If you’ve experienced mean mom groups, mom drama, cliques, gossip, rumors, and nastiness, you’re not alone (and you’re not imagining it). Today’s episode is an honest conversation with my friend Danielle about these topics, as well as some loving, kind ways that we can support each other as moms.

You’ll Learn:

1. Similarities between matrescence, motherhood, and adolescence
2. How insecurity shows up as “mean mom” behavior
3. Why I didn’t feel like I fit in with other moms
4. A personal story about mom drama and feeling left out
5. How to bring more kindness to other moms

We're all trying to figure it out. The more kindness we have for ourselves, the more compassion we can have for others.

-------------------------------

Danielle and I raised our kids alongside each other. We were in the same elementary school and community, but we also had different friend groups and different experiences. She is one of my favorite people to talk to about motherhood, so I’m so excited she’s here.

Experiences of Matrescence

Every woman in motherhood is going through some stage of matrescence - the process of becoming a mother.

During this transformational time, we tend to experience a lot of the same insecurity, confusion, and overwhelm that we felt in adolescence.

Maybe you’ve felt insecure or confused. Or thought:

1. I don't know who I am anymore.
2. I don't know who my people are.
3. I don't know where I fit.
4. I don't know if I belong.

These are all super common during matrescence. Plus, once you think you’ve started to figure things out, everything changes as your child moves through stages of infancy, toddlerhood, preschool, elementary, high school, and beyond.

Mom Drama

When you’re going through matrescence, you’re also likely surrounded by other women who are also going through this transition. When you put a group of moms together, those insecurities can show up as immaturity and drama.

And just as teen girls stir up drama because they’re insecure and not sure when they fit in, moms act out their insecurities in a similar way. Particularly when their kids are around early elementary age.

When your kids are in preschool, it’s like you’re at war together. You’re sharing stories and struggles, comparing behaviors, and just trying to figure out how to get through it. It’s a very physical time in parenting. You’re picking them up, putting them down, dealing with sleep issues and potty training. It’s a daily battle, and you’re exhausted.

Once your kid is out of diapers and strollers and is off to school, there’s a shift from physical parenting to emotional parenting. You start to look around and wonder, “Am I doing this right?”

This is the stage when we tend to see “mean mom” behaviors that are driven by insecurity, fear, and the desire to fit in.

Belonging

The preschool years are short. You may connect with other moms mainly in the drop-off or pickup line, and you know that in a year or two, kids will be heading in different directions and to different schools.

During the elementary years, you might start looking for longtime friends, knowing that your kids will be in school together for the next 6 or 8 or 12 years.

Now, you’re looking at other moms and asking yourself, “Are these the people we want to spend time with?” “What group am I going to be in?” You want to make sure that you and your kids are in with the “right” families and groups.

What often happens then is that the insecurity of wanting to set our kids up for success and make sure we’re in the right group lends itself to observing, judging, and criticizing other moms. Then you get into comparison. And then you get into gossip.

Fear

Danielle brought up a fear moms have of a “bad kid” rubbing off on their child. Especially if your kid is slightly divergent or working through emotional regulation issues, people tend to run away. It’s like behavioral issues are contagious. There isn’t a lot of grace extended in those early years.

It’s a fear not only of their kid behaving badly but also insecurity around the parent’s ability to handle that behavior. Moms think, “I don’t even know how to parent that, so I’m just gonna avoid it.”

Judgment

Many people also have the belief that your kid and their behavior is a reflection of you as a parent. So, when someone sees a child behaving badly, they might jump to the conclusion that the mom is a terrible parent.

At this young stage of parenting, everybody is blaming everybody. Everyone's judging everybody.

There’s this idea that if there’s misbehavior, something has gone wrong. Or if your child has emotional pain, it’s the parent’s fault.

Danielle points out that, “we’ve created a culture where we recognize that kids go through painful experiences. They have a lot of emotions and sometimes they're really big and sometimes they lead to behavior that isn't great. And we've done a great job of creating language around that and acknowledging that that happens to children. But we haven't gotten past the fact that all of that obviously lies at the feet of the parent. Every child's outburst, every child's pain, every child's misbehavior, every child's tantrum is because the parent is doing a bad job.”

