Some grown women are just as unkind to each other as middle school girls.
My daughter is eight years old, and as I feared, she’s already had her first taste of mean-girl bullshit. Some girl teased her for wearing pigtails and a cat shirt. This little girl made my daughter feel badly about herself simply for wearing her hair in a way that she loves, and wearing a shirt with her favorite animal on it. I knew when I picked my daughter up that day, as I saw her wipe away tears while she buckled her seatbelt, that it was time for the mean girl talk.
Years ago, before embarking on my SAHM journey, I showered every morning, wore mascara, and worked in buildings with other grownups. In some of those buildings, my work colleagues became friends. Relationships were healthy, respectful, and supportive. The women who worked alongside me were people I could turn to if I needed anything. They were women I could safely vent to on a hard day and who could trust me to be their safe place as well.
And it wasn’t until the following Monday at work that I realized the truth—they all hated her. And they all promptly informed me in not-so-subtle terms that if I wanted in their circle, I had to hate her too. The truth is, this woman had done nothing to me. I barely knew her . But I did want inside that circle—the circle that went out for happy hour and hosted book clubs and girls’ movie nights. The circle that, despite being grown-ass adults, I could tell was clearly the “cool club.
And the worst part is, those women I thought would become my friends — as long as I followed the rules—weren’t my friends at all. Not one of these “friends” visited me on my maternity leave, brought me a meal, checked to make sure I was doing okay, or asked to meet my new baby. Throughout the years I worked there, we didn’t visit socially after work and they barely knew anything about me outside of the office.
Now that I’m a mom who has had to comfort her daughter after a mean girl interaction, I ask myself, why do we do this? Why do we force women to choose? Why do we adopt this “you’re either with us or against us” mentality? And how do we raise our girls to be kind and supportive, to lift each other up, when we know that this could be their future—a future of jealousy and cattiness and cut-throat peer...
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