No, I Don’t Want to Be in Your Mom Group (But Also… Why Didn’t You Invite Me?)

Introducing: Real Housewives of Preschool Pickup.

There’s a particular image that fills me with dread: a group of women in their mid-30s to 40s, piled onto some perfectly curated vacation, Aperol Spritzes aloft, coordinated outfits, bathing suits neutral. The vibe oscillates between Bachelor contestant reunion and cult retreat, complete with a ZARA Uhaul. Captioned, inevitably: “My girls. Couldn’t do life without you.”

It makes my skin crawl.

And it’s not because I don’t love women. I do. Deeply. I was raised by them, educated by them, shaped by their resilience and their rules. Literally nunned into a version of myself who knew exactly how to smile politely while internally rolling my eyes through religion class. I am, genuinely, a girls’ girl—which is exactly why I don't trust girl groups.

Because I know exactly how they operate.

By high school, I’d already figured out I wasn’t cut out for groupthink, for the performative loyalty, for that unspoken but ruthlessly enforced conformity. I was always the girl at the edges—less wolf pack, more house cat with intimacy issues. Still affectionate, still showing upp, but always ready to slip out quietly.

Over the years, I became excellent at navigating friendships one-on-one. I am that friend who will dissect your breakup, discuss your existential dread, and analyze your toddler’s latest bowel movement—all without glancing at my phone. But drop me into a WhatsApp group planning matching-swimsuit vacations (exclusively with each other, naturally), and I short-circuit.

Yet I crave it. The village. That chaotic community feel. Especially after having kids—because neither my husband nor I have the most present families—it makes me desperately wish I could at least give my kids this kind of chosen family. I want my kids to have “aunties” who aren’t related by blood but show up just as fiercely. I want communal parenting—Friday night pasta, twenty kids running wild, adults wine-drunk and trauma-bonding over Montessori versus Waldorf. I want the group chat brought to life.

In theory.

But in reality, every large friendship group I know that proudly calls itself a "tribe" is secretly eating itself alive from within. Beneath cute birthday Instagram posts and curated dinners is a constant undercurrent of passive-aggressive competition.

Because nothing in a group is free. There are rules—never written, but always enforced: Dress right. Show up. Compliment generously. Complain only about the ones who aren’t present—because that’s called processing, obviously. Once you see the system, you can't unsee it. (And if you're lucky, you become cynical enough to laugh about it.)

Maybe it's not just the proximity that feels oppressive; it’s the surveillance. Being part of a group often means your choices and emotional bandwidth are up for constant review. Maybe that’s why I've never fully joined. I move frequently—cities, countries, identities. I’ve learned to hold friendships, but never belong to a fixed table.

Yet exclusion still hurts. Deeply. When the group dinner or girls’ weekend happens without me, there it is: that hot, childish ache—Why not me?

Danielle Bayard Jackson points out that friendship was easier when we were younger because our lives were synchronized—same hallways, same crushes, same curfews. Now, we’re living parallel but wildly different realities. Some friends nurse newborns; others rave in Brooklyn doing blow until sunrise. Even parenting styles can create unbridgeable gaps. You want bedtime boundaries; she breastfeeds till kindergarten and advocates eternal co-sleeping. The distance grows.

I look around my kids’ school and try desperately to connect, but the only common ground is having kids around the same age—and that’s not enough.

So here I am, caught between longing and resistance. I romanticize the village yet recoil from its rules. I crave deep connection without the judgmental undertones of group texts. I want sisterhood but refuse to perform for it. I want sisterhood without feeling like I'm stuck in an endless episode of a perfectly-filtered reality show. Give me friendship that's unhinged, messy, and refreshingly unconcerned with staying on-brand.

But still, I crave closeness. Friends who feel like chosen family. Friends who bring soup, who sit on the floor during breakdowns, who tag-team bedtime on vacations. Friends who feel like home.

The fantasy is intoxicating. The reality? Often closer to Real Housewives of Preschool Pickup.

I want friendships without betrayal, belonging without needing to filter myself down to something palatable. Is it really too much to ask? Does that even exist?

So here I am, suspended. Too self-aware to fully jump in, too human not to ache. Maybe my "tribe" doesn't look like matching Instagram hashtags at all. Maybe it’s more a loose, shifting network of slightly cynical, slightly chaotic women who only gather when the mood strikes—each maintaining enough distance to stay sane, yet close enough to share a decent wine-induced existential crisis.

I'm still figuring it out. Until then, catch me lurking on the edges—refreshing my feed, half-hoping for an invite, half-horrified I might actually receive one.