Cliques

All of these factors can sometimes lead to cliques and excluding other families. It can lead to a mean-girl mentality.

When one of my sons was in kindergarten, I had the experience of being pushed out of a mom group. I felt like I was in high school, being excluded. It was so painful. And as I've talked about this story with other moms, they have shared with me similar things that have happened.

Finding Compassion for Moms

I want to offer a new lens for all of this. Other women are going through this matrescence transformation, too. They’re trying to figure it out, too. Everyone is really scared. We all want our kids to be okay, and we don’t want to mess them up.

But hurting other women in the process - gossiping, spreading rumors, judging, criticizing, shaming, and blaming - is not the way to do it.

We can make decisions that work for our children without being cliquey.

We don't have to act like teenage girls and talk a bunch of shit and exclude people.

If we can build a little more awareness, it might avoid people getting hurt.

Danielle adds that operating from fear and exclusivity is detrimental. You get less perspective and understanding. It actually goes against the goals we have for our kids. Encouraging people to be more inclusive will enrich their lives and the lives of their children in ways they probably can’t foresee. This is how we build empathy.

Model your values

Bullying has been at the forefront again lately. There’s been a good effort to teach kids about bullying, including creating the “buddy bench”, where kids can sit if they need a friend.

What’s the point of these efforts if kids then hear moms bullying each other at home?

We know it isn’t possible to invite everyone to everything all the time.

But what about the mom who’s struggling, feeling lonely and isolated? Where’s her buddy bench?

You don’t have to become best friends or invite her to every single moms’ night out. But we can still be lovely and kind to each other. We can not talk shit and refuse to be a part of the rumor mill.

Danielle said it beautifully:

If we don't want kids to be bullied…

If we don't want our kids to be the bullies…

If we want our kids to feel that they're growing up in a safe community…

WE have to demonstrate that.

We're all in some stage of motherhood and matrescence. We're all trying to figure it out. The more kindness we have for ourselves, the more compassion we can have for others.

Previous Episode:

1. Episode 2.13 - Matrescence with Dr. Angele Close

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Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host, I'm Darlene Childress,

and this episode might be a bit of a rant

because I recognized as we have

been talking about matrescence on the podcast that this

feeling that comes in matrescence, this, uh,

transformational transitional time is likened

to adolescence, and the insecurity and the

transition and the confusion and the overwhelm that comes

in adolescence often is mimicked in matrescence.

It's a period of time where you're on shifting sand. You don't know who you

are, you don't know where you fit, you don't know who you're

becoming. And I recognize that as

that happens for women, like a mom,

it's also happening in her peer group. And I wanted to have a conversation

about about how your peer group, the other

moms around you might be going through their

own period of matrescence and how they might be acting in

ways that feel like high school, that feel immature, that feel like teen drama,

that feel just like very dramatic and how this often

happens in matrescence and in early motherhood.

So I invited my friend Danielle onto the podcast so we could just talk about

it and normalize that mom

cliques exist, that there's a lot of mama drama

going on, especially in elementary school, a lot of

gossip, rumors, you know,

just nastiness. And I

wanted to address that on the podcast and have a conversation about it so that

you don't feel like you're going insane if it's happening to you. And

also just kind of a word of wisdom to all of us that

are moms and some ways that we can support each other and be more

loving and kind. So listen into this conversation with my good

friend Danielle. Hi.

Hi, how are you? Okay.

Are you ready? Yeah, this is fun. It

is fun. Okay, I'll just start. Okay.

Okay, welcome Danielle to Become a Calm Mom podcast. You've been

on here before. Hi, Dar. It's always nice to be on this with

you. Yeah. Um, okay, so I called

you today because I had just finished an interview

with Dr. Angel Close, and I talked to her about

matrescence, which is a word I had never heard before,

right? So I'm going to define it for you. And

okay, I— what I wanted to talk to you about is Mom

Clix and other bullshit, right? Essentially,

which is what I decided to title this episode. And

I was like, who do I want to talk about this with? And I thought

of you because we sort of raised our kids

adjacent to each other. Like, our— we were in the same elementary

school and, you know, same community, but

had different experiences and different friend groups, but we, you know, crossed over.

