I grab my bag, all packed and ready for the day. Throw on my uniform, my internal dialogue raging on spin cycle – “Maybe I should wear my hair this way. Will Emma like me better if I wear the blue shirt or the white?” I’m kinda dreading the before school ritual, played out on the fringes of the quadrangle – “Will Isabel be my friend today? What if she ignores me and I have to walk to class by myself? What if NO-ONE talks to me?”
Then I remember. I am the parent and this is not my school day.
I think as school parents, we share this experience with our kids – the minefield of social belonging. We navigate through their school-hood looking out for them, trying to help them fit in, teaching them how to avoid being bullied and being a bully. But we are also on a similar battlefield as we try to build relationships and find our place with other parents who are, ostensibly, going through the same thing as us.
When Scout started Prep last year, I bonded with a smallish group of mums I’d never set eyes on before (and a couple I had known previously). They were all first-time school parents, either stay at home mums (I had a newborn Inky at the time) or part-time workers, often brutal in their accounts of motherhood, dropping F-bombs liberally, loyal and dependable folks who quickly became the fabric of my school mornings. During drop-off I gravitated towards these women and very quickly the association bled out to after-school get togethers. Importantly, we all made the effort to get to know each other outside pickup and drop off.
Ren is one of the (many) top birds I’ve met through school. Don’t panic. We don’t always look this hot.
Toward the end of the year I committed the cardinal sin of suggesting a camping trip for some of the families, with the understanding that the invitation be extended to “whoever”. Clearly I managed to piss some of the extended group off as it was suggested that I should have included all the prep parents in the initial invitation, leaving no-one out. We are talking about 50 preppies, so 100 parents give or take. In my opinion, this simply wasn’t practical. I had no interest in organising potentially 100 people (worst case scenario) on a camping trip. A picnic in the park, sure, but not a 3 day camping trip.
At about the same time, one of the mums I was close to told me that another of the mums who was not part of this group (she had an older child at school and was already well-versed in schoolyard life) had referred to us in conversation as “the impenetrable clique”. As I consider myself a reasonably empathetic person and not a complete arsehole, this truly horrified me. The criticism did allow me to ruminate (no cow’s jokes, please) on how I was coming across at school (and beyond) and whether the friends I had made were, indeed, a bunch of impenetrably cliquey bitches. The answer was a clear “No”. We were a bunch of friends with a shared outlook, but it wasn’t exclusive by any stretch. Like any friendship group, it swelled at times, it dwindled at times, with the natural rhythm of busy mums whose priorities and work or home timetables change. But it was always mums whose perspectives on parenthood, and life in general, were in sync and, importantly, parents who made the effort to be involved.
And with that, I realised something. You can’t be friends with everyone. I will be kind to people, even if I don’t particularly gel with them, but I won’t be close friends with everyone, in fact, relatively few. I am an extrovert, so am more than happy to chat to whoever (and geez, I love a chat, so spare pity for those parents) but the fact was, the mums in this group were my core people. The ones I had built trust with and with whom I’d made an effort to get to know.
There were plenty of other first-time Prep parents who I really liked and they themselves either congregated into their own little groups of like-mindeds, or were perfectly happy not structuring any kind of social circle around the school (through either choice or availability). There was also the subset of mums who had older kids at school and had already developed their own little groups. I really enjoyed the company of many of these women and caught up with them individually or as part of Playgroup, but I never expected to be part of their tight-knit circle. Theirs was a group that had been cemented over many years. It didn’t mean that they shut me out of conversations, but I definitely got to know them one-on-one as opposed to part of that group. I think there is a natural splintering of larger groups into smaller friendship circles, but it still broke my heart a little that other school mums thought we were shutting them out.
You can’t invite everyone to everything, all the time.
Now Scout is in Grade 1, I’m finding myself developing closer bonds with some mums I wasn’t aware of all that much last year. I’ve also put some distance between myself and the social politics of school, partly through choice, but also because I returned to work part-time in February and I simply wasn’t as available to that group. I think the schoolyard is very much a microcosm of society and it is with that perspective that I will be guiding Scout through the sadness, joy and stickiness of her school friendships.
I think over the past decade or so, there has been a shift towards the educational mantra “all kids should be treated equal”. Whilst I doubt our schools have become communist hotbeds exactly, there is a move away from singling out children as “special” and god forbid a student receives a certificate for something outstanding whilst others miss out. Although I think this has been done with the best of intentions, I don’t necessarily agree with it.
