Mom, don’t be the playgroup Gossip Girl
Kids’ playgroups are teeming with the catty, back-stabbing drama you thought you left behind in high school.
“Women don’t suddenly become nice just because we’ve had kids,” said writer Helaine Olen, 43, in an MSNBC.com report. “If you get a group of 10 women together, chances are there’s going to be one bad seed, and that’s all it takes to destroy the group.”
Olen wrote about the bullies in her playgroup in an essay titled “Mean Moms” in the new anthology, “The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change.”
How can you and the other parents play nice? Experts suggest that playgroups set ground rules at the beginning and stress communication. Parents should join more than one playgroup to see which members’ personalities and styles fit with theirs. If you’re a working mom, it might not be comfortable to join a group whose members are all stay-at-homes.
“Many conflicts result from a lack of understanding,” said Debbie Cole, a regional coordinator for the International MOMS Club. “Once people talk, many times it will work itself out.”