Right. And so I was like, okay, I

know you would have some opinions about

women moms in these earlier

stages of parenting, like a little bit in

preschool, but really kind of early elementary school, the dynamic

between moms, like kinder through 3rd

grade and how— yeah, yeah. How you find your people. At

school. Yes. And kind of

all of like, there's a ton of energy and drama

and emotion in that period of time when

you're like, I think it, it was so—

matrescence is this idea

that becoming a mom and being in

motherhood is a transition that you are going through an

identity shift and a transition where

you're letting go parts of yourself from the past and

finding out who you are now that you're a parent. Sure. And

it's likened to adolescence.

Hmm. So it's kind of like, you know, how when you're an adolescent, you start

as a child and then you end up as an adult in that

period of time, which is roughly like 10 years or whatever.

And your body goes through huge changes, your

identity shifts, like you find out who you are, you know, that's what

it's true of adolescence. And in some— yeah, it's

all trial by fire for sure. Yes, like you

just, you just get thrown into this new stage of

life as an adolescent, and then you're like,

you just go through it. It's, it's typically

tumultuous, right? Right. And

you come out on the other side an adult, a different person. Like, you know,

you're no longer a child. And when with matrescence, it's

similar in that you start out without having a child, and then you go through

a process, and then you are a mother. And that isn't,

you know, there's that postpartum period, but then there's the actual

longer period of time where you're in like an identity shift. And as

a mom, and I think you can relate to this, it's like

that in matrescence, it's not really defined, like,

is it in terms of a time period? When I

was reading about it, it's like there's kind of this emerging

matrescence and then middle, middle

matrescence and then late matrescence. So kind of these stages of

motherhood really makes a lot of sense. Yeah, right. Like

you're kind of in this process. It's kind of like as soon as you figure

out this version of motherhood, it kind of shifts on you because the

kids change, but you change alongside. So you're kind of always in

this metamorphosis. And

anyway, so I was thinking, so I finished the

interview with Angelle, and when I had

read her book called Unburdening

Motherhood, where she introduced this topic to me, this concept of matrescence, which

I've always thought of as motherhood. That's right, right, right around it.

Um, but while I was think reading it,

I was thinking about how my own personal

story of becoming a mom and like what I learned about myself

in those early years and, and insecurity I felt and

the confusion and over— I had, you know, just like,

just like my adolescence, like my matrescence was also, you know, Sure,

sure. Um, which I think we can

all relate to, but I was thinking about how other women

are also going through matrescence. Well, every woman

in motherhood is going through it. Yeah. And I started to think

about how they were— I'm going

through this massive transition, I'm insecure, I'm

confused, I don't know who I am

anymore. I don't know who my people are. I don't know where I

fit. I don't know if I belong, especially as an adoptive mom,

because I always kind of had like the— I came through the back door to

motherhood. So all the swap, right, pregnancy and war

stories, right, right, right, right, right. So I kind of— and I'm a

naturally, uh, I'm a person who naturally doesn't think that they

belong in any group, so I had brought all that with me.

Sure. And, and so

I was just thinking about how if I'm

feeling— I didn't think about this back then, this is why I wanted to talk

to you about it— but if I was feeling

insecure and confused and not sure

who I was, all the women that I was

around in that period of time were also going

through the same thing. Yeah, of course.

But we don't identify because we don't have this word matrescence. We're

not looking around and being like, well, they're also a teenager, or—

Right. I was thinking while you were defining it and you said, well, I've always

just thought of that as motherhood, but it actually is

helpful to have more language and more

vocabulary about the experience of

motherhood. The phases of it, the things we go

through as people,

um, as we mother, right? I mean, whatever that version of

mothering is for you, to have more language about

it is, I think, super helpful,

um, because motherhood is such a generic term, right?

So when we're speaking about the word

matrescence and equating it to adolescence,

right? I mean, I think, sure,

we all have certainly,

you know, the preschool years and then the early school years and then the high

school years, these different periods of time in

our mothering process where we feel insecure. Are we

doing this right? Are our kids doing this right? Are we

making the right decisions? Are we

parenting through our values? And I mean,

obviously, you know this,

hence your career and your podcast. But I mean, I think

having more language, the more language there is around that, the

better it is for future generations of mothers.

