Mummy Mafia

[Stonehead]

I'm not normally a reader, much less a fan, of the Daily Mail but in looking up the nursery rhyme story I found this...

Meet the mummy mafia

Oh yes, I've met them as many of you will have noticed!

[baldowrie]

Oh dear Stoney so you wear sensible shoes, not 3 inch high heels, as well then

What you didn't holiday in Florida either, nor me!

and you have those awfully smelly dirty things called pigs and chickens too!

Why bake bread or cakes when you can buy it from..........

and the ewwwwwww that egg came from a chickens bum lot.

Yes I have met them too and being older than the majority of them think to myself what silly little schools girls you are

Think I would rather be 'weird' than bitchy

Sorry I am well past the my bank balance is higher than yours syndrome, any way more like my credit card takes a serious bashing and I can't afford to pay it back brigade

[Milims]

This kind of stuff really amuses me. I've been the victim of it so many times!!! We live in a small village and before Chris came to live with me there were rumours going round that I sleep naked in my conservatory and had such loud rumpy pumpy that it carried thru the double glazing!! The best bit was I was single at the time!!
(Goodness only know what the neighbours make of us now when we lie on the grass at midnight watching the bats!!)
I was also aparently having an affair with the assistant chief executive of our local council - hey I don't live a fantasy life by halves you know!!!
As for school - mums who didn't know me really didn't know what to make of me - I'd turn up at parents evenings straight from the building site - safety boots on and screwdriver in combat pants pocket!!!
One day my poor son came home from school (its a catholic school but we aren't) very upset because another boy had said I was a prostitute - so I told him to tell him that if he can't say protestant properly he'd never manage "electrotechnical technologist" (thats what I do - its posh for sparky!)
I just think that that type of person must be so bored with their own lives that they need to make up fantasy lives for other people! Besides if I really was up to all that stuff when would I ever have the time to do the washing!! lol

[Stonehead]

I'm quite adept at turning some of their comments into positive ones.

The Big Lad said he'd heard one of the other boy's mum saying that he "was a bit of a greenie" and asked what that meant.

I said it meant he tried not to waste electricity, like to grow things instead of cutting them down unless he really needed to do, didn't go in the car when he could walk, didn't eat junk food all the time, and just liked looking after people, animals, plants and the world.

His response?

"Cool! I'm definitely a greenie then."

[HILLDREAMER90]

This 1 has hit a bit of a raw nerve for me,so apologies for rant b 4 i start. Since splitting from h mum 7 years ago,ive picked her up from skool,i get loads of "funny looks" & i know some of the mums have a low opinion of me,im not easiely intimidated & have allways stood my ground,usualy i smile & say hello,ignoring what they do.But i used to dread it,these days as h is older i stay in my car.H mum lives in the village,so knows lots of people,so im perceived as the baddy, v long hair,earings,alternative lifestyle & no job,so i guess im an easy target.The thing that gets to me is they dont know me & i feel im being judged on what a x partner says about me "or mabe im just paranoid" If it wasent for h i would move away from this area,start afresh somewhere new.A.

[Stonehead]

This 1 has hit a bit of a raw nerve for me,so apologies for rant b 4 i start. Since splitting from h mum 7 years ago,ive picked her up from skool,i get loads of "funny looks" & i know some of the mums have a low opinion of me,im not easiely intimidated & have allways stood my ground,usualy i smile & say hello,ignoring what they do.But i used to dread it,these days as h is older i stay in my car.H mum lives in the village,so knows lots of people,so im perceived as the baddy, v long hair,earings,alternative lifestyle & no job,so i guess im an easy target.The thing that gets to me is they dont know me & i feel im being judged on what a x partner says about me "or mabe im just paranoid" If it wasent for h i would move away from this area,start afresh somewhere new.A.

Nah, you'll find it to some extent in most places although it can be pretty bad from certain groups here. I'm assuming the same school as my boys BTW.

I just throw their comments back at them, park my scruffy old Land Rover right next to their flash cars, and generally have fun - which really annoys them.

What I just love is: "Oh, you must come and see the new swimming pool", "The tennis court has just been finished" and "we've just had a menege put in for the horses". Oh, and my aside when I overheard the latter "ooh, a three-some with a horse, now that is kinky!".

And the the woman who walks her horse past our place because "it's scared of the pigs and couldn't you keep them somewhere else". Funny, there's quite a few horses ridden past our place and none of them seem to be scared.

So, no, you're not paranoid.

[Shirley]

I've had experience of schools all over the uk... manchester, aberdeenshire, brighton, somerset... herefordshire... I'm sad to say it's the same pretty much everywhere.

On the defensive.. a little. I've been a member of the school board.. and a parent governor, and part of the pta. Not to gain brownie points or elevate myself into some false social standing though, but just to have an honest input into the school that my children have attended. I did call the headmaster by his first name... but if I'd been to the same social gathering as him it would be likely the local pub- he was an exceptional head master and I wish all were as laid back as he was. He still had his 'groupies' though.

I haven't come across any bitchiness at J's nursery so far - one of the mums is a fellow freecycler and we've swapped a few bits and bobs at the school gates, so no doubt people will be frowning upon us too. Do I care?? Not a bit!!

