Mommy Politics Are Dangerous to Your Health

So the mean mommy thing just keeps going and going. It's a perpetual motion machine. Now it's put someone in the hospital.

Yeah, it's really getting dramatic over here.

Here's the deal, everyone's mad at the two mommies (the mean one and her BFF who is generally nice but also complicit).

The two mommies are making things worse by lying as if there were no witnesses. So they have no credibility.

The group has been dissolved. As have friendships.

There's been a flurry of emails. Some nice, some not so nice. It's all out in the open now. I'm just flabbergasted at the whole thing and how the drama just keeps going.

So one mommy has a festering medical condition and the stress of confronting the mean mommy and her history of mean spirited-ness was enough for her health to hit critical mass. She's been in the hospital since last Friday and won't be going home anytime soon. Not until she can have surgery. Yeah, the stress really did a number on her.

Amazingly she's trying to be friends with everyone while still confronting the bad behavior on the other mother's part. I get that these things are complicated and involve spouses as well as children, but by the time people are lying and refusing to apologize or accept any responsibility for their part, I don't see how a friendship can last or even be healthy. Maybe my standards are inappropriately high, but I tend to move on in those kinds of circumstances.

Tomorrow I'll make bland soup and bland banana muffins for the mom in the hospital. I visited her today and joked about the irony of medical experts always talking about how social networks prolong our lives, but failing to mention how they can also backfire and make us sick. (Or is it the case that when you're 85 even a frenemy is better than nothing? I hope not!)

The upshot of this experience is I will never join another mother's group. I was never a clique girl and motherhood has too many variations on the theme for it to be a universal unifying force. We aren't going to be 'besties' just because we have kids. Instead, from here on out, I will focus on ensuring my inner social circle is carefully selected.