Yes, because we can identify. In the previous episode, I

talked about how A lot of times when a woman is

going through this transition in the different stages of

their child, it's often

like child referenced. So we say, oh, that's

because you have a 2-year-old. Oh, that's because you have a high schooler.

Oh, that's because you're in those, you know, middle years where you're doing a lot

of driving, right? Instead of— we,

we reference like the stage of the child instead of the stage of the woman.

Right. And how that can be— we can maybe narrate

it from the stage that you're in as a mother and what that challenge

could be like for you, because it can feel a little dismissive when you're like,

well, that's what it's like to have a 3-year-old, right? It's the terrible twos.

Or, you know, but what does that mean for you as a

person as opposed to what your toddler is looking like?

And how long have you been a parent? Like, this is what it looks like

to be a parent for 7 years. This is what it looks like to be

a parent for 17 years. And you get better

at like understanding yourself in this role. But

in the beginning, of course, you don't know. You don't

know who you are as a mom. I think it's very

challenging even as you get older, but you can kind of start to see, even

when your kids are grown, you can go like, oh, I was this kind of

mom. Or, you know, I enjoyed this type

of play, or this is the kind of things we did as a family. But

you're building the car as you're driving it. And

yeah, having that label is so helpful— matrescence. So

now I want to talk about a, I think, a negative part

about matrescence. Sure. And

it's this idea that you as a woman

are surrounded by other women who are

also going through this transition and

in the same way that teen girls act

towards each other because they feel insecure, because

they feel unsure, because they don't know who they are. They're trying to

find their people, they're trying to belong, they're trying to fit in.

There's traits of teen girls,

and I have noticed those same traits

in moms when their kids are

Like 5, 6, 7, 8-ish. Like

sometimes 4, but that is rough.

Say again? That is rough.

Yeah. Yes, sure. But it's

insecurity. It's like, okay, let me— so what

I've noticed is that when you have— when your

kids are in preschool, It's like you're in war

together. Like, everyone is like, oh my God, my kid does that

too. You're comparing to figure out, like, is your

kid normal? Like, what are you supposed to do? When should you

potty train? Your kid sleeping through the night?

It's very physical. That time

is very physical parenting, right? It's very

pick them up, put them down, put them in the stroller, put them in the

car seat, put them down, bend down to put their clothes on, bend down to

you know, pick them up to put them on the diaper changing table. It's

very physical. And so, yeah, you kind of are—

you're exhausted, you're weary. It is

like a daily battle with a very physical component. And

then I think when you— when they're no longer in diapers and

they're no longer in strollers and they're— and you send your kid off to school,

there's a change in parenting you're going from a

very physical parenting to a more

emotional parenting, right? And you're starting

to wonder, am I doing this right?

Yeah, I agree. I also kind of think that—

I'm just thinking back for myself, like, all the

moms that I met when my kids were in preschool,

it seemed like they were— we weren't in

competition with each other for

place in terms of a hierarchy

within the, the subgroup. Like,

there was no competition in like who's popular at this

preschool. I think everyone's just getting in, getting out. It's just like

you're trying to manage your own child, like you're chasing your own kid around.

It, it doesn't feel quite the same. Maybe that,

um, that feeling that starts to come online

when you start to think about your child's social group.

Maybe that's what I'm thinking about, right? Right. This period

when now there's a lot more social engineering

happening on behalf of the kids

in that who are they gonna have playdates with? I, I

feel like when the, when the kids weren't in

elementary school, I felt a little bit like, which mom do I want to hang

out with? Like, a little bit more like, who do I vibe

with at the park? Or like, who's chit-chatting with

me out front while we wait for pickup, right?

Like, they had their little buddies, but they were not— it didn't really matter

necessarily who the children played with,

right? They weren't forming tight social connections,

nor was I trying to manipulate who I wanted them to be friends

with, right, in those years. Well, and also, I think

preschool is fairly transient. It's a short period of

time, and everybody knows

that in 2 years or 3 years max,

you're gonna be moving on to a school that's K

through 5th or K through 8th or K through 12, right?

