How do you handle divisive parents working their own social agenda and cutting out our child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am happy to say that in all my 23 years of parenting five children in at least ten schools across the country, I have never come across a "divisive parent working their own social agenda". Ever. Why would you place your child in an environment like that?

That's only because you've lived with you head stuck up up your ass for the past 23 year seeing how much wonderful intestinal fortitude you have. It sounds like a small closed minded, dark and binding world in which you live.

To the OP, of course it actually happens all the time. Small children don't make play dates - it's parents who make the play dates. Parents are the ones who either exclude or allow children to be excluded. As human beings they suck and as parents they are even suckier. In the short-term you and your child are hurt, but at the same time you are building self-reliance. Many of these families who seem soooooo very popular in 4th grade are awkward and clueless as to how they lost there cuteness and popularity by 11th and 12th grade. Many families who practice exclusion when their children are small find themselves awkward, lonely, and clueless before the end of high school. Just be the best parent and friend you can be and you'll both be okay.

As for the PP, get your head surgically removed from your ass, see the world in its correct light, smell the coffee for a change and start giving honest advice.

OMG, you idiot ! The PP above was being ironic. You don't live in Washington , do you? Stop bridge and tunneling it on this forum.

[Anonymous]

OP, sorry to hear about your DC's troubles. It is so hard for all of us as parents to see our children suffer. I think you should just focus on finding 1-2 nice kids for your DC to build relationships with outside of class. Your DC will probably have mentioned at least 1-2 kids that he/she likes! Honestly, how many playdates can a child have in a week or even month? We have three DCs and really don't plan many playdates because we really like our family time free of external commitments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

New poster. I actually have had multiple children in local private schools for several years. I've met some parents that I consider mildly annoying and many I truly enjoy. But no, I've never seen outrageous behavior of the sort you seem to be describing here.

Now you'll probably accuse me of being a "knee-jerk defender" or tell me to "get my head out of my ass," simply because I don't agree with you. I suppose that's your right. But in my experience, this story you're trying to tell -- about how most private schools are snake pits of intrigue and backstabbing -- is fiction.

Maybe I've just been lucky enough to have missed it, or maybe what you're describing is standard procedure at some schools, but not at others. In any event, your suggestion that such ugliness is commonplace among all private school parents at all schools is simply not true.

I would say that you either aren't very perceptive to very subtle interactions and emotions (some people aren't and do miss these kind of things) or you were lucky to never be on the receiving end of such behavior.

In our K-8, there was a child my DD and her wanted to have playdates many times. I couldn't stand the mother and she couldn't stand me. The result was no playdates despite our children asking and obviously being friends in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our K-8, there was a child my DD and her wanted to have playdates many times. I couldn't stand the mother and she couldn't stand me. The result was no playdates despite our children asking and obviously being friends in school.

So how does that situation relate to this discussion? Are you saying you yourself are a "divisive parent who works her own social agenda to cut out other children"? I sort of doubt that's what you really mean, but that's what it sounds like you're saying here.

I'll let you speak for yourself, but I suspect that what you are really saying is that you simply don't like the other mother for some perfectly rational reason, and so you discourage the children from spending time together outside of school. If that's the situation, then I've got no dispute with you. You present one perfect example of why people should not assume that just because a particular parent doesn't invite a child to a playdate, that doesn't mean there is some social-climbing plot behind it.

My whole problem with most of the complaints here is that they're based on posters making assumptions about what other parents are secretly thinking. In my experience, most people (including me) are terrible at intuiting what other people are thinking or what motivates other people's actions.

[Anonymous]

OP-- totally empathize! My NoVa public school bus stop was the gathering point for my kids' public school's queen bee moms and they were awful. I alternately worried that my kids had provoked something with their peers and blamed myself that the queen bees excluded my older child because I didn't fit in. Of 12 families I was 1 of 2 who didn't linger at the bus stop but instead went to work afterwards. I made small talk but just had no contributions to conversations regarding highlights and Botox which were group concerns so found myself talking to the dads about politics and the law which of course made the queen bees roll their eyes. I let them win and just started driving the kids to school. The kids choose different friends anyway and the mean moms could not hover over middle school relationships and the kids developed great relationships. I was so worried that the mean moms attempts to ostracize my DS (one tried to exclude my DS from cub scouts- another mom called me to tell me thee Cub Scout leaders wife was making a point of specifically naming and explaining which boys should be excluded because they were too loud etc) but I have come to learn that the mean moms were ostracizing themselves from the people who would become my closest friends. So, my advice is that it gets better and that it is OK to take yourself out of the game.

