Negotiating the politics of school-gate diplomacy

The author of the parenting trilogy Time Out, The Juggle, and Winging It says she found the social dynamics of the school gate unnatural.

“You’re thrown into a social situation with people you wouldn’t normally choose. The same happens at work, but the school gate is different. There’s a lot more emotion involved. You’re there because of your child, and a parent’s number one instinct is to protect their child. I think everybody’s automatically in defence mode — you have to be really careful around what you say about your child and other children.

“I also think a lot of people feel a child’s behaviour is a reflection on the parent, on their parenting — another reason why people can be prickly.”

Dr Malie Coyne, clinical psychologist, author, and mum-of-two, says at the beginning of school “nobody knows who’s going to be in whose friendship group or who’s going to be more academic or sporty”.

Then, as children progress in different directions and at different paces, Coyne says the natural human instinct to compare ourselves to other people comes into play.

“At the school gate, we see our children with their peers. Sometimes, parents inflate what their children can do to inflate themselves, which comes from insecurity.

“There’s so much social comparison — our children to one another, ourselves as parents to other parents. You see a mother dressed to the nines, looking like she has everything under control, while you’re in a stained hoodie and have had the morning from hell. You see the mum who looks like she has loads of friends, and her child is playing with lots of other children. At the school gate, you get smacked in the face a lot by these kinds of comparisons.”

Coyne says it is natural to feel vulnerable in such a charged setting. Nor does it help that we live in a society where we are quick to judge ourselves negatively, to feel others are doing it better.

“We judge ourselves a lot. Am I OK? Is my child OK? It’s like ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough anymore — we have to be perfect.”

Grappling with group dynamics

Psychotherapist Bethan O’Riordan says humans are naturally hierarchical and when they get into a group — like at the school gate — they can do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. “Parents can be turbocharged into anxiety, overload, and wondering: ‘Do I fit in? Does my child fit in?’. Within a group, there can be an unconscious conditioning to fit in with each other.”

This, she says, can drive competition between parents. “Most people have some idea of what they want for their child — ‘I want them to go to third level’, ‘I want them to choose their own path’. But many families haven’t talked about the values [that will] help their child achieve that outcome. Combine that with standing at the school gate, seeing how other parents are doing it, and you think: ‘Maybe I should start doing that too’.

“Because to be part of a group, whatever someone sets the bar at, other people raise their game to match it. It takes a lot of strength and inner conviction to be outside of that. It’s about being really strong in your own values, around what your particular child needs.”

Feeling ‘on the outside’ at the school gate, by virtue of being from other places, can add another layer to the already challenging set of dynamics. “I feel really un-Irish at the school gate. I’m not Irish or Catholic,” explains O’Riordan, who describes having no idea that the children “would be spending most of sixth class preparing for Confirmation — I didn’t know what they were talking about”.

She believes feeling part of the school gate community can depend on knowing the cultural norms.

Coyne, who grew up in other countries and moved to Galway when she was 27, says: “I’ve always felt a bit of an outsider at the school gate. People try to figure out where you grew up and what school you went to, and then they can’t pin you down to anywhere they know. You can feel people already have different connections from having similar backgrounds, and if you don’t have those, you can feel on the back foot. I’ve probably connected more with parents who feel the same as me.”

O’Riordan has met “some really lovely mums at the school gate, made some great friends”. She encourages parents not to expect other parents to be exactly what they need. “When my children started primary school, I really wanted a community for me as a mom, to be supported, but it took years for that to come. I needed the other parents for friendship, for community, for understanding — but it wasn’t actually their responsibility.”

Making genuine ‘school gate’ friendships, she says, is not about morphing into someone you’re not. “It’s about finding like-minded people, people with similar values.” She also believes it makes school gate dynamics easier if you know it is human nature to gossip — and that it is OK to keep your life private.

“This doesn’t mean you’re standoffish or freezing out other parents.”

Tips for navigating school gate politics  

Coyne has these tips for surviving and thriving in the midst of school gate politics:

• Avoid immediately judging people you perceive as having it all together or having many other parents to talk to. We make quick judgements within seconds. This can be connected to our own insecurity. We take a dislike to another parent — and then listen to information that seems to confirm our opinion. Sometimes it’s hard to change our first impression, but your first impression might be wrong.
• Know you’re not alone when feeling uncomfortable. A lot of parents can feel uncomfortable at times at the school gate. Consider that the parent you think has it all together might also have awkward moments.
• Remain open. The power of the smile is huge. Having open body language is huge. Someone joins you when you’re [in the middle of] a conversation with another parent — don’t exclude them because they’ve inadvertently walked into your conversation.
• Be kind. Be open to small interactions — micro-interactions can be pleasant. Nobody needs to become your best friend. If we could all have a tiny interaction with someone standing on their own at the school gate, how would that help?

Murray recommends being polite, friendly but not over-sharing. For her, it worked better to be friends with mums whose children were not too close in age to hers.

“A friend I made is the mother of a boy, whereas I have girls. It’s nice to have this separation, where there isn’t any overlap. That way, nothing else — like kids falling out, which kids do all the time — gets in the way of the friendship.”

And once you find that like-minded person, it can make the school gate a lot easier. “You end up gravitating to that person every day, someone you can be relaxed and honest with, and it can be lovely to have someone to vent to.”

This article was first published on September 3, 2024