited now after her little tantrum. And would she really even want an invite given out of some sort of guilt trip?

If OP was my friend, I would have waved her over and asked if she had time to join us for a glass of wine.

That is good manners. Many on this board seemingly have none.

If Queen Bee gets mad and casts me out of the inner circle, then so be it. The rest of the wine mom minions can decide to hang out with and be ruled by a 15-year-old mean girl, in a grown adult's body.

This scenario exists only in your head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girl pta vibe is heavy handed here. The defensive posture in favor of this group and antagonistic approach to op is wild.

+1, we actually don't get much info from OP here, certainly not enough to draw conclusions. The people who are assuming good intent by this group and hurling insults at OP are simply showing themselves up.

Seems the opposite to me. All we know is 15 women got together for lunch. Nothing nefarious about that. Why are they suddenly a “mean girl” mom clique? Literally nothing sail alludes to this- OP is just peeved she wasn’t invited. Which in itself isn’t mean spirited

It's typical DCUM. People loooove to dog-pile on the OP and project their own issues. The first couple pages are all mean moms telling OP it's her fault and she made it awkward based on very little info. Says tons about them.

+10000

It’s because Op came out swinging against a group of women who dared to go anywhere without her. She’s not going to get the sisterhood rallying around her when she comes out like that.

Swinging seems intense. She wrote a potentially snarky text to a friend. It may have been reactive but not completely deranged like so many are implying. Honestly does no one have compassion or genuine friendships around here?

If a friend sent me a snarky text because I happened to have social plans that didn’t include her, I would not be clamoring to get together with her anytime soon. Who the heck wants to be guilted for having a social life that doesn’t revolve entirely around inviting that one person along to everything.

If I ran into a couple friends out in a big group I didn’t know I would smile and wave. If I happened to be in close proximity I may make pleasantries and ask how the wine is and if there’s anything they’d recommend ordering for my event. If OP had been friendly maybe she would have been introduced to the group and invited next time. She’ll never be invited now after her little tantrum. And would she really even want an invite given out of some sort of guilt trip?

If OP was my friend, I would have waved her over and asked if she had time to join us for a glass of wine.

That is good manners. Many on this board seemingly have none.

If Queen Bee gets mad and casts me out of the inner circle, then so be it. The rest of the wine mom minions can decide to hang out with and be ruled by a 15-year-old mean girl, in a grown adult's body.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girl pta vibe is heavy handed here. The defensive posture in favor of this group and antagonistic approach to op is wild.

+1, we actually don't get much info from OP here, certainly not enough to draw conclusions. The people who are assuming good intent by this group and hurling insults at OP are simply showing themselves up.

Seems the opposite to me. All we know is 15 women got together for lunch. Nothing nefarious about that. Why are they suddenly a “mean girl” mom clique? Literally nothing sail alludes to this- OP is just peeved she wasn’t invited. Which in itself isn’t mean spirited

It's typical DCUM. People loooove to dog-pile on the OP and project their own issues. The first couple pages are all mean moms telling OP it's her fault and she made it awkward based on very little info. Says tons about them.

+10000

It’s because Op came out swinging against a group of women who dared to go anywhere without her. She’s not going to get the sisterhood rallying around her when she comes out like that.

Swinging seems intense. She wrote a potentially snarky text to a friend. It may have been reactive but not completely deranged like so many are implying. Honestly does no one have compassion or genuine friendships around here?

If a friend sent me a snarky text because I happened to have social plans that didn’t include her, I would not be clamoring to get together with her anytime soon. Who the heck wants to be guilted for having a social life that doesn’t revolve entirely around inviting that one person along to everything.

If I ran into a couple friends out in a big group I didn’t know I would smile and wave. If I happened to be in close proximity I may make pleasantries and ask how the wine is and if there’s anything they’d recommend ordering for my event. If OP had been friendly maybe she would have been introduced to the group and invited next time. She’ll never be invited now after her little tantrum. And would she really even want an invite given out of some sort of guilt trip?

If OP was my friend, I would have waved her over and asked if she had time to join us for a glass of wine.

That is good manners. Many on this board seemingly have none.

If Queen Bee gets mad and casts me out of the inner circle, then so be it. The rest of the wine mom minions can decide to hang out with and be ruled by a 15-year-old mean girl, in a grown adult's body.

But you wouldn’t have invited your friend in the first place? Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you made unnecessarily awkward. People are allowed to meet up without you. If you had just been friendly and not made an issue of it, you might have been invited to the next one.

mom-clique mom has entered the group chat.

you might have been invited to the next one.


Jr. high all over again.

Seems very Jr high to be offended and send a snarky text. Normal person would have waved, said hi, moved on.

This.

Normal person would have invited OP to join in the fun with the table of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mean girl pta vibe is heavy handed here. The defensive posture in favor of this group and antagonistic approach to op is wild.

+1, we actually don't get much info from OP here, certainly not enough to draw conclusions. The people who are assuming good intent by this group and hurling insults at OP are simply showing themselves up.

Seems the opposite to me. All we know is 15 women got together for lunch. Nothing nefarious about that. Why are they suddenly a “mean girl” mom clique? Literally nothing sail alludes to this- OP is just peeved she wasn’t invited. Which in itself isn’t mean spirited

It's typical DCUM. People loooove to dog-pile on the OP and project their own issues. The first couple pages are all mean moms telling OP it's her fault and she made it awkward based on very little info. Says tons about them.

+10000

It’s because Op came out swinging against a group of women who dared to go anywhere without her. She’s not going to get the sisterhood rallying around her when she comes out like that.

Swinging seems intense. She wrote a potentially snarky text to a friend. It may have been reactive but not completely deranged like so many are implying. Honestly does no one have compassion or genuine friendships around here?

If a friend sent me a snarky text because I happened to have social plans that didn’t include her, I would not be clamoring to get together with her anytime soon. Who the heck wants to be guilted for having a social life that doesn’t revolve entirely around inviting that one person along to everything.

If I ran into a couple friends out in a big group I didn’t know I would smile and wave. If I happened to be in close proximity I may make pleasantries and ask how the wine is and if there’s anything they’d recommend ordering for my event. If OP had been friendly maybe she would have been introduced to the group and invited next time. She’ll never be invited now after her little tantrum. And would she really even want an invite given out of some sort of guilt trip?

If OP was my friend, I would have waved her over and asked if she had time to join us for a glass of wine.

That is good manners. Many on this board seemingly have none.

If Queen Bee gets mad and casts me out of the inner circle, then so be it. The rest of the wine mom minions can decide to hang out with and be ruled by a 15-year-old mean girl, in a grown adult's body.

But you wouldn’t have invited your friend in the first place? Ok.

Ah, but I would have. Maybe friend thought OP had been invited. Given the cards dealt, and OP showing up, yes I would have waved and asked her to join the table. It is apparent from the over whelming responses here that many moms on this thread are grown up mean girls. Just own it and stop deflecting onto OP.