Word by Miriam Glaser
Last year, I was accosted in the street by another school mum for not including her in a parent WhatsApp group. It was Halloween and I was out trick-or-treating with my kids. She was wearing a witches hat, my kids were on a sugar high, running around with plastic saws through their heads and zombie blood on their faces. Witch Mum did not hold back. She told me that exclusion is a form of bullying and I stood there, dumbfounded, whilst the friend I was with (ironically a customer experience officer) went into work mode. My friend used her calm voice, the one I imagine she reverts to for complaints, and told Witch Mum we were very sorry if we’d unintentionally caused any distress. Did she want us to add her to the group? But Witch Mum said it was too late for that. She’d missed out on so much already. Parties. Playdates. Group presents. And anyway, only Group Admins can add people, she snapped, as a final nail in the coffin.
I’m on two class WhatsApp groups, a whole school WhatsApp group, a school uniform WhatsApp group, a mum’s book club WhatsApp group, a fundraising WhatsApp group, plus a splinter group of like-minded parents where we make fun of all the stuff that people write on the other WhatsApp groups. It’s endlessly fascinating to me what parents choose to share with a group of strangers. Head lice treatment recommendations (is vinegar still a thing?), lost property (prescription glasses, sure, but let the stray socks go), costume suggestions (the school dress up days are relentless). I’m connected with hundreds of parents on a daily basis, yet can count on one hand those who I could ask for help.
After Witch Mum-gate, I called my director friend and long-term collaborator Charlotte, relayed the confrontation blow by blow and told her we had to use this in something. So it became one of the scenes in our web series Buried. It’s about a single mum who kills a stranger on the morning school run and has to bury the body before school pick-up. But it’s also about the loneliness of parenting. The enormous burden of being solely responsible for another life, all the time. The impossible standards we hold ourselves to as mothers. It also touches on rigor mortis and corpse disposal, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Things didn’t end well with Witch Mum. After she yelled at me, she started to cry. Maybe it was because of the WhatsApp group. Or maybe it was because, like me, she realised that all this time we’ve been sold a lie. It does take a village to raise a child. But the brutal truth is, there is no village. Perhaps that’s what we’re trying to recreate with these virtual groups, because we know deep down that something is missing.
Two doors down I have this amazing neighbour, Helen. She’s in her seventies and occasionally picks the kids up from school when I get stuck. She gives them ice cream and snacks and lets them watch as much TV as they want. When I went to collect them the other day, she had fed them dinner and as I was leaving, handed me a warm plate to take home, just in case I hadn’t eaten. I thanked her and turned to go quickly, before she could see my eyes well up.
I have no idea what head lice treatment works best. I haven’t seen Tommy from 2A’s missing sports sock. I don’t know whether this Friday is dress in orange or purple. But if you want to grab a coffee sometime, that’d be lovely.
