Bitch Bullies

By: Allison Norris

The older I get, the more I feel like I’m still in high school. When I actually was in high school, I wonder what I felt like, because I don’t remember it being traumatic or overly competitive. I’m sure it was for some people, but I had a lot of fun with my friends and didn’t spend much time worrying. Everyone liked me (I think) and growing up in a small town, we’d known each other since kindergarten so there wasn’t much opportunity for reinventing ourselves. I know there are people who hated high school, but I would go back to the days of lunch tables and geometry homework in a heartbeat.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m considered to be “just the babysitter” or they think I’m too young to know anything about parenting, but other moms are bitches. It sounds terrible, I know, but I am so sick and tired of trying to be nice and prove myself to these cranky moms who stare me down and don’t say hi. They’re everywhere! The park, music class, coffee shops… but worst of all, on the playground at school.

I pick up the two girls I babysit from the public elementary school two blocks from my house once a week. Parents from the neighborhood gather in the playground area and wait for the bell to ring. Baylor and I usually find a spot alone under the covered area and watch the bigger kids ride by on bikes or tug on their mom’s hands. This is the second school year I have been picking them up, and seeing the same parents every week, you would think that I’d have made a friend or two by now.

Last year, I took the girls to a friend’s house for an end-of-the-year water gun fight. Three or four moms sat outside sipping cocktails while their third and fourth graders played in the yard, occasionally sending a water balloon into the middle of their conversation. I had seen these very moms all year long, they would sometimes even say hi to my girls, but couldn’t quite ever raise their eyes to meet mine.

“Well, I just can’t believe she is still teaching at this school…”

“Oh, I know. When I was volunteering in her class, I could just tell that the kids didn’t like her very much.”

“We’ll have to ask Kim on the PTA about what they’re going to do with her, because it’s just insane that she’s still allowed to instruct children.”

I sat listening to pointless gossip about who was in whose class, and which parents were unfit, and which teachers should retire. Not once, in two hours, did a question get directed my way. I sat nonexistently outside of their circle, wishing I had one of their cocktails… and that a water balloon would smack one of them in the head.

I have run into each of these moms this year waiting for the kids to get out of school and every one of them looks straight past me like they’ve never seen me before in their lives. I finally stopped one of them because she was waiting two feet from me and said, “Hi Anne, remember me? I watch Nina and Zara…” She looked at me with a guilty, yet puzzled expression. “Oh, that’s right. What’s your name? Did you have a good summer?” I gave her a huge smile and replied, “It’s Allison. And my son is Bay. We did have a good summer. Sad it’s over!” And we kept on our way. I saw her the next week, and every week since, and she doesn’t so much as smile in my general direction.

I am at least 10 years younger than the majority of the moms there. They can’t figure out if Baylor is my son, or if he’s just another child that I nanny. Many of them don’t work and I can tell have put a decent amount of thought into their outfits for this schoolyard mom competition. I’ve started observing the “hot moms” giggling with dads who aren’t their husbands, and “dorky-moms-who-are-trying-to-be-hot” make sure to talk to everyone they can before the bell rings. It’s like a popularity contest for grown ups. There are the moms who I think I’d be friends with who roll in a little late and look like they couldn’t care less about which teacher should retire or who is wearing what. They greet their kids with a hug and kiss and get the hell out of there.

There was just a job post on craigslist for a mom who would represent “the Seattle mom” for a large company. It said that large financial institutions often ignore this demographic, and this company wanted to give a face to the forgotten. I watched some of the one-minute video applications and saw all of these moms go on and on about how they would love to listen to other moms’ hopes and dreams – and help them achieve these dreams. How “we are a team” and can work together to do whatever we set our minds to. That’s all good, but I just want to make sure that none of the schoolyard bitches are on my team. They are mean. If they end up on my team, I am going to try to smack them in a face with a cherry bomb during four square. I’m sick of them looking at me like I’m going to steal their husbands or that I’m some mom that doesn’t belong because my SUV isn’t big enough.

Love all of the anti-bully campaigns happening out there for kids. Just think there should be a few teaching mean moms a lesson or two about how to treat others on the playground.