Sarah Tucker wrote her bestselling novel The Playground Mafia (Arrow) about the politics among parents in 2006 and since then she’s been a keen observer of how parents behave…or misbehave. She’s even developed a new app that helps parents navigate playground politics. Over to Sarah:
Having spent most of the past ten years at some time of the day in a play-ground picking up or collecting my son, I have observed how little has changed since I first published my bestselling novel The Playground Mafia (Arrow) about a single mother who moves to a new area and a new school with her four-year-old son Ben.
Despite giving advice and top tips over the years about how to deal with small-minded gossip amongst hippies (high impact parents) who have too much time on their hands, intimidate and isolate other mothers if they refuse to play by their rules and live by their values, I still hear the sort of experiences that would make the obnoxious characters I wrote about in Playground Mafia pale into insignificance.
I recently heard about how one mother, on learning that someone else’s child was up for a place at the same school her son was applying to, invited the other child to a play date at her son’s house, encouraging the child to have lots of caffeinated drinks and sweet stuff so they slept badly and weren’t best prepared for the interview the following morning.
I learnt of another mother who refused to give the homework details to another parent whose child had been ill that day. Another mother went one step further and advised that exams started at a later time than they did, when another mother asked to confirm times. The stories are never ending and become increasingly mean spirited – the mothers of daughters being decidedly more spiteful and calculating than those of boys.
Sarah Tucker
It all seems so petty, so small minded and it is, but it’s more important than office politics because it involves our children. You can resign from a job but not your role as a mother and I heard of so many tales of parents moving their children to another school not because there was anything wrong with the school or the discipline in the classrooms, just that the other parents were as one mother from Barnes put it succinctly ‘arseholes’:
“There are only so many times you can move schools,” she said. “And it’s ridiculous explaining that you’re moving school not because your child is getting bullied but you are as their mother. The point is the school can’t do anything to effectively ‘discipline parents’ behaviour. If your husband was an MP or CEO or someone ‘famous’ then you were alpha mother. If you or your husband were a nobody it didn’t matter how wonderful your child, they weren’t invited to anything.”
Another mother from Clapham, one of the many ‘nappy valleys’ in and around London, told me that she Googled all the parents in her daughter’s class when first meeting them and only invited those parents who could provide her company (she was in PR) with prospective business.
She saw nothing wrong in it: “I am a strategic parent and a career mother and it seems a waste to use the ability to network even in the playground to full effect.”
So how do you recognise the playground mafia? The mafia is predominantly, but not exclusively, middle class. It is as rife in state as it is in private. The mafia uses the networking structures of the PTA and parent governors not only to ensure their children mix with the right sort of child (nicely spoken with parents who work in finance, law, or at a push the arts – although admitting your dad is a banker these days is tantamount to saying you are related to a Nazi war criminal) but also that the parents are potential business contacts. And the head teachers I interviewed all made a comment about ‘mini mums’ (those under five foot four) tend to be more competitive than those of a taller disposition – the ‘chippy little person syndrome’ as one teacher called it.
So forget the idea of nurturing sharing and caring, keep your own counsel, focus on your own child, let your child make their own friends and avoid short mothers in and out of the playground – and you should be fine. Of course, I’ve never experienced the playground mafia myself. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?
The Mummy Mafia App – what sort of mother are you?
So many emails and letters do I get feeding back their own experiences and comments over the years, I devised the mummy mafia app with the help of child psychologists and research with head teachers and parent groups. The app is downloadable on iPhones and iPads and is designed as something you can take into the playground with you, helping you to identify what sort of mother you are most like (we are all, if we are honest with ourselves, a bit yummy, scummy, crummy, chummy depending on the time of the month), what sort of mothers you are surrounded by – and illustrates how to deal with playground politics and avoid becoming mafia ourselves.
The results come straight to my website and in a few weeks I’ll be on TV identifying if we are a nation of yummy, scummy or chummy mummies (there are seventeen types it is possible to be although in reality I am sure there are more).
Download the Mummy Mafia app now
About Sarah Tucker
Sarah Tucker is author of the bestselling novel The Playground Mafia and developed the app Mummy Mafia, which helps parents with school politics.
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Sarah Tucker
Thursday 3rd of November 2011
Hi Tasha and Hayley. Both points are very valid. the app is a way of high lighting an issue, albeit in a fun way, to playground politics which makes the lives of many parents unnecessarily difficult and in an increasing number of cases has let to parents wanting to change schools and move house. I have my views why it happens but the psychologists I have spoken to, and many of the head teachers feel that the women involved would be political in any environment, just that the bullying is more likely to be copied in the playground as children learn by what they see as opposed to what they are told. That's the feedback I've got so far. But you're right, the ipad and ipod is limiting but it's a start. best Sarah.
Tasha Goddard
Thursday 3rd of November 2011
I seem to be very fortunate not to have experienced the playground mafia (loved the book, by the way) at our school. Perhaps the bankers' and TV execs' children go to the private school a few miles away? Though I do wonder if we don't exaggerate the phenomenon somewhat (I know I'm putting some hideous parents in my own novel, for example, even though I don't have personal experience of any).
We invite friends round when my daughter asks for them and we have no criteria about who to and not to invite. I don't think anyone else does, either, though people who have known each other for years tend to see each other more (e.g. older siblings in same class, parents were in NCT class together, or something). I have to say I was in fear of the behavious you describe when my daughter started school (and, in fact, before when she started nursery school), and I think I was seeing this behaviour where it didn't actually exist (e.g. mums seeming rude and aloof, who were actually just shy and found it difficult to talk with people they didn't know).
I also worry that your results may be ridiculously skewed if the app is only available on the iPhone and iPad - is it not at least available online somewhere, too? I think you'll find there's a whole class of parents who don't have smartphones, let alone those of an Apple origin.
Hayley
Thursday 3rd of November 2011
Some of those stories are shocking but I see no appeal in paying 69p to find out what sort of mum I am. I know what type of mum I am without an app declaring that I'm yummy or chummy. The only reason this continues is because women don't take the bigger stance and get over it they all just push each other. But isn't that women in general?