A much longer period of time. And

so in preschool, it seems it, it's almost like you're dating.

It doesn't really matter that much, right? You're not making like a commitment

to these people that this is who you're gonna be social with, with your kids

for the rest of your life. Maybe you are,

Maybe people do build lifelong friendships in preschool, but

that's not necessarily how you're feeling when you drop off

your kids at preschool. And then I think when you get to

kindergarten and the kids start forming a social bond

and you start realizing that you're going to be at this school

for 5 years or 6 years or 8 years or 12 years,

right? Then it's kind of like, well, who, Who

are, who are my kids preferring? What

group am I going to be in? Are these going to be our longtime

friends? And suddenly, are they good? Are these

the people we want to be with? I think there starts to be

that cattiness comes in because you're right. It's like, I think that's

a really good point about the way that

you look at the relationships. And when you're saying,

you know, lifelong friends, I think the children

rarely make a lifelong friend in preschool.

Only maybe if they continue living next door to each other

or going to the same school, or it's like very close family friends and you

vacation together, you keep that relationship going.

But you're right, for the most part, those preschool friendships

are definitely transient in, in the

child's life. And when you're a young mom, you don't really

know that necessarily, but you can sense that everyone's gonna go to different elementary

schools, right? And in fact, that's a big

conversation in preschool, right? That's when it starts, I think, is like, what kind

of— what school are you guys going to? And that's, I think, when

we start to feel that feeling of like, where's the cool— where are the

cool kids going, right? Or like, is that someone

that should I be sending my kid with that kid? Or

should I— do I want to be with that family moving forward? Like, what's—

yeah, that's it. It starts to happen. You start having these

conversations because you know that it's a big commitment. It's the next several years

of your life, right? And then we add this

matrescence thing where you're insecure and you don't know

where you fit. So it's like, I think what we do

is take that insecurity,

and we want to make sure our kids are set up well, or like they're

with the right kids or the right group, or we're in the right group.

And that then lends itself to judging

and criticizing and looking around at other moms and being

like, well, she's a hot mess, or I don't want to be around her because

I hear how she talks to her kid, or oh, that kid's really

bad, I don't want that kid hit my kid. So we're not going to play

with them anymore. And it starts to be

like a lot of criticism,

judgment, you know, observation. And then

you get a comparison. Then you get into gossip.

You get into like the moms talking to the other moms about that

kid or that mom. Yeah. I mean, I think it

just keeps going. I think that, you know, in

today's world, you have the working

moms and the non-working moms. You have, you know,

the sports moms and the dance moms versus the,

you know, uh, robotics

moms, or the, you know, you have like— it just keeps going. There's

like— I think that gets defined later in Matrescence. Like, you

figure out what kind of mom you are because of your kid, or do we

ever really figure that out? No, no, no. But like, define yourself

as like, I'm a dad mom, I'm a

boy mom. I was a boy mom, so, right, right. That was like,

I did boy things. It wasn't even like I was a parent of

like sports kids. Like, we just like, just very— so

sure. And then I hung out with boy moms, right? Um, right.

But I guess what I'm trying to get at is

like, like, I, I remember— I don't know what

happened, but when my kids were in Kinder and

first, the— I was in a friend group.

My kids were in the same friend— like, they got into a group

with these— the kids and the moms were cool, and I got into

the group with the moms, and it was fun. Like, I got invited to mom's

night out with them. We always hung out at the park together

when early release days happened, and

I felt like I belonged. I was like, this is so cool. There was some

moms that had kids. My kids were just one grade apart, so some kinder, some

first. It was great. And

then one day I was sitting at

the park, and it was only— wasn't that long into

the year. And I realized that all of

the moms had done something earlier that day, like they

had done some scavenger hunt birthday party thing for one of the

other moms. And I, I was

like— I wasn't like, what are you guys talking about? I just was like kind

of trying to figure out what they were talking about. And then I— it hit

me, like everything in my body, I

felt like I was in high school again. I just It was like, oh my

God, all these moms are doing

stuff and I'm not invited.

And I'm like, oh my

God, I feel like I had like a giant zit on my nose or something.

