NERVOUSLY STANDING outside my four-year-old daughter’s preschool club, I find myself wondering: “When did parenting became so complicated, so competitive — and why do I feel like a little girl standing alone in the playground at my age?”
As a parent, I endeavour to show my daughter a positive social example by smiling and being friendly. Why, then, does the prospect of taking her to playgroup fill me with dread and, worse, an increasing belief that somehow I’m failing in the popular parent stakes? I attempt to ingratiate myself with the other parents but my enthusiastic smiles are inevitably met with a glacial stare. Exclusion from the inner clique has left me confused. How did I arrive at this point?
Diana Reid, a nursery school teacher from Brighton with 15 years’ experience, says: “A pecking order can exist among some mothers. Small groups develop, and some mums feel isolated if they are outside the ‘gang’. Thankfully, children trust their own instincts. They develop friendships because they bond with another child. It’s the mums who feel that their lack of popularity is rubbing off on their child. It’s hard to believe parents bring this kind of playground mentality into their adult lives.”
The aspect that I find most distressing is the idea that my lack of parent peer popularity will somehow reflect on my daughter. I feel a bit of a failure as a person — and, more significantly, as a mother. Somehow I’m not nice enough to fit it.
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Playground cliques thrive on mothers being part of another inner circle. In my case, I feel segregated for that deadliest of parenting sins: producing only one child. All my daughter’s peers have siblings and, through them, have already formed relationships with other children. This means exclusion for me and my daughter. I have no hilarious stories to recount about how my (two or more) children clown around at bathtime, or go horse-riding together.
These mums have a social history. Their children play together and friendships have already been formed. I’m an outsider before I get an opportunity to integrate. Particularly isolating is when the mums talk about meeting up at weekends or after school, sharing cars and making arrangements to pop over for coffee.
The in-crowd’s lives consist of a merry-go-round of their children’s activities to which I’m not considered worthy of an invitation. In the parallel universe of the popular mums, having one child simply doesn’t cut the parental mustard.
“On the whole, children are not as self-conscious as adults,” says Gladeana McMahon, of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. “Children worry only about whether they like someone and get on with them, and will have different friends for different activities.
“Children, before they become aware of the influences of adults, are more engaged in their experiences. However, adults worry about how they will be perceived by others and spend time thinking about where they fit in the hierarchy.”
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As mum to an only child, I find that the most excruciating examples of social exclusion happen at school holiday times. At Christmas last year I started a conversation with another mum about the nursery nativity play. She cut me short, informing me that she didn’t have time to chat. She had to get her three children’s costumes ready, she said. It was OK for me because “you’ve only got the one”.
How to react? “Certain mums,” says Reid, “will go on the offensive. If they are seen as different in some way, they will go over the top to highlight the difference — a kind of rebellious act.” McMahon says: “We bring our own unique personality to the party. If someone is shy, they will find it harder to mingle than someone who may be more extrovert.”
Some psychologists believe that this need to belong dates back to our early origins, when being part of a clan could mean the difference between life and death, and that somehow we still instinctively carry this feeling.
“We all want to be accepted and, when we are not, we feel this very keenly,” says McMahon. “Human beings are pack animals. We need social contact and acceptance from the range of groups we mix with. In this case, it is other mothers”.
It is important for mums to recognise that their children’s social environment is just that: enforced circumstances where individuals are placed together solely for the sake of their kids. Outside the nursery hierarchy, I have good friends and a positive social attitude: it’s most important that my daughter can see that.
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Celebrating my child’s ability to make friends is what matters. Giving her the confidence to feel good about herself and her social skills is what a mother should do — not be consumed with why she isn’t the belle of the (schoolroom) ball.