[baldowrie]

You don't get is so much at nurseries I have found as it seem to be nice for little Johny to mix with the 'lower class' at that age

Stoney I can imagine that you purposely do some of these things just to wind them up

My kiddies last school was the worse for this I have come across, unfortunately the mums bitching club were also my neighbours and continued it after school and the kids picked on my kids at home too. So at home they still had to show they had bigger and better than me, or try, and still continued their nasty comments. It amused to me to an extent, but not the comments to my kids.


The front gate is were the 'club' hung out and the back gate all those subjected to the 'clubs' gossip hung out

The most common was 'DON'T play with those two you will catch bird flu!'

It's play ground stuff and yes they do live very sad lives

[Shirley]

You don't get is so much at nurseries I have found as it seem to be nice for little Johny to mix with the 'lower class' at that age

Oi - could you choose a different name !!

I know what you mean though. Kids can be cruel, but it seems their parents can be even worse. I had hoped that I'd left all that behind when I left school.

[baldowrie]

don't worry about it you can be the strange one like the rest of us

[Shirley]

thanks

[Stonehead]

Stoney I can imagine that you purposely do some of these things just to wind them up

Only in self-defence!

[Stonehead]

don't worry about it you can be the strange one like the rest of us

Speak for yourself. I like to think I'm "normal" and it's the rest of the world that's "strange".

Now where's my medication...

[Boots]

Oh - this looks like the perfect place for a bit of a rant.

On the flip side to the above. I have just spent this week putting in up to 13 hour days with a bunch of guys who are just about driving me nuts.

There are 3 other girls in this work team. One has bawled all week and done very little work, as her dog is dying and we have been shown photo albums and shuddered daily at this poor pooches slow demise.

The other is a loud mouthed faded brain, who insists on talking over the top of everyone and then has no idea what she's supposed to do, because she's been rambling on with rot and hasn't listened. So everything gets repeated at least thrice.

The other one is easy going and likes a laugh - so I give thanks for her.

The blokes, for some reason that I will leave for other blokes to interpret, do not appear to have ever worked with women in their lives, and at first I found this oddly amusing. Unfortunately that did not last long.

Day one I received constantly evolving petnames or nicknames... Darl, Sweetie, and heaven forbid... I even received a Dear! And a few too many requests to get them things that they were fully capable of getting themselves. Coffee? I think not.

Day two and they decided that if I could load and haul the big rigs, I should be promoted to little Mate, Muscles and the one I found most offensive... Bruiser!!! My "I beg your pardon?" was met with feigned suprise, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with the suggestion.

Day three and I am asked to "Flick the switch, b*itch", "be touchy feely with the gearshift" and "go settle the other girls down"

Day four.. the turkey in charge of vehicles leaves us short on forklifts and trucks and containers, so everyone is dirty and foul with him, so the day moves very slowly and I have to listen to them all diss their mate for pretty much the whole day. Dog is still dying, so the sadist spends all day bawling about it and the other bird spends all day hooting and generally stirring the blokes into a state of overall dissatisfaction. I left early.

Day five just keeps getting better with the ex-army Supervisor who is constantly providing us with army days memories (and incidentally also the one who called me bruiser) calculating an incorrect load weight. I pull him up and say, "Oi Soldier - these weights are wrong." and he bellows at me straight out of Timor, "What that f*ck did you just call me?" He comes and shunts his 7 foot frame alongside my seated 5 foot one so I am looking at his zip and does the whole back down routine. SARGEANT MAJOR!!!!! He roars like a wounded bull.

You are no more an SM today, than I am a bruiser. Get your hulking frame off me! He retreats, so I circle the weights he needs to check and just leave. ABSOLUTELY furious. Am tying down a load and he comes over and acts like nothing has happened. He uses my name for the first time all week but I have had all I can take. I do my work and tell him I'm done and am going. He realises he has one pissed off 'lil lady' on his hands, but it has taken all week for the silly bugger to realise that...

I'll see you Monday? He says. No you won't, I tell him. (I have to attend some PD thing at admin, so won't be in the yard...LOL... but he doesn't seem to remember that). He tells me I have done real well here this week... like I might have been doubting that. (All women lack self esteem and all that jazz... ) I just wait for the next bit of waffle which rattles on... and on. No apology. No mention of the weights, which were definately wrong. Nothing. Just this rambling reminder that he has all this respect for women in the workplace and is heaps glad I came over...ra ra ra. I just look at him. Yeah, you're a respectful lot all right...

Hang five, will I just get a tissue to wipe the sarcasm from my lips.

I only have one more week of this rot - THANK GOD.

Bung a few blokes into an industry for a hundred odd years and they think they own it! Who the heck do they think kept the country running when they were all away playing soldiers during the war, anyway???

Ok rant over. Totally off track, but hey - I feel better!

[Shirley]

Well done you for standing up to him - YAY!!!!!

What a crap week you've had - next week can only be better!!!

Glad you feel better for having shared it with us. Bullies are EVERYWHERE aren't they.