[Anonymous]

9:21 again. I'm just comparing my last paragraph ...

My whole problem with most of the complaints here is that they're based on posters making assumptions about what other parents are secretly thinking. In my experience, most people (including me) are terrible at intuiting what other people are thinking or what motivates other people's actions.

... against your first paragraph ...

I would say that you either aren't very perceptive to very subtle interactions and emotions (some people aren't and do miss these kind of things) or you were lucky to never be on the receiving end of such behavior.

... and realizing that difference in viewpoint is probably the crux of our disagreement here. You think I'm not sensitive enough to perceive the social slights going on around me, and I think you're so overly sensitive that you're often perceiving slights where none exist. Maybe people are secretly shunning me and my child all the time, and I'm just too stupid to realize it. Or maybe you're imagining all sorts of drama. I doubt we're ever agree on which of us has a better view on reality.

Maybe we each can discuss it with a close friend or therapist. Good day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:21 again. I'm just comparing my last paragraph ...

My whole problem with most of the complaints here is that they're based on posters making assumptions about what other parents are secretly thinking. In my experience, most people (including me) are terrible at intuiting what other people are thinking or what motivates other people's actions.

... against your first paragraph ...

I would say that you either aren't very perceptive to very subtle interactions and emotions (some people aren't and do miss these kind of things) or you were lucky to never be on the receiving end of such behavior.

... and realizing that difference in viewpoint is probably the crux of our disagreement here. You think I'm not sensitive enough to perceive the social slights going on around me, and I think you're so overly sensitive that you're often perceiving slights where none exist. Maybe people are secretly shunning me and my child all the time, and I'm just too stupid to realize it. Or maybe you're imagining all sorts of drama. I doubt we're ever agree on which of us has a better view on reality.

Maybe we each can discuss it with a close friend or therapist. Good day.

Different PP here. You seem to want to dismiss ALL THE OTHER POSTERS' experiences as drama, hypersensitivity, or some nefarious but vague plot to put private schools in a bad light.

Read the thread, there are LOTS of other posters here saying they empathize with OP, either because it happened to them, or because they can certainly imagine it happening to someone else. Yet you keep focussing on the one poster above (not me) and suggesting she needs therapy. Why??

[Anonymous]

When someone recognizes themselves and their cruelty to children they cry crazy or needs therapy. One more weapon in their bag of tricks. I think, pick on someone your own size, moms!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-- totally empathize! My NoVa public school bus stop was the gathering point for my kids' public school's queen bee moms and they were awful. I alternately worried that my kids had provoked something with their peers and blamed myself that the queen bees excluded my older child because I didn't fit in. Of 12 families I was 1 of 2 who didn't linger at the bus stop but instead went to work afterwards. I made small talk but just had no contributions to conversations regarding highlights and Botox which were group concerns so found myself talking to the dads about politics and the law which of course made the queen bees roll their eyes. I let them win and just started driving the kids to school. The kids choose different friends anyway and the mean moms could not hover over middle school relationships and the kids developed great relationships. I was so worried that the mean moms attempts to ostracize my DS (one tried to exclude my DS from cub scouts- another mom called me to tell me thee Cub Scout leaders wife was making a point of specifically naming and explaining which boys should be excluded because they were too loud etc) but I have come to learn that the mean moms were ostracizing themselves from the people who would become my closest friends. So, my advice is that it gets better and that it is OK to take yourself out of the game.

This seems really, really fake! In a sad but hilarious way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-- totally empathize! My NoVa public school bus stop was the gathering point for my kids' public school's queen bee moms and they were awful. I alternately worried that my kids had provoked something with their peers and blamed myself that the queen bees excluded my older child because I didn't fit in. Of 12 families I was 1 of 2 who didn't linger at the bus stop but instead went to work afterwards. I made small talk but just had no contributions to conversations regarding highlights and Botox which were group concerns so found myself talking to the dads about politics and the law which of course made the queen bees roll their eyes. I let them win and just started driving the kids to school. The kids choose different friends anyway and the mean moms could not hover over middle school relationships and the kids developed great relationships. I was so worried that the mean moms attempts to ostracize my DS (one tried to exclude my DS from cub scouts- another mom called me to tell me thee Cub Scout leaders wife was making a point of specifically naming and explaining which boys should be excluded because they were too loud etc) but I have come to learn that the mean moms were ostracizing themselves from the people who would become my closest friends. So, my advice is that it gets better and that it is OK to take yourself out of the game.

This seems really, really fake! In a sad but hilarious way.