In life, there is hardship as much as there is opportunity and pleasure. There are people who will make fun of you. There are people who you will fall in love with, who won’t love you back. There are people who will want to flush your head down a toilet. Those who will want to snog you behind the shelter sheds at lunchtime. That’s life. I want Scout and Inky to navigate life’s shitstorms as resilient kids/adults and to understand that not everyone will want to be their friend, just as they won’t want to play with kids they don’t have anything in common with. I have my Bully Radar set to a healthy frequency, and will intervene if there is a pattern of bullying or ostracision, but as a parent I’m not altogether concerned if Scout is excluded occasionally from other kid’s games. We will always be her soft place to fall, but I think it is an important lesson for her to learn. We teach her to be kind to other kids (even if she doesn’t like them) but it’s OK if she doesn’t want to play with them. I don’t think friendship should be forced on kids any more than it should be on adults. But for a 6 year old, with all the shades of grey of social interaction, it is a difficult message. Christ, it’s difficult enough for their parents.
From my observations, Scout’s school has an extremely accepting parent community – it’s one of the things I most love about the school. It is a mix of professionals, inner-north fashionistas, artists, musos, students, full-time mums and dads and urban dags, but it’s not nearly as diverse as it was say, 10 years ago. At the risk of generalising, the local demographic has certainly changed and whilst not as homogenous as the eastern suburbs or as alternative as St. Kilda folk, there is a certain similarity in the socioeconomic thrust of the school community. I don’t know if this is the reason for not having experienced any “in” group looking down on the “minions”, but I’m extremely grateful for it.
Not everyone is so lucky, though.
Image credit: M
I’ve heard stories of schools being ruled by a head “clique” – women (usually) who have formed a tight clan, a Mummy Mafia if you will, and literally turn their backs on those not with the “in” crowd and bitch about whoever the fuck they please, behind their backs and/or to their faces. These women are often fairly high up in the School Council hierarchy too, making school life even more unbearable. Grade 5 anyone? I find it a revolting proposition and suspect these parents are missing a vital humility gene – the acceptance that whilst you are not going to be friends with everyone, you can at least try to be kind – even if it is just to make small talk occasionally. It must be awful for parents subjected to this type of treatment to be plummeted smack-bang into their school days, missing out again on getting in with the Cool Crowd, and with it, that coveted school captaincy. I think this breed of “derisive clique” is very different, though, to the natural faction splintering that occurs in a larger group (but then, perhaps I was never meant to be a Sociology major).
My friend “S”, who lives a happy, hippy lifestyle, has a daughter who goes to a school in a wealthy eastern-suburb. ”S” doesn’t perceive the cliqueness as intentional, but does notice a real difference between her and the more typical and fashionable “mums that lunch”. ”S” is a person very comfortable in her own skin, so whilst she is aware of the difference, I doubt she’s really bothered by it. Similarly, another friend, “N”, reckons that the ‘clique’ at her school is often superficial with no genuine connection apart from availability. Availability seems key here – parents who work outside the home often find it difficult to make time for other parents. But working less is not always an option.
I also think when we walk into school at the beginning of the day, we can battle with the nagging 10 year old “us” trapped in our psyche that whines, “You’re not COOL enough. No-one is going to LIKE you. Why did you wear the BROOCH when all the cool people are wearing HEADBANDS you IDIOT“, but I’ve no doubt that every other parent is thinking the same thing (unless, of course, you’re Miranda Kerr, but we’ve already established that she’s probably not human). That being said, differences will always exist between people and we will be attracted to those coming from a similar place. If that place is one of bitchy exclusivity, then that is one choice. I have no interest in being a part of that crowd and am not likely to respect those in it, but that is my choice. In my opinion, a clique is only as powerful as those not in the clique make it. As parents, I don’t think we need to be scared of them. I think ultimately we all have the desire to belong, but we also need to make the effort to belong to the right people for us.
Image credit: erg0
On one hand, we should perhaps ignore the inner “us” telling us we won’t fit in, but also remember that everything that awkward whippersnapper experienced in the playground 30 years ago, good and bad, has made us who we are today (sorry for the cliche – I just did a little self-inflicted vomit in my mouth).
And if all else fails, we can leave the grounds at 9.00.
Have you experienced cliquey behaviour at your school or been accused of being cliquey yourself?
Wow Kim, you just scared the bejeezus out of me – perhaps I’ll get hubby to do the school drop-off/pickup !!
Shit, sorry love – that was not my intention! The main message was meant to be that everything will be OK – you’ll make friends who are similar to you (if you are interested, some people aren’t!) – it happens pretty naturally, I think.