I felt like really an adolescent feeling

and I did not know what was happening. And then

I started to realize that I was being excluded included on

for a variety of things. And

then one of the moms started— I found out

there was this big rumor that my son had stolen something at his

birthday party, and that she had told all

these other moms that, that my son had stolen this thing,

and that they didn't think

that they should play with him anymore. Like, they're— like, my son

and me were being excluded. They were at a clique. They

let me in for a minute. I don't know which mom mean girl

decided I wasn't part of the clique anymore. I got pushed out,

and then my kids started to get ostracized, right?

Well, sure, because they're being left out too, right? Well, it's like,

I think— I don't know if it was a combination, is I'm the bad one

and my— or my kid, or both of us, or we're a combo pack, or

what. And it was so painful,

that period of time, because I had a friend group that—

I was newer to the school, and it was just

kinder though, so it wasn't like I was that, you know, everyone was new. But

some people had been there the year before, and I didn't

know how to be. I didn't know who to—

right. I still wanted to have my kids stay connected

on some level because they weren't completely pushed out,

but I could tell the moms didn't want me. I was like, I just felt

like I was in high school. And as I've talked about this story with other

moms, they have shared with me similar things that have happened.

Sure. And I, I

resolved that feeling and healed and found a wonderful

friend group outside of that group and never looked back. It was

great. It worked out right for me. Right. Um, but

in that transition period when I'm

like, I'm being mean-girled, I'm being excluded, it

was so painful. So when

I was reading Matrescence and then thinking about, oh

my God, this was other women

who felt insecure about their own child's

place And like,

I don't— I've talked to those women since then, right? And

they're all like, no one's like necessarily

acknowledged that they pushed me out of the group,

but they are all less insecure now,

right? You know what I mean? Like, they're all— of our kids have grown up,

and like, we were in high school together, and I don't know, the friendships

flowed in and out. But those early years, you don't trust that, like,

I don't know, everyone's gonna be okay. Well, yeah, and I

think that a factor there, you know, is

that if there's a quote-unquote bad

kid, right, doing quote-unquote

bad things, is that going to rub

off on your child? Yes, that's the fear, right?

So, right, that's the fear that stealing

kid who did not steal it, by the way. I just wanted

to clarify, it's like it did not happen.

Lincoln was naughty and he got into lots

of trouble. This one was not

the case. Um, and

those— that friend group, he was in with them from 1st to

12th. All of us stayed in the same, so they all— we all know

how everybody turned out, right? Right. You know, so,

um, anyway, it's like, because

you have— if your kid is slightly divergent or, or

working through emotional regulation— Lincoln is severe ADHD. I don't know what was

going on. Impulse control, first grade. I mean, he was all over the map.

And yeah, there was a grace extended to me

by the other parents. They weren't like, wow, you're having a hard time

raising this boy. Like, no one— everyone's like, right,

run away, don't let your kid be with the bad

kids, right? Because they're very fear-based, very

fear-based. It feels— that's what I guess it

feels like, insecurity, right?

Right. Because if this is contagious,

I mean, I, I think we could, we could document— we could

talk about documented cases of social contagion where people

are, you know, kids are blamed for creating

havoc in communities, right? But the thought of if this

behavior is contagious, I don't want my kid catching

it. And also, if my kid does catch it, do I know how to

handle that? What if I have a bad kid?

What if my kid starts stealing? What if I have the one who, right, takes

the shampoo bottle at the bounce house birthday party

and puts it all over the slide.

Um, right. But also, like, yeah, what if that's my

kid? And also, I don't even— that is, I don't

even know how I would handle that, right? I don't know how to parent that.

I'm just gonna avoid it so I don't have to parent it, right? Or—

but then I think you look and go, that must be a terrible parent, that

mother. Oh yes. But your kid

is a reflection of you as a parent, right? Like,

if you have a bad kid or a kid who, like, you know, sneaks other

people's snacks out of their lunchbox or whatever, that's

because you are too restrictive, or you have— I— everybody is

blaming everybody. Everyone's judging everybody because we're also

at this young stage of parenting, you know, you don't know

how to do it. Right. Then you also— everyone

thinks that misbehave— no one should misbehave. Like, we've just— we've,

we've, in parent education, created a concept

that if there's misbehavior, something has gone wrong,

right? Well, even if there's like,

um, if your child has emotional pain, it's

clearly the parent's fault. Yes, right. It got to be something going on in

that house. Right. I mean, yes. Right.

