40- and 50-Something Parents

I apologize for this being so long!

I am 43, and I have an 8 yr old and a 10 yr old.  I moved to a small southern town 2 yrs ago, and I am one of the oldest moms around.  Some of the kindergarten parents look like they are only in their early 20's!  I even had a cashier in Target ask me if the playground ball I was buying was for my grandchildren (that was on my 43rd birthday; I went out to the car and cried, because I don't think I look that old, but I guess around here it isn't unusual to be a grandparent at 43).  Most parents of my kid's friends are a good 10 years younger than me.  It also doesn't help that I am from the north, making me even more different.  To make a long story short, I joined the PTA board, and no one was interested in any of my ideas, and I was never really accepted.  I asked a few of the other members if they had any idea why all of my ideas were immediately dismissed, and wondered if it was because I was older, or if it was because I wasn't from there; but no one would ever tell me why I was treated as such an outsider.

I ended up having a falling out with 3 of the women at the end of the school year last year, because they were extremely controlling, and I just couldn't tolerate it anymore (one of them actually pulled trees out of the ground that the second graders and I planted for Earth Day, because I didn't get the PTA's permission where to plant them).  It has made it uncomfortable for me, because 2 of the women who were extremely nasty have kids in the same grade as my youngest.  One of them is in the same class as my daughter. 

Anyway, 2 of them walk by me with their noses up in the air, which is fine with me.  I don't want to speak to them anyway, because they really were vicious to me.  I have never been in a situation like this, and can't believe other adults behave this way.  I regret having ever joined the PTA, but when I did in our previous town, the women behaved like normal adults.  Sometimes I feel like women in their 30's are more competitive and cut throat, but that may be where I live, and not necessarily their age?  I don't know.  One of them is a single Mom, who works full-time, and in the past she has made little nasty comments to me about "some of us have to work to put food on the table".  She says that because I am a stay-at-home Mom, but I also work at least 20 hours a week on my part-time internet business; apparently I don't talk about that enough, because I'm being looked down upon because I don't have an outside job.  My family also does without a lot of the newest and latest things so I have the opportunity to spend more time at home, and I notice that she has lots and lots of Vera Bradley bags, a huge SUV, etc.  She always whines about being a single parent who has to constantly go to court and fight her ex-husband on custody issues, how she has no time because she's the PTA president, etc.  However, her husband has her child half the time, so she has more time there, and she also chooses to try to play superwoman.   No one made her do it.

This same woman believes she has to get in my face at every opportunity, saying "Good morning" in the most disgusting, fake, sing-song voice.  She even followed me down an aisle in Walmart, just so she could walk by and say "Hello" in that fake voice.  I have ignored her mostly, and have said nothing, but this morning her "good morning" was SO exaggerated, that I repeated it back to her exactly as she said it.  I then said "that wasn't sarcastic at all".  She does this in front of my children, so I don't want to make a big deal out of it, and I also hate confrontation.  Her personality is that of a bully.  She is very large, and uses her size to try to intimidate people.  She has a job in law enforcement, and that seems to bring out her bully personality even more. 

Any advice here?  I can't believe that at my age, I have to put up with such nonsense.  I had a pretty good career going before I had kids, but our family chose to move with my husband's promotions, and had my kids a little later than some, but I have not encountered such childish behavior since I was in middle school.  I don't even remember high school girls behaving this childishly.  For the first few months of school I just stayed away.  I didn't join the PTA, and I have volunteered for nothing at all.  In the past I would have gladly volunteered my time, but these women obviously aren't interested in an old northern lady helping out (I was called "yankee" many times, always with a little laugh like they were just kidding; NOT). 

Thanks for any advice on dealing with this catty behavior!

Not sure you'll like this option, but with your kids being 8 and 10, maybe just not doing stuff at school any more would be the best approach. (By the time my ds got into 3rd grade, they didn't want our help at the school other than for out of class activities, so I became the paper editor, which also had limited parental exposure; I'm the same as you as far as relative age to kids goes- I'm 49 with a 16 year old)  Find another outlet - any activities at the Y, or through local colleges/universities? 

I had ds at a school for K just to get him in early, and I did NOT relate to those women a bit.  I laid low; I knew it was temporary.  Even now having been in the current district since ds was in 2nd grade (he's now a junior), I have 2 ladies I'd call true friends from school (due to working with one in scouts, and the other was the mom of one of ds's good buddies).  I can't relate to a lot of the local women either; in this case they come from big money; we don't - we are both engineers/mathematicians/physicists and we earn a reasonable income, but will never afford the $2+ million homes that are mostly in our area.  (nor would we want to, with the attitude some of them have!)

Come to terms with what you want your involvement at school to be, or what you want outside of that environment, and try to go from there.

Sue

I'm de-lurking to toss in my two cents. I don't think the behavior has anything to do with *your* age or even the chronological age of the other moms. It may have something to do with you being "an ousider" but it sounds like its mostly the emotional age of the other women. They sound pretty immature and insecure and caught up with their places in the small town pecking order. If they've all been there most of their lives its hard to change from the way everybody else behaves (the ones who couldn't take it probably moved away!). Queen Bees sometimes never outgrow the behavior that worked for them in elementary school. I had a similar incident while working in an office when I was in my mid-40s and the Queen Bee was in her late 40s. I couldn't believe that somebody that age was still playing these games.

As another post suggested, maybe you can find other places to volunteer--scout troop, church, etc. Or maybe you will run into the same behavior everywhere but I sure hope not. If you really want to help in the school, try talking directly to the teachers to see if they need your services--my kids' teachers appreciated parents helping IN the classroom all through elementary school. Around 5-6th grade the kids might act embarrassed but they are secretly proud that their mom is helping. And you don't necessarily have to have a kid in that classroom to work there, maybe the 1st grade teacher needs help.

Good luck!

Yes, other mothers and teachers treat me differently, I never got involved to the point that you have done (I admire your trying), but times are just different, and the younger mothers (not all, but most) I have dealt with have ATTITUDE.

I have been a little more reserved because my son has Asperger's Syndrome (high functioning autism), so I was always out of the circle anyway.

You are more mature (and I don't mean age, I mean socially) than they, and that will not change, but if I wanted to be involved with the PTA and other groups in my children's school I would not let these "hens" peck me to death. You have so much more on the ball than they do and they may need to make up for that by trying to pull you down to their pettiness. 

Don't let them.