It depends on the school, too, though – I think the genuine “Mean Girls” cliques are pretty few and far between (at least I hope so!)
Kx
I avoid cliquey behaviour like the plague. Excluding people is uncool, whether its amongst adults or children.
Although, I must say, a 3 day camping trip for 100 parents…seriously?
Hi Grace – I agree with you to a point, but does that mean you are going to invite everyone to everything? At what point does it become about your friends and not “everyone”. I think there are shades of grey here. Does it mean you have to invite the whole class to your child’s birthday if you can only afford to invite, say, 5? Or all the parents to your birthday party if you’re only friends with a few? I think if we’re talking about adults in the schoolyard, then yes, no exclusion on school grounds, but outside of school?
For the record, I don’t believe in the “excluding part” of the definition of clique, but the “group of close friends with shared interests” definitely. How is the schoolyard any different from, say, your Church (don’t go to Church, but there are people who do) or a sporting group or any larger group that you are a part of? Don’t people naturally form smaller groups of tighter knit friends from a larger group?
I’m genuinely interested in discourse around this as I think it’s an issue for a lot of people. I don’t consider myself cliquey, but clearly other people have done so in the past. This breaks my heart a little bit because I don’t want to leave anyone out, I don’t want anyone to feel excluded, but I only have energy to invest in those people I really adore. Be civil and kind to everyone at school, absolutely, but in terms of outside of school, then my attention will go to my close “friends”.
Completely agree!
Hi there, new to your blog from DP. I loved this post, beautifully written and I was nodding along! I also have a grade oner and am honestly too busy juggling three kids or often too scattered to even become part of a cliche!
Hi Bron. Yep, the more kids, the less time for fraternisation! Glad you liked the post! Kx
Great post. I’m an introvert who who isn’t a big fan of drop off and pick up but I’m at the stage where my kids are old enough to see themselves into school so I only have to do pick up. I always try and get there at the very last minute because sometimes my favourite people don’t pick their kids up due to work or whatever. I’m an accidental tourist in a wealthy area and it’s all about renovations and who’s getting the latest pool – not at all within our realm because this stuff isn’t important to me. However, they’re still lovely people. I think, on the whole, everyone is nice and while some may look “cliquey” it’s just that they’re comfortable with the people they’re talking to and that’s okay.
Thanks, Lisa. I absolutely agree – we mix in the circles we are most comfortable with, be they “exclusive” or otherwise and that’s totally cool. I don’t always think those who appear cliquey are doing it on purpose (although I have no doubt that a minority are). Glad you liked the post! Kx
Oh boy. I’m not looking forward to this minefield when my eldest starts school next year. I’ve heard stories that the school pick up is a fashion contest in various parts of Sydney and that there is a real clique mentality amongst parents at some of the elite private schools. I’m hoping this isn’t the case at our humble local public school.
Mumabulous, I do tend to think that the demographic of a school does colour the tone of the groups/cliques. Scout goes to a public school (private schools are thin on the ground in our area, not that I’d send her to one anyway). This is a massive generalisation, but I daresay the snoot factor is much worse at private schools. You should move to Melbourne, we are much friendlier
.
I found the cliquiness is more limited to the kindy mums (which I guess i where the friendships are formed). I tend to hang out with the mums of my oldest child and am less worried about making firm friends with my younger boys. I too am friendly with everyone, but so cant be bothered with any politics. The sad thing is some poor woman get so anxious about it that it ruins the experience for them as a mum of a child at school.
Its a tough one to navigate isnt it? A smile and some friendly schoolyard convo can go a long way to making the whole scene happier for everyone.
Glad I found your blog today.. Fabulous first post to discover you by
xx
Hi Sonia – I think it does come down to personality – if you are an anxious type, you are probably going to be harder on yourself/your school experience than, say, a more laid-back person who will take things as they come and not take it too personally if they are snubbed (accidentally or otherwise).
Scout went to Kindy at her childcare so there was no “group” as such because there was no “end-time” thus no congregation of parents waiting to collect their kids. I met some top birds at the childcare though, but they were “individual” friends, not a group as such. I’ll probably sent Inky to sessional Kinder, so will be interesting to see how it all works on a social level there. Happy days!
I love your blog by the way – one of those that I keep coming back to!
Kx
Hi there Kimberley.
Great to meet you from the DP site.
Your words are a refreshing source of matters parental & school-related.
I blog about topics such as yours & offer help to groups of families outside the blog.
