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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Im the mom of one boy who had social struggles in early elementary and wasn’t super athletic. I was friendly with some other moms but in general I was taken aback and how cliquish the moms of kids in his grade seemed to be, and felt sort of left out of many things. Then in rolled my second kid with his easy confidence and his superior athleticism and the moms of kids in HIS grade were so surprisingly friendly! We were invited to everything! Everyone was so welcoming! I was added to so many group chats!

I knew better though. If my second kid had been my first kid I would have thought our school was just so welcoming and nice and then I’d have been devastated when my second kid rolled in and we were shut out of stuff in his grade. I also know those moms will drop me as soon as my kid decides he actually doesn’t want to do travel soccer anymore he wants to do the chess club. So I stay above the drama. I recommend it [/quote]

This. I went through this with just one kid. She was the "weird", small, awkward kid who was bad at sports and really limited social skills until 4th grade. She struggled to make friends and the other moms avoided me or talked to me with pity in their voices because they felt bad for us. Then in 4th, DD, who is actually an awesome kid who happened to be socially awkward, started winning every academic award the school offered and the other kids discovered she plays the piano and violin really well. Suddenly the kids liked and respected her and started inviting her to things, and the other moms got much more friendly. But my kid didn't change and neither did I. It's just the way they viewed us changed because they discovered my kid has hidden talents when they'd assumed we were all just losers.

I was never impolite and of course I encouraged my kid to accept those offers of friendship. But I also recognized it all for what it was -- shallow. People tell on themselves every single day.[/quote]

Why is it shallow? Honest question- if my kids aren’t friends with a kid at school, I don’t invite them to play dates and activities.  Just like other families don’t invite my kid to stuff.  But then kids change, become friends with different kids, etc.  So then I would invite someone to that.  [/quote]

It’s completely obvious how shallow it is. I showed up at a new school, I’m cute and my kid is good looking and the mom cohort acted like I was some kind of celebrity welcoming me. Then at the first basketball practice my son is the worst on the team and burst into tears at one point. (I had no idea the other kids would be so skilled or I wouldn’t have encouraged him to join!) After that they acted like I had leprosy. Three years later they completely ignore me.
My second kid is better socially and I’m on all the group chats and invited to everything. [/quote]

To me, it seems perfectly natural that you'd naturally fade from sporty mom clique if your older kid wasn't actually sporty. And a boy randomly crying at open gym is super weird. Sorry, I can see how that would rattle new families. Just being honest.[/quote]

You’re basically defining shallow friendships with this. Your older kid isn’t actually sporty so you immediately get faded out of a group whose sons are sportier. That’s shallow. It has its place- I have plenty of shallow, convenience based friendships of mom friends- but don’t try to pretend it’s a deep friendship as opposed to a shallow one if it is based on what travel sports team one of your kids makes vs doesn’t make.[/quote]

How in the world is it "shallow" for the parents whose kids are in the same activities to bond? It's perfectly natural. This forum is full of loner weirdos.[/quote]
 It isn’t. But it’s shallow if you abandon that friendship as soon as your kids aren’t on the same team anymore. It means you were only friends because your kids were in the same team. Not because you actually bonded and became friends. That’s fine as long as everyone is on the same page! There’s a mom who I sit by at every soccer game who is hilarious and I love sitting by her. But we have not much in common and don’t live near each other and if her kid quit the sport I doubt I’d talk to her again. That’s fine. But it also means we aren’t close friends clearly!![/quote]

The group chats are titled "moms of team x" and you want the group ruined and people's privacy jeopardized so parents with literally no affiliation to the team can lurk in them? And you're taking it personal that you're removed from a group you have literally no ties to (anymore) because... you wanted to keep tabs on them or maybe get jealous and leak screen grabs and gossip? You people are strange. You think you're the FIRST and ONLY parent they've ever displaced after your kid was cut or left the team? This is totally delusional thinking.

It's like trying to join a Nextdoor or private Facebook group of a town or neighborhood you don't live in and getting mad that you can't or were kicked out when it was discovered you don't actually reside there.[/quote]

I think you’re talking about my post about getting deleted from a group chat when my kid got demoted to the second team? If so, the group chat was not titled anything, and it didn’t include the entire team, as I stated. It included just a handful of moms whose kids happened to be on the team- we met due to the team, we all lived within a mile or so of each other, and we all hung out a ton outside of the team. As soon as my kid got demoted, the chat disappeared for me. That means that it was not a true friendship , it means these women just wanted to be “coppermine soccer moms!” together (different club but same idea). I am actually saying there is nothing wrong with that either but that it’s harsh to realize it when it happens to you, that you thought you had a real friend group but in reality it was just a shallow convenience “friend” group, and that I learned to keep sports moms at arms length emotionally with my next kid.

Your rant is weird. [/quote]

To be clear, your kid is literally not on the team and you think you should still be in the player moms' group chat? You are nuts![/quote]

OMG my point is that I didn't realize it was a shallow "player moms group chat" I thought we were all actually friends, who happened to meet at youth soccer for our sons, since we talked about plenty of other things and hung out plenty unrelated to soccer.  With my second kid, I knew better.  It's fine to have a shallow "player moms group chat" that's solely tied to your kid's soccer team.  But that relationship is literally the definition of shallow.  I have no idea how you can argue otherwise.  Shallow is not synonymous with evil or wrong.  It's just shallow. It means it's not deep.  As in, it's going to evaporate into thin air when your kid is no longer on the same soccer team as the other woman's kid.  [/quote]

You’re the one who thought it was deep. How could you not tell the difference?[/quote]

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