[Anonymous]

Hilarious, yes! Fake, not so much... Welcome to Jamestown ES where mean moms match their hair color to their DDs. You have to live it to believe it! I am sure I am just jealous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-- totally empathize! My NoVa public school bus stop was the gathering point for my kids' public school's queen bee moms and they were awful. I alternately worried that my kids had provoked something with their peers and blamed myself that the queen bees excluded my older child because I didn't fit in. Of 12 families I was 1 of 2 who didn't linger at the bus stop but instead went to work afterwards. I made small talk but just had no contributions to conversations regarding highlights and Botox which were group concerns so found myself talking to the dads about politics and the law which of course made the queen bees roll their eyes. I let them win and just started driving the kids to school. The kids choose different friends anyway and the mean moms could not hover over middle school relationships and the kids developed great relationships. I was so worried that the mean moms attempts to ostracize my DS (one tried to exclude my DS from cub scouts- another mom called me to tell me thee Cub Scout leaders wife was making a point of specifically naming and explaining which boys should be excluded because they were too loud etc) but I have come to learn that the mean moms were ostracizing themselves from the people who would become my closest friends. So, my advice is that it gets better and that it is OK to take yourself out of the game.

It's the bus stop, and it's called "small talk" and "polite conversation". If I don't know you, I'm not going to sit around and discuss "politics and the law". There is no reason for your child to be excluded from scouting. Start your own den/troop. I find that there are far more children interested than there are adults willing to lead in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hilarious, yes! Fake, not so much... Welcome to Jamestown ES where mean moms match their hair color to their DDs. You have to live it to believe it! I am sure I am just jealous.

So at Jamestown, out of a dozen families at this bus stop, you say there are only 1-2 familues without a SAH parent and so need to leave for work, which means the many dads you say frequent this bus stop must be SAH? And the moms are running Cub Scouts not all these SAH dads? And while my DD did Girl Scouts at her private school, using a private school classroom in a troop composed of other kids in this private school, that's not how it generally works with troops of public school kids who meet at a church or community center rather than at the public school. And the fact that some of the moms die their hair doesn't scream "I am my DD" to me. I could go on. The post just seems off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our K-8, there was a child my DD and her wanted to have playdates many times. I couldn't stand the mother and she couldn't stand me. The result was no playdates despite our children asking and obviously being friends in school.

So how does that situation relate to this discussion? Are you saying you yourself are a "divisive parent who works her own social agenda to cut out other children"? I sort of doubt that's what you really mean, but that's what it sounds like you're saying here.

I'll let you speak for yourself, but I suspect that what you are really saying is that you simply don't like the other mother for some perfectly rational reason, and so you discourage the children from spending time together outside of school. If that's the situation, then I've got no dispute with you. You present one perfect example of why people should not assume that just because a particular parent doesn't invite a child to a playdate, that doesn't mean there is some social-climbing plot behind it.

My whole problem with most of the complaints here is that they're based on posters making assumptions about what other parents are secretly thinking. In my experience, most people (including me) are terrible at intuiting what other people are thinking or what motivates other people's actions.

Let me be more specific - the other mother didn't like me because I worked and she only wanted her child around the SAHM and families as they were the better families in her opinion.

As a working mom, I didn't want my kid around her because she was a SAHM and I felt she wasn't one of the better families in my opinion.

Does that clarify it for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our K-8, there was a child my DD and her wanted to have playdates many times. I couldn't stand the mother and she couldn't stand me. The result was no playdates despite our children asking and obviously being friends in school.

So how does that situation relate to this discussion? Are you saying you yourself are a "divisive parent who works her own social agenda to cut out other children"? I sort of doubt that's what you really mean, but that's what it sounds like you're saying here.

I'll let you speak for yourself, but I suspect that what you are really saying is that you simply don't like the other mother for some perfectly rational reason, and so you discourage the children from spending time together outside of school. If that's the situation, then I've got no dispute with you. You present one perfect example of why people should not assume that just because a particular parent doesn't invite a child to a playdate, that doesn't mean there is some social-climbing plot behind it.

My whole problem with most of the complaints here is that they're based on posters making assumptions about what other parents are secretly thinking. In my experience, most people (including me) are terrible at intuiting what other people are thinking or what motivates other people's actions.

Let me be more specific - the other mother didn't like me because I worked and she only wanted her child around the SAHM and families as they were the better families in her opinion.

As a working mom, I didn't want my kid around her because she was a SAHM and I felt she wasn't one of the better families in my opinion.

Does that clarify it for you?

Yes, I have quite a clear picture of you now!