As a school principal & teacher I am very aware of the “playground or car park” mums/Marfia – in a joking way and in the menacing way.
In your version of what happened to you at your school I was impressed by the way your wrote of the evolution of the group and the natural changes via people moving in & out. What I liked most, from the school side of the debate, was how you spoke of the valuable lesson of resilience you are teaching your kids.
Great stuff! Loved this. Denyse
Thanks Denyse! I really think resilience is the best thing we can teach our kids, and we don’t even teach it per se! We just talk them through life’s shitstorms and they learn it for themselves. But as parents, I think we have to allow them to make those mistakes.
I’m glad you liked the post – it was something I felt like I really had to write. The sociology of the School Mums really does fascinate me.
It was very interesting to hear your views as a school principal and teacher – as a parent I do wonder sometimes whether my approach to parenting my girls is on point. I think it is, particularly in terms of the resilience issue, but I’m always happy to hear other points of view, as you never know what will resonate! I call myself a bit of a “Submarine” parent – the opposite of a “Helicopter” parent – I’m happy to let my girls make their own mistakes and learn from them (while still being their soft place to fall).
Kim
Hi Kimberely,
I hope being a Brit living in NYC doesn’t stop me from joining in! I loved your post it really hit the nail on the head for me – I’ve really been feeling the clique vibe at my daughters school. It’s in a trendy part of Brooklyn everyone’s in finance, media, publishing or they have so much money they have nothing better to do than form a clique that excludes everyone except for people who look and sound like them. Am struggling with it if I’m honest but I tend to do what Lisa B does and turn up at the last possible minute to drop off/pick up. What’s happened to you all? You’ve all gone quiet!! More please.
Angela
Hi Ange – thanks!
Of course it doesn’t preclude you from joining in – please do! I’m fascinated to hear what goes on in other countries (you could write a guest post!).
Kx
This was a great post. Although I still have a little while to go ’till my son is in prep (he’s only 1) I am really looking forward to meeting new parents as in life it is these experience where you make the best of friends with people who have things in common. I have not remained friends with anyone from school like my husband has, I have met my good friends along the way through work and so on and I can’t wait to meet new people through school. I too am not the type to be friends with everybody and really have to ‘click’ with someone before I can really open up. I think it’s wonderful what you have found in these other mums and I look forward to hopefully experiencing the same one day.
Kimberley Funny post and food for thought. Found you on FYBF. I’m about to be a school mum and am really not looking forward to any of the above mentioned. I also worry for my daughter if I don’t bond with other kid’s mums and she misses out. And I won’t even get started on my worries for her not having friends to play with! Emily
YOU ALWAYS CRACK ME UP BABE!!! Classic post and thanks for sharing, you’re right! You’ll always have your haters and those like minded women who will forever boost you and likewise support and compliment at all times. I prefer the latter and always, always am kind especially to new Mums in the playground as I know what it feels like coming to a new place.
Thanks for a great post! Even though I don’t write often, love coming here to visit xx Dani
Hi lovely, back again!
I love the line” a clique is only as powerful as those not in the clique make it”
Why didn’t I know this back at high school ? Love your work, hon x
No you can’t be friends with everyone but what you must remember is that your friendship group, or clique or whatever you want to call it also impacts on the children. I am in the position of being new to a school last year and some of the tighter mummy groups are definitely reflecting on my daughter’s ability to bond with their children. As a result she rarely gets invited to parties because the mummies are inviting the children of their mummy social group, even when those children don’t actually play together much at school. Organising a camping trip for 2 or 3 families is no problem however if you managed to organise it for say 10 or 15 families with others never receiving an invitation, then I do have a problem with that.
Hi Tania,
I definitely take this on board. It’s why I haven’t organised a camping trip ever again. It’s just too much to invite everybody, and not everyone is going to get along also!
Scout is well socialised. I have no agenda when it comes to her and her friendships. My close friends at school generally have boys and Scout is rarely invited to their birthday parties. I have no problem with that. Her friends are mostly those with whom I know their parents, but I’m not close with them. As an adult with no family in this city, I rely on the support of my friends – I’m entitled to a friendship group just as everyone is. I simply don’t understand why people have a problem with it, to be honest.
I’ve never considered myself cliquey but I really did look at myself after this whole experience. I guess our school doesn’t have much of a problem with exclusivity. And I’m simply not going to be friends with everyone – I don’t have enough time or energy to do so. An all-inclusive world is definitely the ideal, but it doesn’t always work that way in reality.
I guess my question is – why is organising a camping trip for 3 families different to organising one for 15?
Kim