TASMIN, 46, from London, hoped to make friends with parents at her son’s new school.
Instead she was abused and had to call police…
STANDING at the gates on my son’s first day at school, I had a touch of “new girl nerves” too.
As a single parent relatively new to the area, I was looking forward to my son Harley, then four, starting at the local primary so we could both make new friends.
My mates all had older kids and lived miles away, so I’d been lonely since splitting with my ex.
“You’ll be inundated with invites to kids’ parties,” friends reassured me.
But my introduction to school- gate socialising wasn’t what I expected at all.
Instead of being welcomed into the fold, I was horribly bullied.
In fact, it got so bad that I had to call the police – twice.
It all began a few weeks after Harley started in reception.
I’d arranged a Halloween party at mine, thinking it would be a great way for us mums to bond.
Everyone seemed to have a good time but I soon noticed some of the mums who had spent an afternoon happily chatting to me over vampire cupcakes in my garden were blanking me.
“Morning!” I’d say cheerily as I walked up to the gates.
Some would smile awkwardly and hurry off, others wouldn’t acknowledge me.
I’d try making conversation but I could sense they couldn’t wait to get away.
She decided who fitted in – and who didn’t
“They’re like that with me too,” another mum, Jess, whispered one morning. “It’s the Ice Queen.”
Jess and I went for a coffee, where she explained that the Ice Queen was a 39-year-old former secretary with model looks, now married to a wealthy dentist.
She had two kids and lived in a massive detached house a ten-minute walk from school.
As the head of the PTA, she organised all the events, kept everyone informed and decided who fitted in — and who didn’t.
She’d even set up a secret WhatsApp group, inviting most of the class parents to join but not me and Jess, who were two of only three single parents in the year.
This group would arrange private get togethers and help with each other’s kids.
The shunned few of us were treated like outsiders which was awkward as we all took our kids to the same park after school.
At first, I tried to laugh off the Ice Queen’s hostility and would always say hello.
But she’d grimace and walk off, pulling her children away from Harley as if he were diseased.
That hurt the most. I could handle her cronies not liking me but what did they have against my child?
They tried to prevent their kids from playing with him, too, excluding him from birthday parties even if they were friends in school.
He would then cry, asking why he was being left out. It was heartbreaking.
One time, Harley finished playing on a swing and the Ice Queen cleaned it with a wet wipe before sitting her daughter on it.
I was speechless.
Things came to a head when one of the children began taunting Harley in the classroom, calling him “stupid” and telling him he was going to take his friends away.
Pushed to his limit, Harley shoved the boy at playtime and, when I arrived at the park after school, the boy’s mum was waiting for me.
“If your son ever touches mine again, I’m going to f***ing knock you out,” she spat.
She even threatened to hurt Harley.
Luckily, I managed to record her threats on my phone and, after she refused to leave, I called the police.
Two officers marched her away from the park as she continued yelling and swearing, claiming it was my fault.
It didn’t surprise me when I later discovered that she was friends with the Ice Queen.
This mad woman also sent me several threatening text messages saying she was going to come to my home and “sort me out”, leading me to call the police again.
To this day, she shouts insults at me, telling me I “look a mess” or calling me a “f***ing loser” when I pass her on the street.
I’m not afraid of her but I can’t believe any mum would behave in this way, especially in front of children.
WHILE you might expect to leave school gate bullying behind in childhood, relationships expert Georgina Sturmer says it’s sadly not surprising that mums experience it too.
“Being at the school gates can feel a bit like stepping into a time machine and trigger old memories and behaviours,” she says.
“These aren’t always happy ones, but could be feelings of insecurity, jealousy and the need to defend ourselves.
“Also, as we get older, we have more choice over the people we surround ourselves with.
“But at school we encounter different personalities on a daily basis, some of whom we might not choose to have in our lives.
“It’s also a place where social hierarchies are played out.
“Bullying and unkind behaviour is often a way of masking our own insecurities.
“This isn’t unique to the school gates, but it’s an easy place for it to manifest itself.
“It’s also a stressful time of day and when we are under pressure, it’s easier for our more ‘childlike’ behaviours to enter into view.”
Georgina says that you will struggle to change the way others feel or behave, so the best approach to bullying is to change your own response to it.
“Externally this might mean arriving at a different time or standing in a different place,” she says.
“Internally, we can think about how we prepare ourselves emotionally for being at the school gates and the boundaries that we can put in place to stop someone else’s behaviour from impacting on our own sense of self-esteem.”
She also recommends letting off steam to a trusted friend or family member and building a support network with other mums who you do get on with.
“It’s also okay to make your life easier by finding alternatives and seeing if someone else can collect them on difficult days,” she says.
“The important thing here, if at all possible, is to keep your child out of it all.”
“Mad mum”, as I thought of her, complained to the head teacher about Harley, claiming he was bullying her son.
But it was the other way around.
I went to see the head and told her about the culture of bullying among the mums but, as she was also a friend of the Ice Queen, my complaints fell on deaf ears.
I felt incredibly isolated and would often go home in tears, wondering what I’d done to provoke such nastiness.
I recently watched the remake of Mean Girls and realised the school mums are just an overgrown version of the movie’s teen bullies.
They are insecure and pathetic and I know it’s their problem, not mine.
Luckily, Jess and I became firm friends and went on to form our own group with three other school mums.
We regularly meet for coffee and laugh about the latest antics of the Ice Queen and her poisonous posse.
I may not have made as many mum friends as I’d hoped but at least the few I have made are genuine and kind.