So then I think it's so interesting because

I think that we have tried to create a culture

where we recognize that kids do go through painful

experiences and they have a lot of emotions and sometimes they're

really big and sometimes they lead to behavior

that isn't great behavior. And

we've done a great job of creating language around

that and acknowledging that that happens to children.

But we haven't gotten past the

fact that all of that obviously

lies at the feet of the parent, right? Like,

every child's outburst,

every child's pain, every child's misbehavior, every child's

tantrum is because the parent is doing a bad

job. Yeah, right. We definitely still have that,

um, the blame there. And I think moms perpetuate it with

each other. Um, oh yeah, you know, for

sure. And I guess the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is

because I want to have

moms recognize

from a compassionate lens that other

women are going through it too,

and they're trying to figure it out too.

And I know everyone is really scared

of how am I— is my kid going to be

okay? Or is my kid going to be cool and

smart and attractive and athletic

and successful. And are we gonna mess them up?

Yeah, so we better not put them in social groups that are bad. Like,

we have a lot of anxiety. We, we do do a lot of social

engineering, and that is a normal

thing in parenting because you want to give your kids the best

opportunity you can. But

making other women— hurting other women in the process and

gossiping and spreading rumors and judging and

criticizing and shaming and blaming

is not the way to do it. Like, it's very

painful. And I think if women can realize—

because we always say mom, mom, mom, like, we're women,

right? Like, a matrescence, almost like, I'm a mom, hey mama, like,

mama. I'm guilty of it. It's like, actually,

hey, woman who has children, right?

Um, it just feels that we—

if we understand matrescence and we understand that we're all

going through this transition and we're all a little bit nervous and

scared and we're trying to figure out what's best for our kid,

that we can make decisions that work for our children, but we

don't have to be cliquey. We don't have to

act like teenage girls and talk a bunch of shit and

get into big old WhatsApp group chats and

take people off group chats and exclude them and have birthday

parties where 14 girls get invited, but there's 15

girls in the class. Like being a little

bit more aware of the impact that that has.

I just think if we can build a little more awareness,

it might help some people not get hurt.

Yeah, I mean, I think—

I also think that if we

encourage people to be inclusive rather than

exclusive, that they are

enriching their lives and the lives of their children

in a way that they don't necessarily— can't even necessarily foresee,

right? If you operate

from a point of,

um, fear and exclusivity, and,

um, I think then it's detrimental to you. You get less

perspective less people to understand what this

mothering is all about, um,

less input for yourself as a woman, as a mother,

and also less of that for your

child. And you're, you're actually like

doing the opposite of what you hope for your child, right?

You hope that you're building empathy with your child. You

hope that you're teaching your children right from wrong. You hope that

you're instilling values. But if you,

um, keep your circle tight and exclude

certain kinds of moms or certain kinds of kids,

you're actually doing a disservice to your kids

by not exposing them to

all the different types of people that are out there. Yeah, and

teaching them exactly like also, well

What do you think was going on? What was the impact of that behavior? Like,

right, why do you think they did that? You know, what would you

do if you were in that situation? Like, you can

use it as teaching and growing and yeah, exposure. And

I guess I want to add, it's like you don't have to

invite everybody to everything. Like, that's not— it's not— no, of course

not. That's clearly not. But I think that we

do have a You know, I think

bullying has been at the forefront, and

we have a lot of thoughts on bullying and

where it leads to with kids. And,

you know, we've done things like create a buddy bench, right,

where the kids who feel lonely or

isolated or bullied can

can go and sit on it and someone and the kids will come and

sit with them, right? But then if they're going home

and their moms are doing the same

thing to those same kids, what is the point of

the bully bench? Buddy bench. Buddy, sorry,

buddy bench. We're just really farming

out the parenting.

