Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our daughter started preK at a private school last September. We really wrestled with sending her there vs. sending her to public school for many reasons, one of which is that we knew that as parents, we'd fit in way better at public school.

Well, that has turned out to be true. I'm finding it hard to connect and find common ground with other parents in my daughter's class. Many (most) of them are very wealthy, while we are middle class and receive financial aid. Most of the moms don't work, most families don't live in our town, etc. By contrast, we have such a lovely community of parent friends at our preschool (our daughter went there, our younger son is still there), and we're really missing it.

We decided to send her to private school because the education is top-notch and we couldn't pass up that opportunity for our daughter. But I'm wishing that we as parents had more of a community at school. We are friendly/cordial with other parents at school events etc., but I can't really envision socializing with any of the, We're just not finding "our people," and that feels a little lonely/isolating.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing and can share some suggestions or commiseration?

Find your socializing elsewhere. If the school is good for your dd why do you need to get sling with the parents?

Anonymous wrote:My DS started private in MS. I don’t really know the other parents well. It was tough because we started so late in the game. We now know 3 other parents well enough to be comfortable at school events. The rest of the parents are all friendly but it’s more just pleasantries. We don’t socialize with the other parents outside school but my son is very happy there and has made lots of friends. Ultimately his friendships are more important than ours. We have friends from any other places.

Anonymous wrote:It's not about you. Focus on your kid and you'll feel better

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it but can we please stop pitting the "non working parents" on the working ones. I worked my tail off for 16 years after college then married and had a kid later in life. I don't work now as my husband was traveling nonstop until the pandemic hit. Now I'm 52 and can't get a job to save my life (one that is even remotely close to what I did). Please let's just stop judging based on whether someone works or not. The whole wealthy vs not is also old -no one knows what someone else's situation is.

Also, the line between sahp and wohp is blurred more than ever if we are talking about who is in the pickup line. Dh is in the pickup line every day… bc he works from home and his boss is totally fine with him taking calls from the pickup line. He is dressed very casually and indistinguishable from a sahp unless you talk to him.
OP, did your daughter just start this year? Give it some time! We were probably 3/4 through our first year before we felt like we found parents/families we clicked with. And even the ones that we don’t have a ton in common with - we exchange superficial Happy conversation and that is fine too!
We are also a FA family. It truly does not seem to matter.
As others have said, volunteer. Through our kids, we have met other parents in their grades - but through volunteering we have met other parents in other grades. More opportunities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our daughter started preK at a private school last September. We really wrestled with sending her there vs. sending her to public school for many reasons, one of which is that we knew that as parents, we'd fit in way better at public school.

Well, that has turned out to be true. I'm finding it hard to connect and find common ground with other parents in my daughter's class. Many (most) of them are very wealthy, while we are middle class and receive financial aid. Most of the moms don't work, most families don't live in our town, etc. By contrast, we have such a lovely community of parent friends at our preschool (our daughter went there, our younger son is still there), and we're really missing it.

We decided to send her to private school because the education is top-notch and we couldn't pass up that opportunity for our daughter. But I'm wishing that we as parents had more of a community at school. We are friendly/cordial with other parents at school events etc., but I can't really envision socializing with any of the, We're just not finding "our people," and that feels a little lonely/isolating.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing and can share some suggestions or commiseration?

Find your socializing elsewhere. If the school is good for your dd why do you need to get sling with the parents?

Anonymous wrote:Our daughter started preK at a private school last September. We really wrestled with sending her there vs. sending her to public school for many reasons, one of which is that we knew that as parents, we'd fit in way better at public school.

Well, that has turned out to be true. I'm finding it hard to connect and find common ground with other parents in my daughter's class. Many (most) of them are very wealthy, while we are middle class and receive financial aid. Most of the moms don't work, most families don't live in our town, etc. By contrast, we have such a lovely community of parent friends at our preschool (our daughter went there, our younger son is still there), and we're really missing it.

We decided to send her to private school because the education is top-notch and we couldn't pass up that opportunity for our daughter. But I'm wishing that we as parents had more of a community at school. We are friendly/cordial with other parents at school events etc., but I can't really envision socializing with any of the, We're just not finding "our people," and that feels a little lonely/isolating.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing and can share some suggestions or commiseration?

