(Potentially running) thread: Help! My daughter is a tween and the Mean Girls Era has begun!

Well, you just jinxed the hell out of that.

 

You mean she hasn't been choo choo choosed yet?

 

I have six years to prepare for this and by that time we'll all be living in the ocean anyway.

 

Like any parent of any age, I would love to magically bestow on my daughter the ability to see things as clearly as we see them in hindsight. She was worried this girl would rat her out to her crush (not Regan's son--yet, anyway ) and I tried to tell her the best way to handle that is to laugh it off. "Yeah, I like Boy X, so what?" She asked me if I did that when I was her age and I said no but I sure wish I did. Of course, there's no way to convince her of that. Likewise, there's no way to convince her that this too shall pass and her lot in life is likely to be much better than her ex-friend's. I would be very happy if this girl ends up as self-aware and as accomplished as your daughter's friend. A far likelier outcome is she ends up exactly like her Mom, running in place on the hamster wheel 20-30 years later while being trapped in a lousy relationship and bitching about how mean everyone is to her and her daughter. This is a terrible thing to say about any nine-year-old, but I don't see any other outcome for her.

 

My daughter is in kindergarten and I’m dreading shit like this, because she already holds grudges and has a long memory.

One of the neighborhood boys accidentally knocked her down on the trampoline once. Every time his name has been mentioned since, she matter-of-fairly says, “I HATE him.”

 

I was still on Wife No. 2!

 

The first time I joined, oh so many years ago, this existed and a little ditty called the sports pages. I was living 1300 mi away, had not met my husband and my daughter wasn't born. She just finished her freshman year of college. The century had not been born either.

 

I hate to say it, but there are at least three other groups that are almost as bad for middle-school girl drama:

1. Elementary school teachers
2. Church women
3. Senior citizens

My God, the pettiness that Gwen has told me about when it comes to "adults" and their little cliques amazes me. Apparently, some females sit around all day trying to think up new ways to terrorize and dominate their peer groups, either directly or passive-aggressively. I've read several articles where nursing homes and assisted living centers are some of the worst places for bullying, if you can believe it.

"I didn't return her stapler so she went to the principal to complain about how poorly I do my job."
"We didn't choose the book she wanted, so she's telling everyone in the book club to exclude me."
"You can't sit at our table because this is reserved for just my friends."
"Is Person X coming? Well, then I'm not going."
"Since you missed last night's meeting, I'm guessing you're just not coming to any of them?"

 

Direct quote from my 9-year-old granddaughter: "Fourth-grade boys are butt heads."
Yes, yes they are sweetheart. And they don't get much better.

 

I’d add to this list stay-at-home school parents.

There are a ton of them at my kids’ school. Some of them are great, but others make it seem like all they do, all day every day, is get day-drunk and talk shit about everyone else.

 

They don’t get any better. Until their 20s. Maybe.