To happen at school. Yeah, and you're putting that pressure on the

school itself to model. Welcome back to Become a

Calm Mama. I'm your host, I'm Darlene Childress, and

this episode might be a bit of a rant

because I recognized, as we have

been talking about matrescence on the podcast, that this

feeling that comes in matrescence, this, uh,

transformational, transitional time is likened

to adolescence. And the insecurity and the

transition and the confusion and the overwhelm that comes

in adolescence often is mimicked in matrescence.

It's a period of time where you're on shifting sand. You don't know who you

are. You don't know where you fit. You don't know who you're becoming.

And I recognize that as that happens for

women, like a mom, it's also happening in

her peer group. And I wanted to have a conversation about how

your peer group, the other moms around you,

might be going through their own period of matrescence and how

they might be acting in ways that feel like high school, that feel

immature, that feel like teen drama, that feel just like very

dramatic, and how this often happens in

matrescence. And in early motherhood. So I invited my friend

Danielle onto the podcast so we could just talk about it and

normalize that mom cliques exist, that

there's a lot of mama drama going on, especially in

elementary school, a lot of gossip, rumors, you

know, just nastiness.

And I wanted to address that on the podcast and have a

conversation about it so that you don't feel like you're going insane if it's happening

to you. And also just kind of a word of wisdom to

all of us that are moms and some ways that we can

support each other and be more loving and kind. So listen

into this conversation with my good friend Danielle.

All the values and things like that, but not realizing at home we're

maybe not actually modeling the values we want

to be. Right. I mean, I think

thinking that about the buddy bench before you even start talking, I was thinking we

almost need like a mom buddy bench or just even visually thinking of

recognizing that the mom who you want to reject

might be just struggling and you don't have to become best

friends or invite them to every mom's night out and book club and things

like that. Being lovely, being kind, not

talking shit, not being part of the rumor mill. I

am— I know every mom

who's in any of the younger elementary school,

there is so much drama. There are group— so much

group chats in the PFAs, the

PTAs, like a lot of bullshit, a lot of

shit talking. It's not a kind place,

and, and it can be very painful. And

why is it so unkind? Because people

are insecure, right? That's it. And, and

they're not sure what they're doing. So yeah, I mean, I think

this is a great conversation to be having. I think it's very culturally

relevant. I— did you watch All Her Fault?

Yeah. You know, that was such an

interesting demonstration of that, right? These two

women who were working full-time

moms, and they were like so desperate to

have a friend, right? That's how they met, drinking a

glass of wine in the bathroom at a school fundraiser where they were like,

oh my God, get me away from some of these women.

And You know, obviously

it's an extreme caricature of what it's like, or not,

maybe not, I don't know. It's been a while since I've been in elementary school,

but I think that,

um, yeah, I mean, if we don't want kids to be

bullied, if we don't want our kids

to be the bullies, if we

want our kids to feel that they're growing up in a

safe community,

we have to demonstrate that.

So beautiful. It's exactly

what I want the takeaway to be. So thank you.

Thank you. I mean, I think that it's just an

extension of parenting, really, right? And

we're all, we're all in

the motherhood stages.

We're all trying to figure it out, and the more

kindness we have for ourselves about that,

the more self-compassion we have, the more compassion we can

have for others. And then that does impact our kids.

It's like, if this is the type of parent you want to be and

you want to raise kids who are kind and compassionate and empathetic,

Yeah, you're right, we have to practice it. Yeah, in

the communities that we find ourselves in. Yeah.

All right, thanks, friends, so much. Of course, I love these

conversations on and offline, so

anytime. Yeah, and I do want to

just tell anyone listening, like, get yourself a Danielle, get yourself—

like, I've talked about my Tiffany's and all my various Christians.

It's like, get your real people that you feel safe with and that,

you know, love and appreciate you as you, and they love your kids, and

they see your kids for them like what they are. And yeah,

just 100% your people. And,

and by the way, I mean, like you said, we, we raised our kids adjacent.

We were not in the same mom clique, so to speak,

but we always had a very open.

We always had this kind of dialogue. And

so even though our kids weren't always hanging out together and we

weren't always hanging out together, we were having these types of

conversations. And yeah,

get yourself a Darlene.

The more, the more people who have a Darlene, the better.

The better. It's the same I feel about it, Danielle.

All right, thank you. All right, friend, talk to you later.