Anonymous wrote:Spike kid may be made up, but the moral of the story is not that off the mark.

We purposefully chose a school cluster that wasn't "wealthy" because of this very issue. We are UMC, but I like to live frugally. My kids don't have the latest gadgets or name brand stuff. They shop at goodwill with their friends.

Even so, some of DC's friends do come from money, and they have really nice stuff, and go on really nice vacations, and DCs don't have that and notice it. They don't complain about it because they have a comfortable life, but imagine if you are the only kid in your group of friends who has never been on a plane, let alone a nice vacation (we have), or shops at Target for their clothes (my kids have done) rather than the name brand stores.

It takes a really strong self aware kid to not mind being the odd one out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask yourself this - if you don't feel like you have much in common with the parents, how do you think your child feels? Do you think she'll fit in/feel comfortable at the school? If these people don't have the same values as you -- perhaps this isn't where your daughter should be.

This +100.

We have financial aid kids in my children’s middle and elementary schools, and these are the hidden issues. There are just too many opportunities for awkward moments and faux pas events with these kids who MIGHT be cognitively “bright” but socially clueless and woefully lacking in emotional and cultural intelligence.

A couple of years ago my son thought he wanted to be friends with this boy in his class. He had a working-class nickname...let’s say it was “Spike” (or something of that ilk”.

My son invited “Spike” to his birthday party. The teacher strongly encouraged parents to invite all kids if invitations were distributed in school, and it was just easier to do so.

We had the party at the club, and Spike’s Mom, an overweight housekeeper at a Days Inn, went on and on about how touched they were and that they’d love to reciprocate and have my son over for KFC. I smiled and said my son has a specific diet that precludes a lot of dining options, and then excused myself to greet other guests.

Spike was one of those overly helpful kids, who doesn’t know what it means to be a guest and thinks somehow his “help” is needed to support the staff we members pay for in our dues . I know it was just a reflection of his discomfort, but that’s exactly why he didn’t really belong in the school no matter how much his cognitive gifts made him a recipient of “aid”.

The end, though, was the kicker. The party is ending and parents, nannies and au pairs are picking up their kids. I don’t mind the domestic childcare people as they are all well-dressed and not doing this as a career. Princess Diana and Elim Nordegren would be dowdy in comparison to some of these sweet young things.

Then Spike’s Dad rolls up. Imagine what a man who names his son “Spike” looks like. Short. Stocky. Work clothes. Steel toed shoes with duct tape (!!!) holding the soles together. Patches on each knee, and another patch on his work jacket. Comes up and thanks me for hosting his son, and babbles about the opportunity his kid is getting that he never got—-forgetting of course that I’M PAYING for that opportunity. Nice.

So he takes Spike and says they “gotta” make one more stop on the way home. At 7:00 PM on a Saturday.
See. Spike, while telling me how the run of the mill club spread was the “BEST meal” he’d ever had, told me dessert sure beat the candy bars in his Dad’s
Vending machines.

That’s right. Spike’s Dad couldn’t get his job done and kept his kid out so he could “hit” one more set of machines.

I’m sure DCUM will get all huffy about how I talk about this boy Spike and his family. But I write this way so you can see just how huge the gulf is.
Spike no more belongs on scholarship in my children’s school than my children do at say Wakefield in Arlington or George Mason in Falls Church. He belongs where he can be a fish in a small pond, not a guppy in the Caribbean. He’s going to be humiliated Day after day as parents don’t let their kids visit his Section 8 apartment in his “transitional” neighborhood, as coaches here ask how he can play basketball without attending camps. And sadly, as beautiful young women inevitably mock him as he clumsily tries to ask them out.

Spike is a sweet, sweet boy...but our school (and his naive parents) are doing him a huge disservice in pretending his natural intelligence and work ethic can somehow compensate for the demoralization that happens when you realize that despite it all, you just don’t belong. We need to get charter schools all throughout the country so the Spikes can find an alternative to public school hellholes without being thrown as malformed babies into an ocean where they will drown psychologically and emotionally.

private school parents would probably much more accepting of these families (being nice to these parents/kids would make them feel good about themselves) than of run of the miller super boring middle class families